Just How Extremely Free We Were

[Lonestargrizzly]

There was a shooting range underneath the Girl's Gym at Salinas High School.

Same at Turlock High.

[booza-pitt]

I graduated in 2010. Hot damn. Sic transit gloria mundi.

(But maybe we can turn it around. I hope so.).

[Jimi Jah]

We had Rifle Club at my LA High School. The kids would bring their M1A's to school. No one looked nor blinked.

Try that now and you are a dead kid.

[Capybara]

Heck, some of the good old days were just in 2013. I bought this 1952 Hungarian M44 at the Ventura Gun Show for $150.00 cash and carry. No FFL03 + COE, gave the guy the bills, walked past security at the front gate, they waved me though, didn't even need to see the receipt, loaded it into my trunk and headed home. And that was just a few short years ago.

[SWalt]

Such a fantastic thread!

[speedrrracer]

i remember when the Sears catalog sold guns, and you could pick them up at the store. There may have also been a mail delivery option...not sure :

[golfish]

My favorite example was my high school physical education coach. He also served as the golf coach and when we played in the foothills (calaveras or del pedro) we often ran into rattle snakes on the course. One day as we were letting out of school for lunch he catches me, asks me if I have my shotgun with me so which I said no. He said go home and put it in your golf bag just in case.

Imagine the day...when a school teacher could tell a minor to not forget his loaded gun....ahhh freedom was grand.

My golf coach used to tell us to stop smoking weed on the course, at least during a match.

[smle-man]

My high school had a shooting team. 1987, in Sacramento.

My high school in western Pa still has a rifle team. They just finished first in the state championship which means there are a lot more high schools in Pennsylvania with rifle teams. Life is normal outside of California.

[Capybara]

We are all "abuse survivors" here. You don't realize how we are treated here until you have an FFL03 and go buy some guns out of state. Then you realize what a slave state California is.

[Ripon83]

My second favorite was a bit more troublesome and regulatory but I became a reserve police officer at age 18. They issued me a SW Model 10 which I didn't like. So a training officer told me there was a gun store in Modesto with a SW 27 5" for $199 on sale. Good price he said they were usually more. I went down to purchase but reserve credentials didn't qualify me due to age. I was bummed. The dealer says sorry nothing I can do. So my mom ended up buying me my first duty weapon.

[Dnele928]

Some number of decades ago (70's) in NorCal...my brother and I (13 and 14 yo), summertime: waddya want to do today, um, I dunno. Ok, wanna go shooting? Ok.

We put our 22cal rifles in the front baskets of our stingray bikes, ride to Montgomery Wards and would each buy a box of 50 rounds. Then ride a bit more to the open territory north of town, set up some cans on a wood rail fence and commence plinking. When done, rifles back in the baskets and would ride home.

At night recapping our day, parents would ask, "clean your guns?"...yep.

[echo1]

We moved to the freshly incorporated "city" of Fremont in the summer of '59. Nimitz ended at the north end of Fremont Blvd. On my 8th birthday, my dad gave me a Mossy US 144 Govt, that he bought from the Oakland Naval Supply Center surplus warehouse, for 5 bucks. I killed cottontails and grey squirrels from the Bay's edge to Mission Peak. If a cop stopped you, it was to see what you had kilt, and give an impromptu safety lecture, and be on his way.

Later, we hunted pheasant & quail where GM was built, and along the north end of first street, near Alviso. This was right at the start of the development of Silicon Valley. One time a sheriff came by, called out my bud by name, and ASKED us if we could quit hunting out there during the week. They were getting a lot of calls by the crews setting up the slab walls. The same bud's older brother killed a forked horn where 680 turns east and goes uphill, before ground was broke for it.

The olden days when we were indeed free. PAX

[GW]

Yep, I grew up in Bakersfield. Spent summers on the bluffs killing ground squirrels and snakes, first with a Wrist Rocket later with a pellet rifle.
Bought a M1 Carbine for my 18th birthday a Valley Gun and walked out with it that day.
Ah the good old days...

[Dan_Eastvale]

As a kid in Anaheim and later norco, guns were nothing to be feared. All of our friends had glass displays for their rifles. Gun racks in trucks were everywhere. You could buy a revolver in a liquor store and ammo at alpha beta. No paperwork, no nothing... Now living in Utah it's almost the same.. except for the federal forms online when buying at a gun shop. No wait. Ppt in a parking lot

[sl0re10]

maybe the NRA should collect these while we are still around... and publicise them.

they certainly make the lib pearl clutching look silly... and even fake / manufactured (vs just stupid).

Guns were really common, even here in California, and..... nothing... happened. We didn't have registration and kids could buy ammo at the grocery store. What happened? Nothing.

If anything; the libs have made us more unsafe. Show a little gun by mistake and a cop will kill you, or a kid with a toy, (with impunity) because of their anti gun propaganda campaign... and/or... for nothing.