Jack Lord was fairly conservative in some ways but was an absolute idiot on guns.
In one episode some evil person imports 6 little .25 automatics into the islands. There is an immediate crime wave caused by the guns.
They go so far as to show a person finding one of the guns then their face turns to evil as he picks it up. Clearly the gun is magically evil. Turning ordinary people into demons.
5.0 eventually “gets them off the streets” and everything goes back to normal.
Same plot for STREET OF SAN FRANCISCO and Quincy M.E. A .25 cal escapes and shoots lots of people dead before it is melted into a sewer cover.
Meanwhile Quincy is running around yelling “WE’VE GOT TO STOP “IT” BEFORE “IT” KILLS AGAIN!
So many anti-gun shows back then. and they still have not gotten rid of handguns. So they made a grab at the rifles. If they get a ban on them they will be back for the handguns.
5.0 seemed to be a mixed bag philosophically.
The classic is still better than the current version.
I remember a “crazy veteran” sniper episode of Five-O in which they find the sniper pushes his shell casings into the ground to form a heart with “Mom”.
Even as kids we were hooting in dersion.