The HORROR!
- Thread starter hso
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Speedo66
Member
My parents must have been horrible people. I had two of the guns pictured, the Model 25 pump, and the 99 Target Special. In a NYC apartment no less. 
The longest hallway was just the right distance for shooting into a magazine filled box. BB recovery was a prime mission too.
The longest hallway was just the right distance for shooting into a magazine filled box. BB recovery was a prime mission too.
TomJ
Contributing Member
My dad let us have one. Living in the city, the only place to shoot it was in our basement. Once holes started appearing in the basement ceiling and windows it disappeared.
Carl N. Brown
Member
My sister had one of the Model 1894s. I think she still has it. I'll have to check next time I visit. What a trip down memory lane!
I grew up fairly rural and was wandering the deep woods with a 22 bolt action by the time I was 6 or so.
My buddy and I had Daisy pellet rifles that we used to clear the woods of squirrels and tweety birds. Not all of our neighbors were enamored of that pastime. We still hunt squirrels together, just not in the city....usually.
My buddy and I had Daisy pellet rifles that we used to clear the woods of squirrels and tweety birds. Not all of our neighbors were enamored of that pastime. We still hunt squirrels together, just not in the city....usually.
My guess is that this ad is from the early sixties, the time era when I got my first gun, #5. It wasn’t an air rifle. The pump pulled back a spring loaded plunger that would release when the trigger was pulled. I had immense fun with it for about 9 months until my Mother, who was ardently anti-gun, got rid of it. I never got in any trouble using the rifle and could never understand how someone could take away joy in your life just because they had a dislike for an item.
Noticeable differences from today’s PC, anti-gun culture:
The word Christmas being used in the ad.
A family smiling while holding rifles.
The age range for gun ownership starting at seven.
The suggestion that Mom & Dad join their children in shooting in the home’s rec room.
How long would it take for this ad to be pulled today or even make it out of the Ad department.
Noticeable differences from today’s PC, anti-gun culture:
The word Christmas being used in the ad.
A family smiling while holding rifles.
The age range for gun ownership starting at seven.
The suggestion that Mom & Dad join their children in shooting in the home’s rec room.
How long would it take for this ad to be pulled today or even make it out of the Ad department.
hammerklavier
Member
Nowadays the Red Rider box shows people wearing eye protection.
It's not as bad today as some make out. The local Academy had ads in their flyer for airsoft and BB guns in a collected area. Atwood's has them, too.
I had the Daisy pop gun, we would load it with mud from a dried puddle and hit each other with it. Ice, too, on the rare occasion. Not to forget the lever actions that actually shot plastic bullets in those days, you inserted it into the spring loaded case, jacked it into the action, and hit your baby brother. The first time.
There wasn't a second time. Parental discipline existed and was practiced. You weren't worried so much about the gun being impounded, you were worried about your Dad's pounding or getting a sibling to that point. You got no sympathy if they did, you deserved it.
Stupid is a hard life and you learned quickly. The expression "do unto others" may not have been an expressly specific religious tenet, but it was commonly practiced. You got yours if you did something wrong.
It's not the world I planned to grow old in when people think they can act without consequences.
I had the Daisy pop gun, we would load it with mud from a dried puddle and hit each other with it. Ice, too, on the rare occasion. Not to forget the lever actions that actually shot plastic bullets in those days, you inserted it into the spring loaded case, jacked it into the action, and hit your baby brother. The first time.
There wasn't a second time. Parental discipline existed and was practiced. You weren't worried so much about the gun being impounded, you were worried about your Dad's pounding or getting a sibling to that point. You got no sympathy if they did, you deserved it.
Stupid is a hard life and you learned quickly. The expression "do unto others" may not have been an expressly specific religious tenet, but it was commonly practiced. You got yours if you did something wrong.
It's not the world I planned to grow old in when people think they can act without consequences.
moe.ron
Member
Oh my goodness... I find that offensive and don't feel safe.
bannockburn
Member
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If that were today the whole family would end up on one of the Fed's Watch List.
