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

[JohnBT]

And most of our mothers didn't work in the '50s and during most of the '60s. Families were one-income households.

By 1967 a box of 50 Winchester Super-Speed .22 LR were 60 or 70 cents and I was grossing $1.15 an hour at a McDonalds in D.C. - call it a buck an hour take-home. There were no cheap bulk packs.

.22 WMR were $2.50 for a box of 50 in '66 and '67. That was 2.5 hours work at McDs at minimum wage. The McDs here are paying $8/hr. and up now.

I think somebody is wearing rose colored glasses. I sold my Savage 24 .22WMR/.410. Couldn't afford the ammo.



"A typical hunting rifle still cost more than a week's pay."

A Marlin 336 was about $80 in '67. A 444 rifle was about $115. That was a lot of money to people making a buck or two an hour. Or even three.

A Rem 1100 field grade listed for $155 in '67. That's pushing a month's wages for a full-time McD's employee back then.

 

[RDCL]

I wish to thank everyone for their very interesting replies. Good stuff....good reading here.

Another thing best about the old days, be it the 1950's or even earlier........is that unless you are a land owner today there were more places a person could shoot........I'm talking about casual plinking. Today I have to drive to an indoor range and there are very few of them in my area. Thing is, I miss casual outdoor shooting. There is just no place today where you can pull over on a rual road and set up a paper target.
For me personally I miss the early 70's. I spent most of my childhood and some of my teen years living near a town called Havelock, N.C.. This was the early 1970's. There were several garbage dump sites where a person could plink to their hearts content. I was about 14 at the time and I remember one dump in particular where the owner allowed my friends & I to shoot our .22's anytime we wanted as long as we killed as many rats as we could! Unless you've done it, you just can't imagine how fun it was to shoot at the town dump.


Russ

 

[JohnBT]

Cherry Point, Morehead City, right? Nice area, although I haven't been through there in years.

 

[zoom6zoom]

Pay scales were much lower.

True, but the gov wasn't taking as big a chunk, either.

 

[Bubba613]

This "golden age" stuff is nonsense.
Guns have never been as plentiful, with as much variety and as affordable as today. Nor have there been as many opportunities to use them.
How many people in the 1950s/1960s had 20-30 guns or more? The standard was typically 1 rifle, 1 shotgun and 1 handgun and maybe a .22. Now we all have 3 or 4 stuffed around the house.
Concealed carry was limited to crooks and cops for msot people. There was no .40S&W, .41 mag, .357sig, 10mm, .223, 7.62x39 and basically no AKs or SKS's, AR-15s. "Concealed carry" guns were either snub revolvers or Colts in .32 or .380, Walther PPKs, or a plethora of Italian or Spanish copies of same. When you hear "I don't like autos because they jam a lot" from an older person, he is speaking his experience from those times.
Guns are made lots better today. Materials are far better, with guns lasting much longer and being much more accurate. In the 1950s P.O. Ackley marketed his line rifles guaranteed to shoot 1". Today almost any rifle off the rack at WalMart will do that or better.
And as mentioned, gun ownership was often the provence of white men. I am told in Mississippi no black could buy buckshot, only birdshot.
No, I am pretty happy with the state of the gun market today. Lots of choices of relatively inexpensive high quality guns with lots of opportunities for use.

 

[Blind Bat]

Today is the "golden age" for firearm owners, folks... enjoy it while it lasts.

+1000

 

[sayak]

For a reality check, watch old movies with child actors in them such as "Flipper". The kid in that movie had a boat and a shotgun of his own, and went pretty much anywhere he wanted, which is somewhat reflective of rural kids in the 1960s. It was that way for me and my brothers in Montana.
I watched "Good Bye My Lady" on TCM this morning and here was a kid out in the woods, and later, going to the store to buy a .20 gauge. Today kids are messing around with far more dangerous things than guns, but I don't think there is any going back.

 

[Joe Demko]

The kid in flipper also had a hyper-intelligent pet dolphin. Maybe I was deprived as a kid in the 60's and 70's, but kids_heck people in general_in movies always had more stuff and better stuff than I did AND a heck of a lot more autonomy. My dad, curse him, was never cool with me going off adventuring, solving mysteries, and such when I was a kid. Especially when the mysteries involved adult criminals. He was pretty good, though, about me taking my .22 out plinking.

 

[jcwit]

"A typical hunting rifle still cost more than a week's pay."

A Marlin 336 was about $80 in '67. A 444 rifle was about $115. That was a lot of money to people making a buck or two an hour. Or even three.

A Rem 1100 field grade listed for $155 in '67. That's pushing a month's wages for a full-time McD's employee back then.

