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

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Still more.

Within reason, I won't be cowed into not enjoying them.

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Todd.

I remember scenes like that in all my relatives' homes when I was a kid. I started hunting about age 6 or 7 with my cousin in Louisiana, he had a new ($6.95) J.C. Higgins 22 bolt action single shot. We'd each spend 50 cents for a box of 50 rounds of 22 short - because Long or LR was too expensive. We hunted nutria in Louisiana where there was a 50 cent bounty on them. Took about 50 shots to get the lucky one in and nail one. Great endless entertainment. If you didn't hit the critical spot, the slug would bounce off of them.
 
I remember scenes like that in all my relatives' homes when I was a kid. I started hunting about age 6 or 7 with my cousin in Louisiana, he had a new ($6.95) J.C. Higgins 22 bolt action single shot. We'd each spend 50 cents for a box of 50 rounds of 22 short - because Long or LR was too expensive. We hunted nutria in Louisiana where there was a 50 cent bounty on them. Took about 50 shots to get the lucky one in and nail one. Great endless entertainment. If you didn't hit the critical spot, the slug would bounce off of them.

Must be a lesson in diminished-returns in using the less expensive ammo - that it takes more of them to put the bounty-rats down.:rofl:

GREAT memories, those must be.:thumbup:

Todd.
 
I remember scenes like that in all my relatives' homes when I was a kid. I started hunting about age 6 or 7 with my cousin in Louisiana, he had a new ($6.95) J.C. Higgins 22 bolt action single shot. We'd each spend 50 cents for a box of 50 rounds of 22 short - because Long or LR was too expensive. We hunted nutria in Louisiana where there was a 50 cent bounty on them. Took about 50 shots to get the lucky one in and nail one. Great endless entertainment. If you didn't hit the critical spot, the slug would bounce off of them.

This country was a great place to grow up in back then.
 
I went to HS on the east coast of Florida in the late 70s. The two main cliques at my school were the "surfer dudes" who drove muscle cars or vans with surfboard rack and boards on top or the "west Cocoa rednecks" who mostly drove pickups with gunracks in the windows complete with shotguns or hunting rifles depending on the season. All us "rednecks" carried big lockback folding knives (Buck 110 most often) on our hips completely legally. Never one stabbing. Never one shooting. I'm a firm believer in a quote/thought from writer Robert Heinlein, "An armed society is a polite society."
 
I went to HS on the east coast of Florida in the late 70s. The two main cliques at my school were the "surfer dudes" who drove muscle cars or vans with surfboard rack and boards on top or the "west Cocoa rednecks" who mostly drove pickups with gunracks in the windows complete with shotguns or hunting rifles depending on the season. All us "rednecks" carried big lockback folding knives (Buck 110 most often) on our hips completely legally. Never one stabbing. Never one shooting. I'm a firm believer in a quote/thought from writer Robert Heinlein, "An armed society is a polite society."
That's interesting!
I went to HS on the Central Coast of California. I had a 1957 Chevy pickup with a gun rack and a well-built 454 rat motor that ate many a muscle car. I also did a bit of surfing, wore a Buck fixed blade on my belt, and enjoyed a dip of Copenhagen now and then! ;) How times change!
 
Yup.

And making a knife was a requirement in metal shop class at the time. Made an 80lb pull crossbow in 9th grade woodshop class.

My black powder revolvers are still on display in my home. Anything else that is out is due to a lack of storage space.
 
Yup.

And making a knife was a requirement in metal shop class at the time. Made an 80lb pull crossbow in 9th grade woodshop class.

My black powder revolvers are still on display in my home. Anything else that is out is due to a lack of storage space.
We had two or three options for that portion of Metal Shop. I opted for the screwdriver. Turned out way harder to make a good one properly that then knife. Who knew back then?

Wish I still had the screwdriver, or garden trowel, or tool box, or The Freighliner hood ornament, or..... Hell, ANY of those items!

Todd.
 
I proudly displayed my 12ga SXS in my bedroom on a pair of antlers from 66 to 70, when it was stolen in a house break. The 50's and 60's were a different time
 
We had two or three options for that portion of Metal Shop. I opted for the screwdriver. Turned out way harder to make a good one properly that then knife. Who knew back then?

Wish I still had the screwdriver, or garden trowel, or tool box, or The Freighliner hood ornament, or..... Hell, ANY of those items!

Todd.
I found my knife (circa 1972) and my 6th grade shop class sheath (circa 1975). Found my sugar scoop too. Great memories of a real America. IMG_3904 (1).JPG
 
It's very regional IMHO. Having lived in the Northeast/Mid Atlantic most of my years, we actually have a fairly large but low keyed gun culture. Greater population density, the spread of illegal drugs, the smash and grab crime culture means greater discretion is required -"No Need To Know." Dean Grennell wrote that he had no NRA/RKBA/2A bumper stickers on his cars, keeping firearms in cases in a locked trunk, I make a point of only putting my guns in the trunk Under Cover Of Darkness.
 
