What's up with guns hidden/stashed in walls?

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aarondhgraham

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What's up with guns hidden/stashed in walls?

This last weekend I read no less than three posts in various forums,,,
Where people were remodeling a building,,,
And found a gun hidden in a wall.

One was an old black powder musket in the walls of a schoolhouse.

Back in the late 60's/early 70's my parents were antique dealers,,,
They would often buy a house and the contents.

Dad had a metal detector and he would always scan the stud walls,,,
He was looking for that bag of gold coins he wished for,,,
I know for a fact that he found several guns.

Seven years ago when I was gutting a 1920's built house,,,
I found a metal lock box stashed inside the foundation,,,
There was a revolver inside it but rusted to death.

Why were people stashing guns back in those days,,,
I mean really stashing them permanently by entombing them behind lathe and plaster.

Was there some kind of confiscation scare going on that I never heard of?

I can readily see how a gun could be wrapped in a blanket,,,
Stored in the attic, and then forgotten about

But sealed permanently in a wall?

I never understood the reason behind the act.

Anyone ever wonder the same thing or have a reasonable theory?

Aarond

.
 
That's how a guy I used to shoot with got his first handgun. Moved into a house up the street from the Inglis plant in TO(Toronto) and found an Inglis BHP 'lunch box special' in the ceiling of the basement.
That one was obvious, but some people are just paranoid that other people will know they have a firearm. Or to keep little hands off the thing. Or State laws changing. Could be any reason.
 
Confiscation scare you never heard of? Remember that the original drafting of the NFA included anything concealable. Handguns got pulled out at the last minute to get enough votes to pass it but they almost were on the same level as machine guns as far as federal registration goes. The 2nd amendment rights we enjoy today are vastly superior to what people 100 years ago enjoyed. Remember that was the time of the Sullivan Act and other "Progressive" laws that were gutting RKBA. I hear people bemoaning how our second amendment rights have eroded but in historical context they are stronger now than they have ever been thanks to hard work over the decades by the NRA with a setback here and there..
 
Hello yugorpk,,,

To tell the truth I'm not well-versed on the history of gun control,,,
At least not the times before the late 50's/early 60's.

I really didn't know about the NFA wanting to ban handguns.

But that's exactly why I started this thread,,,
To gain some insight on the topic.

Thanks for replying my friend,,,
You've given me something to read more about.

Aarond

.
 
I seem to remember my right to bear arms coming with much fewer restrictions prior to 68. I'm not that old that my memory is failing either.
 
I've been a builder and a remodeler for over 40 years. I've yet to find a gun, altho I have found many other things inside of walls. Generally it's old Playboys stashed in a access panel in a closet or above the ceiling tile in a basement bedroom. It's always been a common practice for builders to put something of little value inside walls as a form of a time capsule. We generally put small change or a local paper between the walls before the drywallers come. Maybe they'll be worth something one day. When I was a kid, Old blackpowder guns had little value, this could have been the case in the schoolhouse. Many Schoolhouse walls were not plastered until early in the 1900s. Or the guns, considered unsafe, could have been put in the walls as a way to dispose of them. I doubt very much that they were put there because of fear of confiscation, considering the trouble it would take to get them out when you need them.
 
I've got a good friend that I'd be surprised if didn't have a few hiden in the walls. We were talking about the true end of the gun control agenda once and he just looked at me at some point and said, "well, wall paneling comes down easy" then he just smiled and I didn't ask.

I've always figured back in the day people hid them mainly to protect from theft as much as anything, that way if they got robbed they'd at least have one (hopefully) functioning gun.
 
This last weekend I read no less than three posts in various forums,,,
Where people were remodeling a building,,,
And found a gun hidden in a wall.
Click to expand...
I've got an economy grade Italian O/U 12ga. that a friend found in the wall of his house when he was remodeling.

He wanted me to try to sell it at the club (they have trap & skeet as well as pistol). Nobody was interested because for these guys, a $10,000 Beretta is an "entry level" gun.

When he died, his wife told me to keep it.
 
Why were people stashing guns back in those days,,,
I mean really stashing them permanently by entombing them behind lathe and plaster.

Was there some kind of confiscation scare going on that I never heard of?
Click to expand...


Before the 1968 Gun Control Act, there were some politicians calling for registration of handguns and/or licensing of gun owners. Senator Tydings of Maryland proposed licensing and registration. Senator Thomas Dodd of CT and Senator Edward Brooke of MA also introduced registration bills. Other bills being proposed at the time also included doctor certification of the buyer's 'mental state' as well as police records and confirmation of residency. Perhaps as a result some owners decided to hide their guns. I think there might have been one proposal to outright ban handguns.

http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/gca68-nra4.htm
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chipcom said:
I seem to remember my right to bear arms coming with much fewer restrictions prior to 68. I'm not that old that my memory is failing either.
Click to expand...
Not in terms of your ability to carry and actually use your firearms. Current Stand Your Ground, castle doctrines, and concealed and open carry laws are vastly superior to what was available decades ago. Remember it wasnt uncommon back in the Old West for the County Sheriff to demand all privately owned handguns be locked up in his office. The 68 GCA really just put more restrictions on selling and to a smaller extent buying.As much as I really hate the '86 FOPA it did a lot to lessen the worse effects of the '68 GCA.
 
