guns in public "once upon a time"

[El Tejon]

Here's my favorite: my father used to shoot rats at the city dump in the late '40s/early '50s. He and his friends would tie their rifles to their bike handles or sling them over their backs, ride to the dump, shoot rats all morning (with the blessing of the city!), and ride back to downtown to the "soda shop" for lunch.

During lunch the wife of the owner made them put their guns up by the front door , where people usually left their umbrellas or coats, while they sat at the counter. Sometimes a city cop would be there and talk to them about their adventures or about guns. Dad told me once a cop bought him a milkshake because he shot the most rats.

This was Bloomington, Indiana, circa 1947 to 1953.

Another I like is that my paternal grandfather ran a hardware store in Bloomington. One day a barrel full of Liberators was on the truck from Indianapolis (after WWII the factories around Indy were drowning in war surplus--a lot went up in smoke or was thrown into rivers). Grandfather bought the barrel, opened the barrel and stuck a "for sale" sign in them near the cash register like an impulse buy item! Many were apparently sold as "toy guns", painted bright colors and used to play "Lone Ranger" or "The Shadow".

My grandfather told me that he would not sell guns to kids, unless he knew their parents or they had a note from a relative! Oh, and he sold ammo by the round. Different times, different planet. Can you imagine any of this happening now, even in my state? The SWAT team would cart kids away like gangsters and the politicians would be doing backflips over the "horrific danger to our children.":banghead:

 

[Nick_90]

I was a schoolboy back in 1985 in Switzerland. President Reagan was meeting with Soviet leader Gorbatchev in Geneva to discuss arms cuts.
In my school playground, the Swiss Army had deployed an anti aircraft battery. I remember playing with the off-duty soldiers and their (unloaded) guns at every playtime.
Just imagine what the media would say if such a thing happened nowadays!

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I tell someone that I own old rifles from WWII and before, they give me a look and ask what the heck I need THOSE for, aren't they for KILLING?

Tell them they are "for" whatever you decide. In your case tell them they are historical artifacts that serve two puposes. To be beautiful and historic works of craftmanship and to put holes in little pieces of paper. Unless you actually hunt with them then add a 3rd. Few people that collect antique teapots actually use them to make tea.

Used to carry my 20 ga double on the school bus to rabbit hunt.

When we got on the school bus during hunting season we had to let the driver check to make sure they were not loaded. This was not that long ago. This was WV also.

 

[bigun15]

I just turned 16 and you guys don't understand how envious I am.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I just turned 16 and you guys don't understand how envious I am.

You are 16, you don't understand how envious alot of us are.

 

[viator]

I went to school armed

When I was in the Senior Class Play in high school in 1969, the director of the play (a teacher) asked if anyone had a shotgun they could bring to use in the play.

I volunteered my pump 12 gauge. Teacher said, “OK.”

So, when it was the night of the dress rehearsal, I swung the 12 gauge over my shoulder and wanted into the school and to the auditorium

Did the same thing for both nights of the play.

The teacher asked me to make certain that it was unloaded. Those were my only instructions. No one blinked or asked a single question when they saw the weapon.

 

[Fudgie Ghost]

Dig this if you will----when I was a freshman in high school, 1970/71, one of the gym "electives" you could take was riflery. The school had a pistol range under the cafeteria and we shot single-shot .22's on those NRA targets. I forget, but they were like 9 or 12 small targets on a sheet.

Now you're probably thinking the ole' Fudgie Ghost went to high school in some gun friendly place out west or down south. Wrong meatball hips! This was in the same suburban town I live in now--not 25 miles from Manhattan--thats NYC, not Kansas. Oh The times they--uh, DID done changed. . . to paraphrase Mr. Dylan. . . That's where I first smelled that funny smell of cordite--and all this in between classes in Westchester! Who'd a thunk it?

Today, in this same community, a good friends's son, some years ago, in his grammar school art class, tore a piece of paper and remarked that it looked like a gun---got a note or call to his mom for it. His Vietnam Vet dad was pretty steamed. Ah progress. . .

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

when I was a freshman in high school, 1970/71

Man, you are old.
Seriously, cool story though.

PS- What is a fudgie ghost? Is that a spectre with a loose bowl?