Sure glad I wasn't at Micky"d's" back then. Most of 1967 I was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, I was an E-4 at the time and per my pay stub for the month of Aug. 1966 my pay was $224.54, this encluded allowances of course. I worked an 8 hour day and lived off base in McClain, Va. Went down to Hunters Lodge in Alexandria a few times but didn't buy anything, not for lack of funds, just to much hassle for a Military guy living off base at that time.

Quote:
Today is the "golden age" for firearm owners, folks... enjoy it while it lasts.

+1000

Based on what? Did you live in the 50's and 60's to actually experience it? It was the Golden Age for many things, when was the last time one bought gas for .16.9 cents a gal. Micky "D's" hamberger for .10 cents. Gunpowder for $3 to $4 per lb., cheaper than that if you bought the brown paper bags of bulk.

Times were good, but I'll still take todays health advancements.

 

[Joe Demko]

Sure glad I wasn't at Micky"d's" back then. Most of 1967 I was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, I was an E-4 at the time and per my pay stub for the month of Aug. 1966 my pay was $224.54

$115 is 51.2% of $224.54. That 444 would have cost you just slightly more than two weeks pay. Which means that in your case

"A typical hunting rifle still cost more than a week's pay."

was perfectly true.

 

[jcwit]

Quote:
Sure glad I wasn't at Micky"d's" back then. Most of 1967 I was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, I was an E-4 at the time and per my pay stub for the month of Aug. 1966 my pay was $224.54

$115 is 51.2% of $224.54. That 444 would have cost you just slightly more than two weeks pay. Which means that in your case
Quote:
"A typical hunting rifle still cost more than a week's pay."

was perfectly true.

Not quite true, only while in the service, when I got out the following year and back in cilivian life that 444 wouldn't have even cost me a weeks pay.

 

[Joe Demko]

Then why did you quote what you made in the service?

 

[IlikeSA]

Im not sure about the golden age of guns, but I think the 50s and 60s were the golden age for the US. We were on top of the world scientifically, militarily, and economically. Even though the Soviet Union was competitive, our system was set for long term prosperity. Somewhere in there we lapsed into apathy and allowed our government to regulate more.

Personally, I think the golden age for weapons would have been in the years prior to 1860. Most Southerners and Westerners would have gone armed, whether it be with a rifle, pistol, or knife, and not a word was said about it.

 

[Checkman]

Not that long ago I was reading a book about the history of firearms. It was published in 1961. Several times throughout the book the author talks about the "Good Old Days" and how firearms in the past were just better made and people were tougher and more capable. Only he wasn't talking about the 1950's. That decade had only been over for about a year. No he was talking about the 1870's and the 1880's.

Almost everybody always thinks that "their" time is somehow inferior to the past. The the previous generations were more capable and just plain more. Human nature I guess.

I've read editorials from 1941 and 1942 in which the writers bemoan the fact that the gneration who has to fight the war (WWII) is just too soft and not capable.Full of soft headed socially progressive ideas and made weak by socialism. Unlike the generation that fought the Civil War. Yep that's right when "The Greatest Generation" was in it's prime there were many who didn't think it measured up.

And so it goes.

 

[macadore]

Sure, it was a golden age for gun owners. As long as you were white and local LE liked you.

In the 50s everyone was white. I don't know where all those other people came from in the late 60s.

 

[sayak]

Not that long ago I was reading a book about the history of firearms. It was published in 1961. Several times throughout the book the author talks about the "Good Old Days" and how firearms in the past were just better made and people were tougher and more capable. Only he wasn't talking about the 1950's. That decade had only been over for about a year. No he was talking about the 1870's and the 1880's.

Almost everybody always thinks that "their" time is somehow inferior to the past. The the previous generations were more capable and just plain more. Human nature I guess.

I've read editorials from 1941 and 1942 in which the writers bemoan the fact that the gneration who has to fight the war (WWII) is just too soft and not capable.Full of soft headed socially progressive ideas and made weak by socialism. Unlike the generation that fought the Civil War. Yep that's right when "The Greatest Generation" was in it's prime there were many who didn't think it measured up.

And so it goes.

But all that really demonstrates is that access, rights, and public perception of firearms is getting incrementally poorer.

 

[Bubba613]

I've read editorials from 1941 and 1942 in which the writers bemoan the fact that the gneration who has to fight the war (WWII) is just too soft and not capable.

Funny coming from someone who probably was a product of the post WWI age and "Flappers" etc etc. One of the most notoriously corrupt and immoral times in America.
"The decline of America" has been a theme starting I think in the 1790s. It wasn't true then, it isn't true now. All we need now is good leadership and some optimism. Those around in the 1970s will know what I mean.

 

[marv]

You could swap guns at a gun show. That was the whole idea. You could buy an M2 kit across the table for about $30.