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Better safe than sorry. If I design/build a house I will indeed be planning for that feature. The trick is to place the handguns in the right spots so a hit from a metal detector might be dismissed as hitting on something else.

Same with burying guns (properly burying them for future recovery). It's just prudent as a Free American. :D
 
Not too many years ago, during a bit of restoration work at Miles Standish's house, a matchlock musket was found concealed in the wall -- Standish's own gun that he brought over on the Mayflower.
 
When we bought just the contents of a house,,,

When we bought just the contents of a house,,,
The first thing my Pop did was go into the attic looking.

I had a very nice old Remington single-shot 22,,,
We found it between the ceiling rafters,,,
Wrapped in an old overcoat.

In that case though,,,
I think it was just stored and forgotten,,,
Not necessarily hidden away against confiscation.

One house and contents was owned by a big time furniture dealer,,,
Soon after we started clearing out the house a local gun dealer dropped by,,,
He told Pop that the deceased owner was rumored to have owned a genuine Walker Colt.

He told Pop in the hopes of getting first bid on the gun if it was ever found.

Now my Pop was not knowledgeable about guns at all,,,
All he knew was that it was a cap and ball revolver and worth a TON of money.

He must have gone over every inch of the house with that metal detector,,,
We did find a pistol in one wall but it wasn't the rumored Walker,,,
It was just a shaky old Colt Dragoon as it turned out.

I know that if I were to hide something of value like that,,,
At least one of my trusted inner circle would know what and where it was.

Aarond

.
 
Hello Vern Humphrey,,,

A Colt Dragoon is nothing to sneeze at!

There's one for sale on Gunsamerica for $30,000 right now.
Click to expand...

This was back in 1969,,,
Dad sold it to that local dealer,,,
He did say it made a few house payments.

Didn't a cased Walker go for over a Million just a few years back?

Aarond

.
 
Too late now, but my advice to anyone who had desirable antique guns is, don't sell them unless you absolutely HAVE to have the money. Hold on to them -- they're a great investment.

And when you sell, sell one at a time for cash.
 
I actually hid guns in the wall (briefly). I kept cramming more guns into my self until I could cram no more. I went into my garage, put some long guns between the wall studs, then covered them with pegboard until I could get another safe.

I'm single and if I'd died of a heart attack, I guess some day in the future someone would have had a surprise.

BTW, anybody know where I could get a deal on a 3rd safe?
 
I plan to enlarge a bedroom closet soon and on the end wall will be a full length mirror for my wife. Behind that mirror will be storage for my firearms and ammunition. Of course my wife will know about the storage and if anything happens to me everything will go to my son in law the police officer. So no one will ever find a forgotten stash in my house.
 
buck460XVR said:
I've been a builder and a remodeler for over 40 years. I've yet to find a gun, altho I have found many other things inside of walls. Generally it's old Playboys stashed in a access panel in a closet or above the ceiling tile in a basement bedroom. It's always been a common practice for builders to put something of little value inside walls as a form of a time capsule. We generally put small change or a local paper between the walls before the drywallers come. Maybe they'll be worth something one day. When I was a kid, Old blackpowder guns had little value, this could have been the case in the schoolhouse. Many Schoolhouse walls were not plastered until early in the 1900s. Or the guns, considered unsafe, could have been put in the walls as a way to dispose of them. I doubt very much that they were put there because of fear of confiscation, considering the trouble it would take to get them out when you need them.
Click to expand...
We remodeled an old house and I sealed a number of things in the walls. I put a few old beer bottles, a section of wall signed in 1884 with black tar by the builders, a few poems and some jokes. The best thing by far was the human femur I sealed in the wall. It was from an old human skeleton out of a biology lab that was no longer articulated. Before the turn of the 20th century, I guess there was a brisk trade in articulated human skeletons.
 
Haven't found one, but I built one into a wall in my cabin. Had to go cut it out when I got divorced! Found a few whisky bottles and a 5 cent Hershey bar in some walls though. I was doing some demo on a house one time and I was knocking out the plaster with a splitting mall. It was tiresome work, I was only going to do one wall and leave the rest. But this old man that lived in the neighborhood stopped by and told me a story about a bank robbery back in the 60's. He claimed the bank around the corner was robbed and the robbers were caught in this house, but no money was found. I beat all of the plaster off of the entire house after that! I never talked to that guy after that, so I don't know if he was kidding or not. I sure did a lot of extra work though.
 
I wonder how many of them involved alcohol-induced practical jokes.

"Dude, let's hide Phil's gun in the wall. We'll tell him where it is tomorrow."

So they hid it, and after more drinking, forgot what they had done.

The only gun we've ever found was a pump shotgun of some sort in an old shed. It looked like it had been run over by something because the barrel was flattened and bent. Not to mention that it was more rust than steel. It's in the landfill somewhere. (That was the early 80s)
 
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