My, how times have changed!

[mofojoe]

Yup progress. If you don't like it, you're racist.

^^^100%

[SB1964]

Yep, in the early -mid 70's I could walk across the neighborhood with a pellet gun & go into the canyons. Nowadays, one could smoke a joint, which I disagree, but heaven forbid a kid has a BB gun.

[DaveInOroValley]

More then once in grade school I was able to bring in a Civil War Musket for history show and tell events. Try that now.

[Moonastray]

You guys are really making me wish I was born a lot earlier. Would've loved to experience since of these things

[toby]

I am soooooo damn glad I won't be here 25-50 years from now to see what happens next. God I feel for my grandkids.

[smle-man]

I used to shoot right outside LA off Hwy 14 at the Fremont Pass. My dad would tale me and my sister. I was 10 and got the Marlin single shot rifle for selling Christmas cards to the neighborhood. That was 1961.

Back at Granada Hills High School in the SFV we had "rifle club" and the members would take their rifles to school! That was 1970 and another world away...

Many of the high schools in Pa had rifle teams when I was a high school student in the early 70s. The range was in the basement and we used Winchester 52D rifles. Rifle team was great for me: a skinny, painfully shy, pizza faced kid with horrible acne. Rifle team brought me out of my shell, made me part of a group, got me recognition in the school since our team was one of the best winning teams in the school, and I got my first kiss from a girl on the team on the way home from a match at another school. We had some good looking girls who were fantastic shots on the team. To be young again at that time and place in history!

[Tarasdad]

You know, sometimes I think that the best thing that could happen to this country - hell, to the world! - is another 1918 influenza pandemic or a massive ebola outbreak. Thin the herd enough for sanity to become common again.

[resistance]

In the early 70's my teenage brothers and I would drive up on I-14 north out of the San Fernando Valley. We would take the Sand Canyon exit and be shooting our 22 rifles and shotguns within 30 minutes of leaving our house.

We would throw our sleeping bags on the ground and if it was early August, we would watch the Persied Meteor showers until we fell asleep.

resistance
NRA Life Member
RMEF Life Member

[adamjay]

My son is going on an end of year field trip to the mountains with his class.
"Your gonna take your rifle, right?" I said.
He started for a second before he figured out I was jokin.
"I don't think they will allow it, Dad," he teased back.
"Ok, well at least take the .44mag."
"Ok, Dad," he said laughing.

[RandyD]

I grew up in Phoenix and graduated High School in 1977. Just yesterday, I was talking to my childhood and high school friend who lived down the street from me about this same topic. When we were in sixth grade, we were around 10 years old, all of us boys in the neighborhood used to take our .22s, tie them to our bike handlebars and ride our bikes out to the desert to go shooting. The place we went shooting was inside the city limits, but it was safe. As a parent, living in California, if I allowed my child to do the same thing, I would be in juvenile court trying to get my child back from the state, or some California law enforcement officer would interpret my child's actions to be a threat and I would be childless.

[the0thermrt]

y'all need to read some of this guys stuff

[gunsmoke50]

Many of the high schools in Pa had rifle teams when I was a high school student in the early 70s. The range was in the basement and we used Winchester 52D rifles. Rifle team was great for me: a skinny, painfully shy, pizza faced kid with horrible acne. Rifle team brought me out of my shell, made me part of a group, got me recognition in the school since our team was one of the best winning teams in the school, and I got my first kiss from a girl on the team on the way home from a match at another school. We had some good looking girls who were fantastic shots on the team. To be young again at that time and place in history!

This was how my high school in San Francisco was until 1995. We had 52d and 40x rifles and competed against other schools in SF and Oakland.

It all came down when some knuckleheads on the Balboa high ROTC drill team decided to get caught hazing the s--t out of their newbs. Suddenly everything having to do with rifles or the ROTC is evil. Pretty much overnight both the drill and target rifles were gone, and the few of us still on the rifle team finished the next two years practicing and competing at PG&E and Richmond Rod and Gun.

It's not always slow. Sometimes it's gone in the blink of an eye.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

[MisplacedTexan]

My mother in law swears to me they used to use 22lr at the shooting galery in Frontier Land @ Disneyland when they first opened in the 50's ...... not sure if her memory is foggy or not (she would have been 8 or 9 when it first opened) - bb's or pellet guns I belive but live 22 ammo? Not so sure on that one.

I do remember when I was about that age the State Fair of Texas (Fair Park - close to downtown Dallas) the midway had quite a few shooting galleries that used bb type guns where you shot out a red star. If you could hit all the red out of the star - you won your Kewpie doll. That would have been late 70's.

[Tarasdad]

It was actually .22 gallery shorts IIRC. Read about it somewhere a LONG time ago.

[RandyD]

My mother in law swears to me they used to use 22lr at the shooting galery in Frontier Land @ Disneyland when they first opened in the 50's ...... not sure if her memory is foggy or not (she would have been 8 or 9 when it first opened) - bb's or pellet guns I belive but live 22 ammo? Not so sure on that one.

I do remember when I was about that age the State Fair of Texas (Fair Park - close to downtown Dallas) the midway had quite a few shooting galleries that used bb type guns where you shot out a red star. If you could hit all the red out of the star - you won your Kewpie doll. That would have been late 70's.

When I used to attend the Arizona State Fair in the late 60's, I clearly remember a shooting gallery using .22 shorts.