1950's...."The golden days for gun-owners"...

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....I was born to late to experience it but it is my opinion. The only 2nd amendment infringment was the NFA of 1934.
Granted, the moderen stuff we have now was'nt yet available....but so what. There were plenty of great firearms being made. Colt, S&W....as an example...were at the top of their game in producing fine quality pistols & revolvers.
Less silly and un-nescessary laws put upon law-abiding gun owners.
My father told me once he and his buddies on the weekends would walk over to the local drug store carrying their .22 rifles, while they waited outside with the rifles one would go inside to buy ammo for plinking out in the woods or at the city dump site. Passers by would'nt give it a second thought. If the local police drove by he'd simply wave and tell the boys to be careful out shooting.

Granted, we're talking about a very small town in rual Pa....but could you imagine that today?

I was chatting about this at work yesterday with an old-timer about guns/shooting when these thoughts occurred to me. "In the '50's it was best".......he stated. "The golden days for gun owners" were his words and I tend to agree fully.

Would any of you senior shooters out there agree?


Russ
 
I can remember order forms in the Scout magazine for left over 1911 from WWll.
It was delivered to your door.
Everybody had a gun and this was in NYC.

AFS
 
There was a time when you could take your guns to school so you could hunt afterwards on the way home; you could order guns from the back of magazines and have them delivered to your front door by the postman.

When I lived in TX in the 70-80's, folks had racks in the truck window and always left a rifle in it - no one stole them........every department store chain, hardware store, even some grocery stores sold guns and/or ammo
 
You could order guns from Sears or Wards. Alot of hardware stores carried guns and ammo too. And if you were a mental case, like the guy in AZ, you were put in jail or an institution before you could go out and shoot at people.
The 50's had it's problems too, but lots of good things have been lost in our attempts to "improve" our society.
 
In Missouri, a permit was required to purchase a handgun, and one could not carry one concealed or have one in a car "in close proximity to the driver".
 
I graduatediin 1996 from a smalltown western South Dakota school.....and guns in the parking lot for hunting after school were FAR from unheard of. Officially they may not have been "allowed" but not one person was ever talked to about it, let alone disciplined. Some places are still a lot closer to the "1950's" mindset regarding guns than they are the current "NY/Detroit/Washington gun control" mindset. Thankfully, I was born and raised in such an area....
 
The 50's in Ohio ~~~ Guns were kept in the back window rack of a pickup!

If you wanted to order a Star 1911 clone it was $19.95.

Check out this site for a download of Guns Magazine, April 1957: www.jeffersonian.name/g1957/G0457.pdf

An original Colt 1911 A-1 Government surplus would cost $29.95 for average WWII usage. ~ Excellent - $34.95.

Garands would be $9 to $20 mail order.

I would buy a used gun for $5 - $20, reblue and refinish the stock and get $40 -$50. A good hobby for a teenager.

If I wanted a gun and had the money, I'd buy it. No hassles. Same with selling.

There were no school shootings. Very few gun violence cases. Yeah, you would hear about the gangsters, and they would pay for their crimes ~ not society
 
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I was there. I miss it like the dickens. We have stood around and watched the politicians errode our rights until it's almost over. Please vote in every election. Take the time to investigate the candidates and their thinking on what we love so much.
 
I was 11 years old in 1950 and you're right, things are really different. At that time most families had about three guns, a shotgun, a .22 rifle and an occasional deer rifle or hand gun. My first was a Stevens Favorite that I was able to take wherever I felt like. People used firearms as a tool for food and varmint extermination. Nobody had heard about High Cap mags. To this day I feel a little guilty if I empty a 30 round AK mag. I would get a box or two of .22 shells for Christmas and they would last all winter. I would keep count of game killed or missed and how many shots were taken. My Mother would send me out just before supper with her request for 2, 3, or 4 rabbits and I would never get over a couple hundred yards from the house. We had a post with two nails in it that we would hang the rabbits from to clean them. We wouldn't think of shooting at paper targets, sometimes at a few tin cans.

In my entire life I have been fortunate enough that I have lived rural and had a place to shoot whenever I wanted. However, I have seen so many changes in the shooting sports over the years. Now it seems the emphasis is on self defence and target shooting, with black rifles and hi caps. It's all good, but I miss the freedom and innocense of those years.

Now I have a couple safes full of firearms and a few thousand rounds of ammunition and it's been years since I've shot a rabbit.:(
 
You couldn't legally concealed carry in most places back then. Golden age, my ass. NOW is the golden age, now that you can actually carry in most states.
 
Everything changed in 1968. It is simple. For average people and most WWII vet aged people, it wasn't until the 60's that there was money available for guns just because you wanted one...

I don't know anything about carry laws until the 1980's. Prior to that, I generally believed that it was illegal to carry a concealed firearm. I suspect that was wrong, but that was my impression. I had no interest in carrying a firearm other than to go hunting or shooting. I knew quite a few people that carried, but as far as I knew, it was illegal, but it was all about personal protection and not the law.
 
This is the sort of historical stuff that needs good, widespread documentation. So that years from now, no one can credibly state that it was never that way. Witness the denial of firearms ownership on the American frontier by the common people.
 
