My first Toyota PU, 1987, which was a HiLux, had a gun rack in the rear window and it also had a rifle scabbard behind the seat on the rear cab wall that usually held my 1973 crooked as hell Marlin 30-30. My 06 Wrangler Rubicon has a leather scabbard for a lever gun behind the passenger seat and though usually empty it has carried a variety of Marlins. I sometimes carried Ol'Crooked in there but have decided I need a disposable .22 lever gun like those pot metal Henrys.
Are you old enough to remember when firearms were proudly displayed?
- Thread starter Solomonson
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Steel Horse Rider
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Yes
1976B.L.Johns.
Member
Boy, has this been a great nostalgic thread!
I will have to go back and give a lot of "likes"
My Dad was a professional cabinet maker before we moved to N MN..
He had built a gun cabinet that is so big that it is in two pieces. And the sliding glass doors are about 4 feet wide X 5 feet tall, have no idea how they survived a move!
Ours was in the dining room growing up.
I will have to go back and give a lot of "likes"
Yup, oh yeah!
Most defiantly
My Dad was a professional cabinet maker before we moved to N MN..
He had built a gun cabinet that is so big that it is in two pieces. And the sliding glass doors are about 4 feet wide X 5 feet tall, have no idea how they survived a move!
Yup!!! I mis those days!
Reminds me of my Grandparent's cabin!
And up here in the north!
Ours was in the dining room growing up.
Bruce D Pease
Member
Our guns were in a corner of a closet, behind the clothes. There was a shooting team in my high school. They’d come in with their 22s, shooting jackets ( no goggles or earmuffs) and ammo on team practice and match days and leave their gear in the corner of the assistant principals office, because we had no lockers only hooks in a coat room. My own kids knew where my guns were in the closet, but never I mean NEVER, touched them. Now they reside in a safe unless we’re using them. Most of the neighbors were the same.
1976B.L.Johns.
Member
That sucks, does it not!
Our world sure has changed!!!
Wow, in Alaska?....I would not think that would happen there!
We always kept a rifle and shotgun in the back window of our trucks in the school parking lot. It depended on what season it was on if the rifle was a centerfire or rimfire. We also were allowed to bring in our compound bows to gym class when we did archery. The gym teacher always scheduled the archery sessions right before bow season opened so we could all sight our compound bows in. It was also very common to see tractors in the parking lot during spring planting season and fall harvest season. I graduated in 1990 from a school about 30 miles west of downtown St Louis, Mo.
Pat Riot
Contributing Member
Most of my childhood was spent in Pennsylvania. I found it odd when I went to someone’s house and the didn’t have a gun rack or gun cabinet in full view of everyone visiting. I left home at 17 after graduation in 1978. I joined the Navy in 79. I did not visit relatives in PA very often but when I was visiting my brother in the mid 2000’s I commented that his gun cabinet was missing. He told me he bought a safe and kept his guns locked up now. It seems Meth and cheap heroin and a serious lack of keeping people that needed to be locked up in jail cells resulted in lots of crimes and break-ins in my little country corner of Pennsylvania.
It seems that this crime trend and a lack of crime punishment influenced lots of folks to lock up their guns.
And now we have the PC crowd to thank for more anti-gun manipulation so we have what we have now...fond remembrances of how things used to be...how things oughta be...
It seems that this crime trend and a lack of crime punishment influenced lots of folks to lock up their guns.
And now we have the PC crowd to thank for more anti-gun manipulation so we have what we have now...fond remembrances of how things used to be...how things oughta be...
1976B.L.Johns.
Member
Sure do. I remember when my uncle who sold guns at shows told me to guess how many he had hanging on the wall in his family room. He said if I was right he would give me one. I said 40. There were 39. I said that’s right after I take mine.
JTHunter
Member
Yes, I remember those days. Between wall racks and glass-fronted cabinets indoors and the gun racks in pick-up trucks, those were popular until the 80s. Then people got more concerned with theft, government "interference" (storage requirements, kids & gun locks, etc.), and "PC" troublemakers.
Three of my guns are currently on a wall mounted rack, an AK with a 40 rd magazine on top, two spaces below is a 12 ga. SxS with a small shelf I added to hole 4 shells, and, hanging from one of the supports for the AK is my .357 in its holster and on its belt. About 6' away is a full, 6-gun wooden cabinet with another 12 ga. (pump), 5 rifles and two handguns.
Three of my guns are currently on a wall mounted rack, an AK with a 40 rd magazine on top, two spaces below is a 12 ga. SxS with a small shelf I added to hole 4 shells, and, hanging from one of the supports for the AK is my .357 in its holster and on its belt. About 6' away is a full, 6-gun wooden cabinet with another 12 ga. (pump), 5 rifles and two handguns.
1976B.L.Johns.
Member
Back in the day, building gun cabinets in wood shop was probably the most common project!
