Walter Williams posits an interesting point in his article in Townhall…
One of the unavoidable tragedies of youth is the temptation to think that what is seen today has always been. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in our responses to the recent Parkland, Florida, massacre. Part of the responses to those murders are calls to raise the age to purchase a gun and to have more thorough background checks — in a word, to make gun purchases more difficult. That’s a vision that sees easy gun availability as the problem; thus, the solution is to reduce that availability.
The full article is HERE.
One other point I would make is that if our parents/grandparents could come back, they would be amazed and horrified at the restrictions on gun sales…
This ad is from a 1950s Sears Catalog! They were still selling guns in their catalog into the 1970s!!!
And this one is from Boy’s Life (Boy Scout’s Magazine in the 1960s).
As teenaged Boy Scout camp counsellors in the 1960s, we were allowed to handle both BB guns and .22 rifles. We also taught safety classes to the campers, and took them to the range at the camps. And of course, ‘we’ had to make sure all the rifles worked… 😀
So no… What is happening ‘today’ is not the norm, if you’re an adult. Even less so, if you’re an older adult… Sigh…
When I was an Explorer in Hawaii, our post was sponsored by the Sub Base. The Base Commander also sponsored our rifle team and we would go to a WW II bunker on the base to shoot. I earned a lot of NRA badges there thanks to Captain Purington.
I still have a JC Higgens 16 ga shot gun. It is a bolt action and has a very strange loading mechanism.
My Daisy air rifle had peep sights. I’ve been in love with them ever since.
I roamed the neighborhood with a Crossman pump at 10 years old. I was fondling 98 Mausers and a variety of other guns on the gun rack at the local White’s auto and Western Auto in my home town well into the late 70’s. They were not located behind the counter but on a wall nowhere near the register and counter. Just racked and unlocked.
As to easy availability of rifles and handguns? Not many remember now but anyone of them could be bought by mail order with not as much as a verification up until 1968. Also Colt sold the AR-15 to the public starting in 1964 and prior to the GCA of 1968 had sold from 17 to 20 thousand of them.
Availability is the problem? Hogwash
Houston, are you from Flat Rock?
We don’t have an “easy firearm availability” problem. We have a morality problem: any mention of God has been mandated out of school & mostly out of the public arena in many places. Parents allow TV, and now iThings to raise their children. Personal responsibility is such an old-fashioned topic, don’tcha know?
Thank you for bringing that up, Rev!
Our parents would be appalled at what passes for “education” these days….
Personal selfishness is the motivator, IMO. People are frightened by firearms, loath them, and are convinced their “feelings” are paramount. Anything that makes them anxious should be banned.
Where I went to high school (Class of 1961) there were always unlocked pickups with firearm racks, and rifles, parked outside the school. Some alumni from that era are among the vehement anti gun crowd. They know better but ignore facts because, “guns have always scared me”.
Indeed.
Here is some more ‘blast from the past’.
https://gunsmagazine.com/classic-guns-magazine-editions/
Check out July of 1959 for ‘Mr. Dillon’.
Info on ‘J. C. Higgins’.
http://www.searsarchives.com/brands/jchiggins.htm
The J.C. Higgins Model 50 was a bolt action rifle with a commercial FN Mauser action and a chrome lined barrel from High Standard. It was chambered in 270 and 30-06. It was referred to as “The Cadillac rifle with a dime store pedigree”, and was every bit the equal of the Winchester Model 70.
All- Thanks for the comments. I think we’re all of the ‘older’ generation… And the new generations don’t want to listen to us. Sigh…
Posted from my iPhone.
At least some of us are in that generation between the Boomers and the Millennials of Doom.
Hey Old NFO;
There are times the good old days were really good, if you know what I mean. We have advances in medicine and technology since then, but we also have lost things also like our freedom and our place in the world.
Boy Scouts & .22 rifles go together like peanut butter & jelly. Scout camp was where I first learned the value of a sling and peep sights, now known as aperture sights or with the Annie shooting crowd as iron sights.
They taught me to shoot nice little groups at 50 feet. Still shoot .22s but the ammo is more expensive and I can’t use iron sights any more. Still use a sling and shoot nice tiny groups at 50 meters.
Damn! That was 60 years ago, time flys.
Some of my best childhood memories consist of dad and I taking a walk in the woods to go “hunting”. He would carry that 16 gauge (with deer slugs) and I would tote a little .22 pump which has now been lost. We would get to a clearing and then do a little shooting. It was a great way to spend a sunny fall day in NH.
I suspect there is some chicken and egg. Guns are not everyday tools, and so people don’t learn how to use them and respect them. So they fear them, and demand that they be removed. Which means they are rarer among the law abiding. So if criminals have visible guns, and ordinary people don’t they must be scary and dangerous, and…
But these are the same people who put a minimum age of 18 on chainsaws and power tools, for flip’s sake.
Now get off my lawn.
TOS- Okay, you’re a ‘young’ one… 😀
Bob- Agreed!
Roger- Yep, I can still ‘kinda’ see that front post… sigh
PE- Always! And you were getting safety training without even realizing it!
TxRed- Good point! And the majority of those people are urban dwellers… sigh… They don’t HAVE a lawn!
I miss America.
It was a great place to grow up.
Stretch- Yep… sigh