Are you old enough to remember when firearms were proudly displayed?

Yes, I remember everything from glass front long gun cabinets with handguns in drawers below with boxes of ammunition, to my Grandfathers M&P hanging by the trigger guard from a hook with his coffee cups, to the rimfire in the corner by the porch door, to truck window racks with rifles, ropes, and hats at school.

wiscoaster said:

I remember when firearms were displayed and nobody paid any attention because it was just too commonplace, so I think maybe that predates "proudly displayed" because they were just there and acceptable.

Click to expand...

I think there's an awful lot to that wiscoaster. And I think how "commonplace" guns on display were depended a lot on geography even back then.
I remember one of my best friends in high school telling me about the kids of some shirt-tail relatives from New York that were staying with my friend's family for a week or so while the New York family was on vacation out here in Idaho. My friend could hardly believe how those two kids (probably 6 or 7 years old) would stand and stare wide-eyed at the guns hanging on the gun rack in my friend's living room.
For that matter, I've probably said this a hundred times, but my own gun-loving (now) wife was born and raised in a non gun owning family in San Diego. Shortly after we moved back here to Idaho in 1972, we were stopped at a stoplight near Lee Aiken's Sports (which would later become one of our favorite gun stores) in downtown Pocatello, when a guy with a shotgun on his shoulder came out of the store. "That guy's got a gun!" my wife exclaimed. "So?" said I. My lack of concern resulted in one of my wife's and my first arguments.

Yes, I remember and as mentioned nothing was thought of it. Born in 1950 and I remember people not giving any thought to locking their doors and people respected the property of others. Pretty sad today's state of affairs.

Ron

I ordered a .22 JC Higgins from Sears and Roebuck, the mail man left it at our rural mail box which was about a mile from our house. That was in the early '50s.

Yep glass cased gun racks in everyones house, the window racks with the 30-30's, and shotguns in the school parking lot. And my buddy Pat and I going to the town dump in his VW bus with his Ruger standard and shooting rats at lunch time in high school.

I always thought a VW bus with a gun rack would be fun.

There were guns in the back windows of trucks at my high school as well. Most of my friends had glass front gun cases in their houses too. Those were the hunting guns. There was another collection distributed throughout the house , usually in corners, discreetly reserved for varmints.

Growing up, my dad had a tall trophy case from a local company that made various display cases for stores, museums and such. His was converted into a gun cabinet and held his whole collection at the time, which went from 4 or 5 when I was little, up to about 30 counting handguns on the shelf. For years it was in the dining room. He finally became convinced to get a safe about 15 years ago.

Used to walk down my street with my vest on and model 24 Savage broke open, headed to the state land just at the edge of town. Had to be about 13 or 14 then. Can't imagine an adult doing that without being harassed now...much less a kid.

Solomonson said:

Now talking about one's gun saves has almost become a fetish for some it seems. I suppose it has to do with the days we are living in?

Click to expand...

You're describing my older brother and how he feels about my Christmas present of 1000 rds. of 9mm for my our BIL.
I can just see him cringing as my brother in-law unwraps the package.
He sarcastically stated 'Nothing says Christmas like a big box of bullets'. Oh well.

JT

Yes Sir I am that old. My grandfather had a glass door gun case in my grandmothers house. She allowed such as that. There was no lock on the door. You simply did not open the case without permission. We were less opulent at our house and the guns were on an oak rack in the den.
Gun cases and racks were furniture back in the day, especially in the South. Gun safes have rightly taken their place.

Funny story about rifle rack in vehicles. In 1978 I moved from Northern KY (basically a suburb of Cincinnati OH) to Winfield KS, a small town about 50 miles from Wichita. Soon after moving, we were shopping in downtown Winfield when I spotted a rifle in a rack in the rear window of a truck with the "windows rolled down" (this part would have been unusual in Northern KY). I asked a shop keeper about the possibility of theft and he said " we know everyone in town. If it happened the Sheriff would be at the thief's home in 5 minutes" I asked "what about strangers?: and he replied " them we watch". Aren't small rural towns grand?

JT-AR-MG42 said:

You're describing my older brother and how he feels about my Christmas present of 1000 rds. of 9mm for my our BIL.
I can just see him cringing as my brother in-law unwraps the package.
He sarcastically stated 'Nothing says Christmas like a big box of bullets'. Oh well.

JT

Click to expand...

I just finished loading 100 rounds of 38 Special for my son-in-law. A few years ago we gave him a S&W Model 15 for Christmas so every year I was giving him a few boxes of store bought 38 Special. Needless to say this year I wasn't about to go looking for his stocking stuffer so I just made him some ammo.

Ron

I just remembered my grandparents farm and the gun rack on the enclosed back porch. My dad had five brothers and the rack held all their guns along with grandpas. It rivaled some sporting goods stores of the day I traveled many a mile back in the day with a Daisy across the handlebars of my bike. I still see a kid with a fishing pole across the bars now and again in 8th grade we were taught hunter safety and a bunch of us kids with their 22s got on the school bus with the conservation teacher and got carted to a sand hill west of town that was the local shooting range to see if we learned anything

Are you old enough to remember when firearms were proudly displayed?

