When I was a kid, every hardware store had a shelf for guns and ammo by the checkout counter.
Last year our ACE Hardware store in Ponca started putting guns and ammo by the checkout! Just like the good old days!
Last year our ACE Hardware store in Ponca started putting guns and ammo by the checkout! Just like the good old days!
Many retail outlets, including the small town stores, quit selling guns when Product Liability Insurance became necessary for them to carry. Many manufacturers of guns and gun accessories as well as retailers have gone out of business or ceased selling those products because of lawsuits and the cost of insurance.
Most of the small town hardware stores around here still have the ammo behind the checkout counter but only a few still have guns. The ones that do carry guns are the same ones that have mounts on the wall and I think they sell guns because the owners enjoy shooting sports. I also think the Harps grocery store in Gore still carries ammo.
As to the original question I don't think you will pinpoint a certain time. I think it has a lot to do with less people being involved with guns at a younger age. They were not taught to hunt or shoot in any way and do not know or respect the firearms place in American history or todays society for that matter. I think if you are never shown about the positives of the hobby you reject it. Chalk it up to vidja games or whatever but kids are not taught many skills these day. They are set in front of the tube and handed a controller and forgot about. As opposed to back in the day when you spent all your time on a bike if you lived in the city and all your times in the woods if you lived in the country learning life lessons.
I would say right around the time color TV came out it started heading downhill.
As to the original question I don't think you will pinpoint a certain time. I think it has a lot to do with less people being involved with guns at a younger age. They were not taught to hunt or shoot in any way and do not know or respect the firearms place in American history or todays society for that matter. I think if you are never shown about the positives of the hobby you reject it. Chalk it up to vidja games or whatever but kids are not taught many skills these day. They are set in front of the tube and handed a controller and forgot about. As opposed to back in the day when you spent all your time on a bike if you lived in the city and all your times in the woods if you lived in the country learning life lessons.
I would say right around the time color TV came out it started heading downhill.
I think it happened when the government quit doing what the people voted them in to do and now they are scared because they know that they are wrong
Have A Blessed Evening
Mike
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Have A Blessed Evening
Mike
}><}}};> 2 CHRONICLES 7:14 <;{{{><{
Like everything else, we must stay diligent to keep our rights.
In my lifetime it was Columbine, the NYC subway shooting and Clintons fiasco at gun control.
I cringe everytime some wacko goes on a spree because I know and understand that someday a kneejerk reaction could make me an outlaw.
In my lifetime it was Columbine, the NYC subway shooting and Clintons fiasco at gun control.
I cringe everytime some wacko goes on a spree because I know and understand that someday a kneejerk reaction could make me an outlaw.
I feel the exact same feeling.
Man, I don't know. I have owned a firearm since I was a kid (thanks, Dad), but I didn't think the same way.
Before I went to Phoenix in 1993, or 92... well, whenever it was, I was FLYING back to work, as not to be late from lunch. I was pulled over by an OHP officer, who was nice enough to write me a warning, and asked him what he thought about open carry in Arizona, as I would be moving there soon, and was pretty excited at the prospect of going Eastwood. Would he be worried about making stops, yadda yadda yadda, and he said something like, "Shoot, I figure more than half the vehicles I pull over have a pistol in the glove box."
Now I never even took that in to consideration. I felt I had been cheating myself, not having one in my glovebox. I more than made up for it in Arizona!
Anyway, the point of all this rambling: I imagine there has always been some who would do away with the gun. Think about all the "western" towns that required you to check your gun when you arrive, to keep the peace in the 1800s. We just notice it more, as certain situations comes up. Avoid Dodge City.
Before I went to Phoenix in 1993, or 92... well, whenever it was, I was FLYING back to work, as not to be late from lunch. I was pulled over by an OHP officer, who was nice enough to write me a warning, and asked him what he thought about open carry in Arizona, as I would be moving there soon, and was pretty excited at the prospect of going Eastwood. Would he be worried about making stops, yadda yadda yadda, and he said something like, "Shoot, I figure more than half the vehicles I pull over have a pistol in the glove box."
Now I never even took that in to consideration. I felt I had been cheating myself, not having one in my glovebox. I more than made up for it in Arizona!
Anyway, the point of all this rambling: I imagine there has always been some who would do away with the gun. Think about all the "western" towns that required you to check your gun when you arrive, to keep the peace in the 1800s. We just notice it more, as certain situations comes up. Avoid Dodge City.
As has been said, there have been waves of gun control, that come along when collectivist philosophies are dominant in the country and in its government. One of the first waves was with the Jim Crow type laws, when many cities started requiring permits to carry weapons, with the purpose being to deny them to black folks and other "undesirables." Then came the Progressive era in the late 1800s/early 1900s, in which it started to be accepted that government was going to right all social wrongs through legislation and regulation... this was when many more prohibitions on the carry of weapons in public were drafted. You might consider the 1934 NFA a part of this trend... the government started the organized crime problem with the War on Alcohol, and then came to the rescue with legislation like the NFA. The next wave was with all the shootings and assassinations in the 1960s like JFK, RFK, MLK, and the UT shooting... this was when they outlawed the sales of firearms by direct mail order with the 1968 GCA, which put an end to guns being in the Sears catalogs and such, as they had traditionally been sold before. The GCA also created the requirement that new guns only be sold through licensed dealers, which created a lot of red tape and really cut down on mom and pop operations, department stores, etc. selling guns, as it wasn't worth it to jump through all the hoops for something that isn't really their main product. Then there were the various restrictions on importations put in place by Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton, as well as the 1994 Brady Bill, which all really cut down on the market for imported firearms. I know Target quit selling handgun ammo after Columbine. There has been a general decline in shooting and marksmanship in this country as the population has become more urban and less rural. That trend, as well as all the school shootings, are probably responsible for the decline in marksmanship programs in secondary schools, and for the heavy handed laws like the Gun Free School Zone Act.
There have been some positive trends lately though... over the past decade, the vast majority of states have re-legalized the carry of firearms in public. Unfortunately most still require a license to do so, a throwback to the Jim Crow and Progressive eras, but a handful of states have instituted full-on Constitutional Carry, and there are movements building to do the same in many others, including this one. Gun ownership is starting to increase, and Americans are starting to hold much more pro-gun views. It is actually getting to be pretty hard to get elected to office with an anti-gun stance in most places in this country. And of course we at Project Appleseed are working hard to restore our heritage of marksmanship!
There have been some positive trends lately though... over the past decade, the vast majority of states have re-legalized the carry of firearms in public. Unfortunately most still require a license to do so, a throwback to the Jim Crow and Progressive eras, but a handful of states have instituted full-on Constitutional Carry, and there are movements building to do the same in many others, including this one. Gun ownership is starting to increase, and Americans are starting to hold much more pro-gun views. It is actually getting to be pretty hard to get elected to office with an anti-gun stance in most places in this country. And of course we at Project Appleseed are working hard to restore our heritage of marksmanship!
1934, 1968, 1986.
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