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bobmcd
Member
I am very much on board with this. I didn't use eye pro when I was a kid, but when I taught my son at about age ten or so to shoot BB guns in the basement, I had both of us wearing safety glasses. We were shooting into a cardboard box full of wadded newspaper. The sprog thought old Dad was hopelessly paranoid until somehow we had a BB ricochet back and spin like a top on the table right next to us. The look on his face was priceless.
So yeah, I'm a safety nut. And neither of us shot our eye out.
GBExpat
Member
I had to go to the basement to check ... the BB gun that I received on Christmas when I was 6 or 7 (during Eisenhower's 2nd term) is a J.C.Higgins Cactus Carbine, not a Daisy.
The Bushmaster
Member
I still have an operating model 24 single shot muzzle loader. God only knows how old it is.
jamesjames
Member
Look at the lovely, middle class, comfortable and comforting family. Dad in glasses and cardigan. Well-coiffed, attractive, mother. Three squared-away boys. We can imagine Bonanza, The Virginian, or Gunsmoke on the TV.
Now close your eyes and picture the same family members, but from a different ethnicity. Nice, assimilated folks of African, Middle Eastern, or Latin American origin. How easy or difficult is it for you to imagine the same scene with different players in the roles?
Why is it that Norman Rockwell images are the default setting for happy, historic, sentimental memories? Christmas is coming, and its a beautiful thing. Martin Luther King Day is mere 3 weeks later. These are really good times to reflect on what constitutes normal, patriotic, assimilated, happy Americans. The "melting pot" myth of the 1950s and 60s was a great and comforting concept as long as everybody aspired to be just like the archetypal Anglo-American, middle-class family. Germans, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans worked hard to conform and be accepted into middle class America. The first generations went through bitter discrimination and lower class status, but later generations assimilated.
Where are we in imagining and defining who can belong in that picture?
Now close your eyes and picture the same family members, but from a different ethnicity. Nice, assimilated folks of African, Middle Eastern, or Latin American origin. How easy or difficult is it for you to imagine the same scene with different players in the roles?
Why is it that Norman Rockwell images are the default setting for happy, historic, sentimental memories? Christmas is coming, and its a beautiful thing. Martin Luther King Day is mere 3 weeks later. These are really good times to reflect on what constitutes normal, patriotic, assimilated, happy Americans. The "melting pot" myth of the 1950s and 60s was a great and comforting concept as long as everybody aspired to be just like the archetypal Anglo-American, middle-class family. Germans, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans worked hard to conform and be accepted into middle class America. The first generations went through bitter discrimination and lower class status, but later generations assimilated.
Where are we in imagining and defining who can belong in that picture?
GBExpat
Member
In my case, it comes from having grown up during that period.
subdude
Member
Well, me too. In fact, that's pretty much what things looked like at my house on Christmas.
TomJ
Contributing Member
Maybe we can keep this gun related before the thread gets shut down.
ROAshooter
member
thank you
thank you for the memories....a time that was golden....
thank you for the memories....a time that was golden....
Reloadron
Contributing Member
And we grew up just fine. Go figure.
Ron
Ron
Choctaw
Member
And mine.
Tommygunn
Member
Because Norman Rockwell was to art what John Moses Browning was to firearms ---AN ABSOLUTE GENIUS!!!!!
So many of us like to think that all white men grew up in the "ideal" family as shown in the picture. That is why we see posts trying to make us "understand" that some groups didn't have all the advantages that old, rich white men had.
I met my father once, when I was 12, and never saw him again. I was raised by my mother and my maternal grandparents. Sound a lot like what we see in urban environments now? I was taught to respect everyone regardless of color. I was taught that education was of utmost importance. I was taught to enjoy music of all kinds, sports of all kinds...and to enjoy the outdoors.
Race is irrelevant in this discussion. Environment is the factor to be discussed. I like this environment of parents teaching their kids about something other than Iphones, tattoos, NBA, NFL and global warming.
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