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Remember When You Could Buy These Firearms By Mail Order Before The Gun Control Act of 1968?
armedselfdefense.blogspot.com ^ | 03/21/11 | Gun Nut

Posted on 03/21/2011 6:12:40 AM PDT by Sasparilla

Prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, you could buy almost any firearm that struck your fancy by mail order. Many of us received copies of gun and outdoors magazines back then. In addition to being chocked full of interesting articles on hunting, the history, use, and maintenance of your firearms, you could buy guns directly by mail from a host of gun dealers who advertised in these magazines. Pay the price and the shipping and your gun would be delivered directly to your home by an agent of the United States Government, the postman.

We have pictured here an assortment of mail order firearm advertisements from 1964 to 1967. Its amazing what $24.00 to $39.00 or so could bring to your door. Or, try this one. For a little more, how about an M1 Garand direct to your door for $79.99 plus $1.00 postage? These ads will be a shocker to anyone who doesn't know about the freedom of mail order back then. They will be nostalgic and painful for those of us who miss those salad days.

(Excerpt) Read more at armedselfdefense.blogspot.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: banglist; blog; firearms
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To: NFHale

facebooked the link for all those too young to remember these, or too commtard to appreciate the hypocracy of their fear of tools...


21 posted on 03/21/2011 7:49:24 AM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: stevie_d_64
IF the word “progress” (-ion -ive) means things like, obligated servitude, restrictions, regulations, infringements, etc etc etc against your Constitutional rights... Then obviously we have lost ALL rights, no matter what the issue is...I don't know. Cancer is often described as progressive.
22 posted on 03/21/2011 7:51:20 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Sasparilla
There were at least six companies that made guns for sale to children. They advertised their product in Boy's Life, the scouting magazine, no doubt other places.
23 posted on 03/21/2011 7:51:30 AM PDT by Cheburashka (Blade Runner was set in 2019. Except for the flying cars and replicants we're right on schedule.)
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To: Sasparilla
I've got a 1911 that my granddad ordered back in 1961. It came right to his door in a cardboard box, straight from the Augusta Arsenal. It cost him $35 plus $1 shipping. I've got the box and papers to prove it.

And it IS a 1911, manufactured in 1917...NOT a 1911A or A1...and it's in NRA 95% condition or better, all original, never fired since it's been in the family. Pap did me a favor, there.

24 posted on 03/21/2011 8:00:22 AM PDT by jboot
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To: Dr. Sheldon Cooper
This used to be a hell of a good country...

it did. My regret is that I mostly missed it. I was born in '68, the year the inmates made thier big play to run the asylum.

25 posted on 03/21/2011 8:05:07 AM PDT by jboot
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To: Joe Brower

One of my father’s friends got one mail order. We fired it a couple of times. LOUD!! and quite a kick too. My father died nearly 40 years ago. One of the few memories I have of him being surprised by how much recoil a firearm had.


26 posted on 03/21/2011 8:05:50 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your most dangerous enemy is your own government,)
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To: Joe Brower

One of my father’s friends got one mail order. We fired it a couple of times. LOUD!! and quite a kick too. My father died nearly 40 years ago. One of the few memories I have of him being surprised by how much recoil a firearm had. I tried to get him to buy one, but he wasn’t interested, and I didn’t have any money.


27 posted on 03/21/2011 8:07:12 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your most dangerous enemy is your own government,)
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To: Sasparilla

I remember when ads in comic books featured Swiss-Rubins for 14.00.

Man those were the days. I wish we could go back to that.


28 posted on 03/21/2011 8:20:33 AM PDT by texmexis best
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To: Sasparilla

GCA68 is patently Unconstitutional.

Everyone here knows it.

So why won’t the NRA come out and say it?


29 posted on 03/21/2011 8:35:26 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA (For the first time in my adult life, I'm scared of my government.)
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To: Sasparilla

Bought my first firearm in the summer of 1964 with money I raised doing errands (no paperwork but a receipt). I was 7yrs old. I walked home with it shouldered 6 blocks (my father was with me). This was in Orange, CA.


30 posted on 03/21/2011 8:57:54 AM PDT by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.....Eagle Scout since Sep 9, 1970)
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To: Sasparilla
Ah, yes. I remember those days well, and fondly.

I was 14 in 1957 and I had saved up enough money from working to buy a rifle, so my father said, "OK". I ordered one by mail and had it shipped by Railway Express right to our door. I still remember it being delivered. It was an Italian 7.35 Carcano carbine, complete with bayonet and about 60 rounds of soft point hunting ammo. It cost $23.50 (if I recall correctly), including shipping. It was really a bit crude, but it shot OK. I hunted with it for a few years until I had enough money to buy something better. Along the way since, I sold it.

Yup. Those were the days. A few years later I picked up a mint condition Argentine Mauser for $18 (the pick of a very nice Mauser litter) in either SEARS or the General Tire store (I forget which, as they both had surplus rifles). That was around 1959.

It seemed just about any hardware store, department store, tire store, and a lot of garages sold guns and ammo. And of course, you could always buy just about any gun you wanted (up to a 20 mm cannon) mail order with a postal money order and a shipping address. You just had to have the money and age was not even a factor. Paperwork? There was none.