It's very regional IMHO.
I make a point of only putting my guns in the trunk Under Cover Of Darkness.
I too think it's very regional, and I'm actually sorry you feel you have to put your guns in your trunk "under cover of darkness." Not that I blame you, nor do I think you're wrong in doing that. It's just that I think it's sad that you have to exercise that much discretion about letting people know you have guns.
When I built the "little red barn" storage shed in our back yard 42 years ago, I purposely extended the roof beam 6' out the front, and installed a pulley on it - so that we would have a convenient place to hang our deer for skinning them out. That shed is easily visible from the road, and I'm sure hundreds of people driving by have seen my wife and I skinning out mule deer hanging from that shed's roof beam over the years - including last year.
Actually, it's pretty common here (even in town) to see a dead deer or elk hanging from a tree limb in someone's back yard, or from a rafter in someone's garage with the door wide open.
Whenever I see that, I assume someone killed the animal with a gun, probably a rifle. I suppose I could be wrong about that occasionally. I mean there are archery hunters too. But even the archery hunters that I know have guns - some of them even carry them for backup while hunting.;)
 
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the adventures of living in the 50-60 era. Ya'll paid too much for them .22 shorts. In '63 I would go to the Western Auto and pay $0.39 for a box of .22 shorts. And the best thing is nobody asked why an 11 year old boy was purchasing ammo. I also carried a pocket knife to school from about the 2nd grade on, nobody got cut or shot. We were too poor to have the nice wood and glass cabinet, ours was a 4 gun horizontal with drawer in bottom, I also have the Winchester mod 61 pump gun that has to have a 1/2 million rounds thru it, that used to hang on that rack. If you miss with that gun, don't blame the gun, but the idiot holding it!! Yes folks this isn't the same world we grew up in. I can only think of one thing that may be better today, people have more guns and ammo than ever before. We had maybe 5 guns and a few boxes of shells for each firearm.
 
My uncle Oscar had/ has (ain't seen him in half a decade) where he hung the rifles he was proud of. Oddly enough, only one was an actual firearm. Everything else was an airgun he'd had since a child. There was one, i can't recall what it was, had the variable pump system that he'd cut the stock off of. He told me that he can hit anything with a full stock because he practiced with a gun that didn't have one.

He also has/had a weird DA/SA .44 Magnum that was only SA. it looked like an S&W type thing, not a Colt SAA. He kept that one in his drawer, and the ammo in a sock.
 
I live in an apartment complex, ages infants to 80, a fair amount of coming and going, some people I never talk to. Live by myself, if they have to perform repairs I stay home. "Discretion is the better part of valor"-and many other things.
 
As a kid in the early '60s in the deep south, I clearly remember most family rooms (which were always called "the den" in those days) paneled in dark pine, furnished with plaid easy chair and matching couch, a big 'ole console TV occupying a central location, a sunburst clock over the mantel, either a deer head or a mounted fish on the wall with the family pics, and depending on the homeowner either a 4-gun pine rack hanging on the wall or a nice glass-fronted gun case with a small cabinet underneath. There was usually a beater .22 rifle or old Stevens 12 gauge leaning in the corner by the door as well. I was an adult before I learned that there were folks that DIDN'T own guns!

And yep, every pickup truck had a rifle rack mounted in the rear window.
 
I was an adult before I learned that there were folks that DIDN'T own guns!
Yeah, it's kind of a shocker when you don't learn that until you're an adult, isn't it?:confused:
As I said in that other thread about "regional" gun ownership, I used to work (I'm long-time retired now) with a guy that told me one day that he'd had to ask a neighbor to shoot a ran-over cat because he didn't have any guns himself.o_O
It's no wonder I never got along with that guy very well. And no longer having to work with people I have to try to get along with is one of the best things about being retired as far as I'm concerned.:thumbup:
 
It's no wonder I never got along with that guy very well.
Well you recall the old saying "birds of a feather flock together". It is no wonder you didn't get along well, both were on a different frequency!! It never ceases to amaze me that people think of guns as bad, or evil, but to me they are a tool. I don't leave my hammer that I bought in 1969 out in the rain to get rusty and don't treat my gun any differently. I have an older friend in his late 70's and a few years ago, we live 500 miles apart I was at his home and propped up next to the back door was a 12 gauge shotgun. You know I never saw a nice over/under or a fine sporting rifle propped next to a door, it was a one to grab and either stand at the door and shoot or run into the yard.
 
I also carried a pocket knife to school from about the 2nd grade on, nobody got cut or shot.
I remember once, probably about fifth grade, my teacher needed to open a box of books (remember the Scholastic Book Club?) and asked if one of us boys had a knife... about ten of us pulled out our Cub Scout knives.

I just found out my dad kept my old wooden wall rifle rack (four gun) and has it in his storage shed (since about 1981 or so). Probably be cheaper to have him send it to me than to buy one (if I could find one) or make one (seen the price of wood these days?), so I'm gonna hang some long guns on the wall of my man-cave. And they'll all be blue steel and wood.
 
I have 3 rifles hanging on the walls of the computer room. I enjoy looking at them. They are COOL.
 
In high school it was a sign of manhood for young men in Texas to keep a rifle rack (with a couple of guns) in the back window of their pickup trucks. We also carried big folding knives in our back pockets at school. Never had an incident of violence. Of course, I’m 52, and graduated in 1987. Couple of years after I graduated they installed metal detectors in my old school. Those were the good ol days
 
My dad was 95 when he passed away in 2019. He always talked about the boys in his school bringing .22 rifles to school as the school had a "gun club" on certain dates. He said no one was afraid and there
were never any accidents but the rifles had to be kept in the student's locker during school hours. I have a few old "boys rifles" like the Hamiltons' and Stevens that were made with shorter stocks and barrels to fit
really young boys. Hamilton partnered with companies that sold goods door to door where if the young boy would sell so many items they could have the .22 shipped directly to them at no cost. The Hamilton 47 .22 was made from 1927 - 1932 and cost a whopping $3.50 (about $45 today)

Hamilton 27 purch 2-8-2021 a.jpg
 
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