 

[wishin]

I was in school most all of the 50's and joined the Army in 1958. I'd say it was the golden decade for good music.

 

[McCall911]

Almost everybody always thinks that "their" time is somehow inferior to the past. The the previous generations were more capable and just plain more. Human nature I guess.

+1000

I think another reason we perceive prices were lower in the 1950s was because there were some items we take for granted today that you couldn't buy back then at any price. So we had to get by with what we'd call basics. For instance, computers with the power they have today? Forget about it! You might be able to have bought something like a Univac: If you had the money and the space. Big screen color TVs, DVD players, Blue Ray likely weren't even in most people's imaginations back then. Cars? It was unusual for someone to have a car with so much as air conditioning, much less climate control
More on topic, there was virtually no chance you could buy an AR, a Makarov, an AK variant, and any number of weapons from behind the Iron Curtain that we take for granted today. (I recall when a Makarov carried a book price in the neighborhood of $1000, not adjusted for inflation!) Generally you had to buy ball-type ammo to feed your handgun of choice. Far as I know, even the .38 Special so-called police load had a semiwadcutter 158 grain .357 bullet with a muzzle velocity of 800 fps or less. IIRC this was the one called the "Widowmaker." But that was reportedly applied to the shooter who used it rather than the one who was shot! (Correct me if I'm wrong on this.) And I could go on about what is available now, and what was available then...

Other than the social stigma that I mentioned, I don't see the 1950s as being the golden age of much of anything. But they did leave us some great music and movies.

 

[jcwit]

One other thought, Freedoms that are lost mean little to future generations that have not experienced those freedoms. This is true whether actual freedom or monetary.

Todays child has no idea what it would be like to have the freedom to bike wherever they wished with a .22 across the handlebars, or to do any of thousands of things done by us oldsters when preteen.

 

[Checkman]

sayak

But all that really demonstrates is that access, rights, and public perception of firearms is getting incrementally poorer.

Sayak I'm sorry, but I don't understand where you're coming from.

My point is that everyone (at one time or another) is always convinced that their time is the worst and that the previous generation had it better. I was pointing out that people during the so-called "Golden Age" of the United States felt the same way.

Can you explain more in depth?

 

[easyg]

Sure, it was a golden age for gun owners. As long as you were white and local LE liked you.

He speaks the truth!

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

The "Golden Age" or "Good Old Days" always happened before you were born, or you were too young to enjoy it. I do note that the 1960s spawned much restrictive anti-gun legislation-the "Yellow Card" for New Jersey gun owners
was enacted in 1966, the Illinois FOID in 1970, things got a lot worse for NYC gun owners in the 1970s, the GCA 68, etc.
I was born in 1949, I lived in Vermont 1956-1959 but I fired a genuine firearm for the first time in Boy Scout camp-in New Jersey-in 1963. I grew up fatherless-divorce, no adult male relatives to take up the slack, and even in Vermont I don't recall seeing firearms in any of the other kids houses. We had cap pistols to our heart's content of course.
One thing I note-and it angers me still-is that when I enlisted in the Army in 1967 rifle and pistol teams had disappeared-and were not revived. Seeveral older NCOs told me that those who made the shooting teams were honored, bringing home a trophy to display in the unit's HQ was a cause for celebration. When I enlisted the gun enthusiast was dismissed as a "kook" or viewed with suspicion as a potential thief.

 

[oldfool]

"golden age", interesting concept, but very subjective
despite the onerous attributes of the 1968 GCA (etc), I wonder if it really had a significant impact on the quality and variety of firearms readily available to joe-average-honest citizen
in truth, there always have been gun control laws of some sort or other at various places in America

for myself, I think of the "golden age" of modern firearms being the post WWII era, continuing at least into the late 80s

when Dan Wesson still was Dan Wesson, when Colt was still Colt, when S&W was S&W, Hi Standard was Hi Standard, etc. etc, etc., when you could buy a shotgun or rifle over the counter at Sears, or Western Auto or the local hardware store
when most over the counter guns sales were made-in-America guns
and there was a lot of competition amongst "1st tier" gunmakers, a lot of competitive quality product at competitive pricing

but fair argument can be made that we live in the "golden age" right now
consider the variety of make/model/caliber/action firearm available to any law abiding American citizen today, including imports. If you can pay the price (which always was a condition), and even if obliged to deal with more paperwork for some "restricted" items (not really that hard core restricted), the number of specific models availble to choose from number not in hundreds, but in thousands, perhaps even in tens of thousands.
Just counting the variety in available ammo calibers can be a challenge.
and then there are 'accessories'

(unless you live in Kalifornica or Illinois, of course)
could be a LOT worse