Um, yes, and it doesn't seem all that long ago, frankly. Still know some folks with glass-window cases proudly displaying hunting rifles and shotguns. Growing up, there was always a rifle rack in the house -- my brother and I had one on the wall of the bedroom we shared in high school.

Used to be commonplace everywhere... now just a regional thing, rural vs. urban/suburban.

patmccoy said:

I too am old enough. I displayed a flintlock rifle (along with local Indian art) on my office wall until I retired in 2009.

Click to expand...

Awesome. I have an old (and functional) 12 ga SxS hanging right under a .69 cal Brown Bess that I'm looking at right now in my office. As a kid I had a four gun horizontal rack with two drawers to store ammo at the bottom. I think it had a skeleton key once but I never saw it. When we finished our chores, I'd grab the 10/22 or the Winchester .410, fill up my front pockets and off we'd go. If I had an age that was a free just for fun do again - it'd be 10.

I dropped National Geographic when their guides explained to some Polish tourists that the scary rifles in pickup truck windows were a sign that some Americans had the mistaken idea that they had a constitutional right to personal firearms.

I can also recall back in the 1950's & 60's when if long guns were not on display they would be standing vertically in a corner of a closet behind all the clothing hanging in there. Some of my childhood friends had seen where their dad kept his pheasant shotgun when it wasn't being used. Nobody had a gun safe. You just put it in a corner of your closet where it couldn't be seen easily. Even with kids in the house; and of course those kids knew better than to even think of touching that shotgun or rifle. Another friend's dad had a Winchester 30-30 that may have been lying flat on the top shelf in the closet but we never did find its exact location because we never went in his parents bedroom. Then there was a double barrel shotgun in another home that lived in a big, locked, trunk in the attic. Sort of a old fashioned gun safe.

Wow, what a bunch of good memories. Til the day he died my grandad had a 4 gun rack on his wall that held his single shot 16 gauge and automatic 22. I have them all now. My guns live in 2 oak gun cabinets, both very old and without locks. Many people here have beautiful old cabinets in their homes to this day.

I can remember strolling (never had a bike) down the county roads with my old man's gun, and never being bothered. I also remember buying 22 ammo for 80 cents a box, and buying individual shotgun shells for 10 cents each. I'd buy 5 or 6 at a time so I could quail hunt. Couldn't afford any more.

Mac

Walkalong said:

Yep, and when they were still in truck windows unlocked in a rack at school.

Click to expand...

Same here, it was not unusual at all to see a Marlin or a shotgun in a PU truck rear window, or a fishing rod or all three.

I have a glass door gun cabinet I inherited from my father. I do not store guns in it but do keep ammo and other odd bits in it.

Of course, I also remember the days of a pack of us 13-year-olds walking the railroad tracks on the edge of the city, all carrying .22 rifles, shooting up the stray can or occasional rodent (that's my story, anyway)...

Nowadays, it'd be viewed as a street gang at war with another gang, three helos from the metro TV stations overhead, and the SWAT team en route.

My uncle still had his guns on the wall above his dining table in the late 80's, along with a samurai sword the old man brought back from the war. Now only the sword remains on display.

I had a homemade rack up on the wall with a shotgun, a Win 94 and my 10-22 in the little farm shack I rented up in Humboldt County, Ca as late as 1990.

Once I moved back into the city I’m strictly storing my guns in a safe.

Stay safe.

D.B. Cooper said:

Agreed. I don't think it has much to do with being PC or anything. Guns are high value, high demand items and thus are a prime target for theft. This will only increase as the government cracks down on private ownership. I remember my uncle had a glass front cabinet full of rifles and shotguns. I wouldn't dare do it today.



YUP!!! I made mine! Wish I still had it. lol It was a good project because it required the student to use layout skills, a table saw, a band saw, and a sander.

Click to expand...

That makes three of us. I made a two gun rack in wood shop for a project. We hung it on our knotty pine wall in the den next to the TV with the rotor box. I remember seeing beautiful wood/glass long gun display cabinets in neighbors houses when I was a kid. My first pick up was a '51 Ford with a back window gun rack when I lived in a rural Midwest town. Most of the pickups had gun racks. Now even my gun safe is hidden out of sight.

My Dad still has Winchester over the mantle, but all the others except his duty guns were always locked up. Of course, he might have had a biased opinion. He was a cop.

e rex said:

I ordered a .22 JC Higgins from Sears and Roebuck, the mail man left it at our rural mail box which was about a mile from our house. That was in the early '50s.

Click to expand...

Like this one?

View attachment 964617

I live in the Democratic People's Republic of Washington, it is illegal to keep guns out of locked storage. So no displaying anything. I do remember my dad had one of the glass front cases. I also remember a kid when I was in high school getting suspended in rural Alaska because he had a gun in the window rack of his truck.