WestKentucky
Member
I have displayed some of my guns. In fact my wife even suggested it at one point in my old house. We had vaulted cielings and a wraparound shelf arrived the 8ft normal cieling level. I had my pretty muzzleloaders up along with a leather possibles bag and my deer skull mounts. I hung a holster off of the gun rack the rifles were in and had a SAA grip frame and grip dropped down in it to simulate a pistol in the holster.
DustyGmt
Member
Not your typical wall hanger but I love it. I'm now thinking of a spot to hang an AR-15. You always think a musket or a flintlock, box fed semi auto never occurred to me.
entropy
Member
I graduated in 1981, though it seems like 1881 sometimes. I was able to bring a gun to school, for a classroom demonstration, that didn't turn out well for the guy that asked me to be the 'gunman' for his karate demonstration. He thought he'd kick my Colt Trooper (with blanks in it) out of my hand.
I had to check it in with the principal, who accompanied me to the class, and stayed to watch. So The Karate Kid squares off, and I assume the 'dumb criminal gunholder' pose. He starts a roundhouse kick (last move I would have used!) that he telegraphed way before he started. I stepped back with my right foot, brought the gun to my right hip, and fired a blank he did not know was in it! I then turned to the class and said, "That is how NOT to disarm someone!. It should only be attempted by someone who has been professionally trained to do so." I did not add that I had been; my Dad (a cop) and I worked on disarming and retention often back then. The Karate Kid turned a deep shade of crimson, and hated me for quite some time.
I also brought my compound bow to gym, and did so in college, too. By then I had a competition bow and my biggest problem was not robin hooding my arrows; there were no 5 spots back then.
I made a fully functional .22 LR 'cannon', complete with breech block, in metal shop. I got a B on it, but wasn't allowed to keep it.
DustyGmt
Member
I've got a decommissioned muzzleloader that I cant find a nipple plug for, a traditions timber ridge with the hammer/striker type action. I have no use for it without the percussion cap nipple so I might throw it up on a wall like you did.
Also, @WestKentucky you're cat in the avatar looks like a domestic crossed with a mountain lion. Cool cat.
Bush Pilot
Member
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You can't even make a toy wooden gun these days without catching hell.
Legionnaire
Contributing Member
Yes. I remember gun racks, cabinets, etc., even though my family didn’t own guns. I remember a bunch of guys at my small college riding a homecoming float armed with (unloaded) rifles; that would have been late 1970s. Can you imagine trying that today?
Yup. Late 90's. Only takes one liberal teacher to complain.
Bush Pilot
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That's a little shocking too.
DustyGmt
Member
People proudly displayed them in their pickups as well. Growing up in Vermont it was a greater than good chance you would at some point during the day get behind a pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear window. They were everywhere. Now? I cant remember the last time I saw a rear window gun rack. I think the mainstream prevalence of hard drugs and addicts running around stealing coupled with the political atmosphere surrounding guns phased the racks out. I miss the old days.
There are people not much older than me that had gun racks in their pickups on school property. During season it was just a given that a student would need a gun to hunt and even be a lil late for school because they had to haul a deer back to the house....
There are people not much older than me that had gun racks in their pickups on school property. During season it was just a given that a student would need a gun to hunt and even be a lil late for school because they had to haul a deer back to the house....
Kevin Rohrer
Member
I still display at least one gun. The Elf-on-a-Shelf is in charge of it.
DustyGmt
Member
Laugh riot.I graduated in 1981, though it seems like 1881 sometimes. I was able to bring a gun to school, for a classroom demonstration, that didn't turn out well for the guy that asked me to be the 'gunman' for his karate demonstration. He thought he'd kick my Colt Trooper (with blanks in it) out of my hand.
I had to check it in with the principal, who accompanied me to the class, and stayed to watch. So The Karate Kid squares off, and I assume the 'dumb criminal gunholder' pose. He starts a roundhouse kick (last move I would have used!) that he telegraphed way before he started. I stepped back with my right foot, brought the gun to my right hip, and fired a blank he did not know was in it! I then turned to the class and said, "That is how NOT to disarm someone!. It should only be attempted by someone who has been professionally trained to do so." I did not add that I had been; my Dad (a cop) and I worked on disarming and retention often back then. The Karate Kid turned a deep shade of crimson, and hated me for quite some time.
I also brought my compound bow to gym, and did so in college, too. By then I had a competition bow and my biggest problem was not robin hooding my arrows; there were no 5 spots back then.
I made a fully functional .22 LR 'cannon', complete with breech block, in metal shop. I got a B on it, but wasn't allowed to keep it.
We never showed our guns off, but we didn't have anything fancy either. Dad's shotgun and a couple handguns stayed in his closet. There was an open 3 gun rack on the wall over my bed with my 22 and 20 gauge single in it. Guns were tools, but children learned at an early age they were off limits unless parents were there. As with pocket knives, use to harm or threaten someone was not a consideration.
Many had guns in window racks in trucks driven in from the country. Most town dwellers used the racks for levels and tools unless headed out to hunt.
Many had guns in window racks in trucks driven in from the country. Most town dwellers used the racks for levels and tools unless headed out to hunt.
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