 

[Larger]

In the early 80s, my dad was breaking in a new puppy to the world of hunting. I rode with him out of town, and we stopped at a random corn field. Dad pulled out a 410 shotgun, and he shot a box of shells, starting with the dog in the car and gradually moving the dog in closer. About halfway through, the farmer pulls up in his truck. My dad introduces himself, then he and the farmer start talking about dogs and exchanging training tips. The farmer then invited my dad to come out in the fall to go pheasant hunting with him, wished us good luck with the new dog, and drove away. There were evil farmers back in those days too, but today i even get nervous loading a shotgun into the trunk. The neighbors might see me.

Another thing i remember, at least in the late 70s, was that people would still display operational firearms by hanging them on the walls. And glass display cabinets were popular too. I've been in more than a few houses (including both my sets of grandparents) where these displayed firearms were visible from outside the house. Nowadays, some gun owners brag about how they keep their firearms disassembled, with a trigger lock, in a safe, with their ammo in another safe. That is probably a generational (and geographical) thing though. Why does it not surprise me that maine still has a fairly open gun culture? So does northwoods minnesota. (My friend's uncle had somewhere in excess of 30 guns stolen, safe and a good chunk of the concrete, out of his garage in rural illinois a few years back, and i am by no means recommending we display our firearms like back in the good ol' days. Times change.)

Then there was the time my uncle took a pellet gun, sat on top of a building downtown, and shot a whole bunch of pigeons that were doing their pigeon thing on the cars in the parking lot below. I'm sure he was seen up there, as the building was on main street and he did it over lunch hour on a work day. And i'm sure he was smoking cigarettes while he was doing it too

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

engineer, they still have JROTC at Gulfport High.

In the 60s, we used to ride through town with our .22s on our handlebars. I did find out the hard way that I was not supposed to shoot on the riverbank inside city limits. Got arrested with my brother and friend. The police took us to the station and called our parents. Then volunteered to take us to the police range whenever we wanted to shoot. I was 12 or 13.

Later, it used to be common to carry a shotgun or rifle downtown when going to the gun shop. I remember feeling especially responsible because I carried my shotgun broken open.

 

[bigun15]

I wonder how it will be in another 20-30 years.

 

[bumm]

When we were studying the Revolutionary War in maybe 3rd grade in about 1958, I took an old Revolutionary War Flintlock of my dad's to school. No problems at all, no complaints. On the way home, I accidentally bayonetted the ceiling in my mom's Studebaker Commander. After my dad died, I HAD to have that rifle.
Like of lot of the older guys in here, I could go on and on. We gotta pick and choose our stories.
Marty

 

[theCZ]

Gee guys, I don't know what the big deal is...

I'm only 23 and all these "good old days" tales sound like my childhood! By the time I could drive people stopped keeping their guns in the gunrack during hunting season because they had a close call with some kids stashing guns in the school in the next valley over, almost a Columbine situation. We just stashed our guns under the seat. In college I went out with a gal from Pennsylvania who went to a highschool with a rifle range underneath the auditorium.

SO, these kinda places still exsit, it's just that not many people live here!

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

As a high school student in Orange County, CA we walked out across the fields between the intersection of two major (not dirt) roads with pistol in hand, CB caps and .22 short. No problem. Sat in our front yard about the same age cleaning our rifles after a trip to the range. Again, nothing worth anyone's note.

In the late 60's Orange Coast Community College in Costa Mesa, CA still had several of the barracks on campus that indicated it's history as a military base. In the second story of one of the barracks was a shooting range for .22 rifles and a selection of the finest target .22s I'd seen to that point.

 

[BigFatKen]

More posts than I ever thought

Today, in this same community, a good friends's son, some years ago, in his grammar school art class, tore a piece of paper and remarked that it looked like a gun---got a note or call to his mom for it. His Vietnam Vet dad was pretty steamed. Ah progress. . .
__________________

I think that if we had a list of disasters that we see on TV or the paper, today, the list would be in the thousands and the thread would run forever.

Perhaps someone should start a thread with the worst "weapon" stories.

I'll start. In ~2002 or 2003, Sarasota, FL an Honor student went to class in her mother's car. Mom had used the car to move that weekend. A steel butter knive with a dull serated edge, but round point had fell out of a box of household flatware and was in the car. For some reason, a search of cars in the high school lot was performed for drugs and this weapon was found. With a zero tolerance for bringing knives onto campus, the girl was expelled or suppended when finals were being given so with a zero on all exams she failed.

No Honor gaduation. No scholarship. I moved about then so I don't know the ending. There was a criminal investigation. Anyone know what happened?