Things were very orderly then. Nobody freaked out about guns at all. Owning and using them was completely normal and expected from the time one was "old enough" (mostly meaning, your Dad would let you go out and use one). It was never much considered anyone with a firearm was going to use it except for legal purposes, and we were taught firearms safety and were careful.

During hunting season, people commonly carried them around in the street. My buddy and I used to put .22s across the handlebars of our bikes and peddle several miles on the main public highway to where the big squirrels lived. Heck, during hunting season we even used to take our rifles to high school so we could save time and get in the woods right after school. The teachers would let us store them in the coat closets in the rear of the class rooms.

Since the Kennedy assassinations, the Liberal bedwetters have taken control and polluted the country beyond recognition. America was a free country back then, and what a wonderful place to live!

31 posted on 03/21/2011 9:01:10 AM PDT by Gritty (America is the brokest country in history. We owe more money than anyone, ever-Mark Steyn)
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To: Sasparilla

“Prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968, you could buy almost any firearm that struck your fancy by mail order.”

Gee, thanks, Lee Harvey Oswald :P


32 posted on 03/21/2011 9:14:53 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Gilbo_3

Heartbreaking when you think of what we let these pr*cks do to us.

But on the other hand...I brought another one into the fold yesterday. 20 yrs old, had him shooting .22, .38spl, .380, 9mm, and then finally .45.

Next week is the rifle range with him.

Daughter’s steady boyfriend. He’s a good kid, and got a lesson in American Citizenship 101 yesterday - And LOVED it.

No going back now. The Libtards lost another because of me.


33 posted on 03/21/2011 9:16:13 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Sasparilla

If you were able to travel back in time to 1966 and inform an average American that by the year 2011, Americans would be prohibited from: smoking cigarettes in bars, driving their cars without wearing seat belts, praying silently in school, buying food or drink without government warning labels, refusing to rent apartments to sexual deviants or buying a hunting rifle without a government background check, they’d wonder just when the hell America was overthrown by fascists.


34 posted on 03/21/2011 9:21:27 AM PDT by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: Red in Blue PA; Gilbo_3

“..GCA68 is patently Unconstitutional.
Everyone here knows it.
So why won’t the NRA come out and say it?...”

Same reason no one else will.

They’re scared. Chickensh*t. No balls. Microscopic cajones.

ANything else I forgot to add?

We should be screaming and howling at every politician’s doorstep to repeal these monstrosities NFA 34, GCA 68, etc.,.

Every time a judge lets one of these “laws” stand, he should be picketed, protested, shouted down, etc.

But - nope. Silence.

The left takes our silence for cowardice, and pushes on.

And we do nothing.


35 posted on 03/21/2011 9:24:43 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Sasparilla

I seem to recall an individual “A.J. Hidell” once ordered a Manlicher-Carcano rifle mail order from a sporting goods store in Chicago to be delivered to his home in the Oak park neighborhood of Dallas, texas.

Wonder whatever became of that?


36 posted on 03/21/2011 9:50:24 AM PDT by Buckeye Battle Cry ("I've got tiger blood and Adonis DNA!")
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To: Red in Blue PA

>GCA68 is patently Unconstitutional.
>Everyone here knows it.
>So why won’t the NRA come out and say it?

My theory is that the NRA is afraid that outright repeal of the GCA would, in effect, destroy its own power.
They know they can drum up *some* funds from the scare-tactic of “the government’s coming for your guns!,” “XXX bikk would be a registration of your firearms!,” and “the BATFE is doing such and such!” whereas in a world where the BATFE is shut down because it is patently contra-constitutional they lose that ‘wolf’ and in a world where GCA68 is contra-constitutional they lose an entire ‘pack’ of such wolves.

This is not to say that there is not, right now, the danger of confiscation or registration; only that the NRA is in a deep symbiotic relationship with things the way they are. Freedom is scary: there is nobody else to blame for your mistakes.


37 posted on 03/21/2011 9:56:32 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: NFHale
The left takes our silence for cowardice, and pushes on.

sadly, the fight was 'lost' in 34'...

recently the Ky ASSembly entertained Constitutional carry, and i just received word from my critter that it never even made it out of committee..."Thank You" for yer support letter...

the irony for me being that the letter shouldve been from a commie rat bastard pol to one of his lemmings that he was sorry that the infringement failed...but as i said, that battle was over when my papaw was a young man...

38 posted on 03/21/2011 9:57:51 AM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: OneWingedShark
is NRA 'non profit' ???

does the Board and upper brass make a sh!tload of membership dollars by stayin in business ???

nuff said...

39 posted on 03/21/2011 10:00:12 AM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: Gilbo_3

I think you misunderstood me; I wasn’t saying it’s about the money per se —though it is axiomatic that the ‘sensational’ sells where “blah”/normal & even good-news does not— but about 1) influence (some would call it “political power”) and 2) that they are *comfortable* with “the evils to which they have become accustomed” (as the Declaration of Independence would put it).


40 posted on 03/21/2011 10:10:08 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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