Concealed carry was often regulated, but open carry was okay in a lot of places. Believe it or not, Connecticut was one such state. They would rake you over the coals for concealed carry, but open carry was okay.

In fact, before radicals showed up carrying firearms in the state capitol, it was legal to open carry a loaded handgun in California. The California Assembly promptly put and end to that. Ronald Reagan signed the law that changed that to open carry of unloaded handguns with frequent harassment by police.
 
My dad told me years ago that he took his dad's 12ga shotgun to school and kept it in his locker during the day because he and some friends would go duck hunting in the morning before school and then sometimes after, also. That was in the late 30s, though.

From the 50s/early 60s I recall my buddy's dad getting catalogs with advertisements for all kinds of military rifles and pistols at VERY low prices, and they'd arrive via US mail.

I also recall seeing M1 carbines being sold at give-away price in the Sears catalogs.

President Kennedy's assassination changed all that. :mad:
 
President Kennedy's assassination changed all that.
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That was in 1963. Bobby Kennedy (June 1968) and Martin Luther King (April 1968) were shot and I believe is the impetus that resulted in passage of the Gun Control Act which was signed into law in October 1968. It took five years of debate prior to its passage by Congress. So, it would appear, that the Kennedy assassination started the process. George Wallace was shot in 1972 after which time he was wheel chair bound which effectively eliminated him from any presidential consideration.
 
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I was just a youngster in the 50's but I can remember being able to go rabbit hunting any time I wanted as long as I didn't waste ammo. Now it seems that all the kids have time for is TV or video games. The 50's and 60's were really good in the southwest.
 
I was 10 years old in 1970, living in Rhinelander Wisconsin, and just beginning my love affair with guns.
The GCA had been in place for two years, we kids could still buy .22 rimfire shells at the hardware store, over the counter, and we could still carry our .22s out to the dump to shoot rats.

I remember reading magazines and the ads noting that this gun or that must now be ordered through a federal firearms license holder and could no longer be delivered direct.

1970 was the coming of the golden age of the actual gun shop and the proliferation of small firearm manufacturer mass marketing of their product.

Before 1970 there were very few actual "Gun Shops" most were gunsmiths who sold firearms on the side and most guns could be bought mail order or through the local hardware or department store.
The big manufacturers proliferated the market and were well on their way to cheapening up the quality of their offered products in order to retain market share while custom shops provided superior products to those that could afford them.

My first "real job" was working in a gun shop and I will always carry fond memories of those times.:)
 
You couldn't legally concealed carry in most places back then. Golden age, my ass. NOW is the golden age, now that you can actually carry in most states.
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You also didn't NEED to carry concealed back then in most places - folks were more friendly and not as likely to kill you for your designer sneakers

Have to look at the overall aspect of society and how it has gone downhill since LBJ's "Great Society" experiment.
 
It wasn't all good... most states had outright bans on concealed weapons in the 1950s. The 1920s were a little more free... at least you could mail order a submachine gun and have it shipped to your door without getting the permission of any bureaucrats, but there were still bans on concealed weapons. The old west was even more free in a lot of ways, but still there were some towns in the Territories where guns were banned in city limits and only the sheriff and his deputies were allowed to carry.

No, I think the golden age for gun owners was in 1775, when folks knew exactly what to do when someone in power tried to disarm them.
 
You don't NEED to carry concealed today any more than any other time. If anything, probably less.

Your chances of being killed via hostile gunfire are so small the brain can barely comprehend the odds. Assuming 20,000 non suicide gun deaths per year (not even ruling out accidents, which are another major factor) your chances of being killed by hostile gunfire in any given year in the US are somewhere well under 6.6*10^-5.

Really folks, if you compare the sheer volume, variety, cost, and availability of guns and ammo today to that of any other time and place in history, we are living in gun heaven, right now.

Just because the media can stick something in our face 24/7 today doesn't make it any more common or dangerous than it was before the 24/7 "news cycle".
 
...your chances of being killed by hostile gunfire in any given year in the US are somewhere well under 6.6*10^-5
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Statistics are an amazing thing. I doubt you would say that if you actually had to move around after dark in some of the inner city neighborhoods in Memphis, Knoxville, Nashville, Atlanta, and Chattanooga.

In Tennessee, it was a pain in the butt to buy a handgun even prior to the GC Act of 1968. Prior to the Act, many just crossed state lines and purchased their guns in Ga or KY (for example) as there was no waiting period. Honestly, it is much better now with the NICS check. But it would certainly be nice to be able to purchase handguns out of state directly from a dealer versus the way it is now.
 
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If I moved around in those neighborhoods, the numbers of people in this country, and the number of people getting killed would still be the same. It is one simple division... ~20,000 non-suicide gun deaths, and 300,000,000 people. Some areas have higher crime than others of course.

I did have the occassion to work on the ground in a terrible ghetto in Houston for about 1.5 months or so. It doesn't change the overall nationwide odds.

If you want to say the 50's are better/safer/etc, and consider it anything other than perception (or lack thereof compared to today) then you have to produce something to prove it... my assertion is that we live easier, safer lives today in Averagetown USA than 99.99999% of all the people that have ever lived throughout history.
 
NY32182, the point of my statement is that your personal odds are higher in those higher crime areas whether you would like to admit it or not. Oh sure, the national average would homogenize things.
 
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