1950's '60s Gun Laws??

All that came to an end with the 1968 gun control act.

Yes, it was wonderful! No Form 4473. You could buy rifles and handguns via the mail. We got the Ruger mailorder catalogue and I still have the .22LR Standard pistol my dad mail ordered. There were always ads for surplus Lugers, Mausers, and of course the domestic revolvers and rifles. Pretty cool! You could go to any department store, many hardware stores and even gas station/grocery store in rural areas would sell guns and ammo. No forms or waiting periods, just pay cash and walk out the door with a gun and couple boxes of ammo.

Kids could buy .22LR ammo to go plinking. We kids carried pellet and .22 rifles all over the fields, roads, woods and no one batted an eye. Most trucks had a gun rack in the back window and usually a rifle or shotgun in it. And most trucks and cars were not locked when parked. Imagine that! Never heard of a gun being stolen out of a truck back then.

Airports had zero security checks. You could board an airplane with a handgun and ammo. You could buy an anonymous ticket with cash. Even after the hijackings in the 1970s. I don't remember any talk about carry permits. If you felt a need to carry a gun you did. Laws were based on behavior: if you behaved it did not much matter if you had a gun on you or not. If you misbehaved it didn't matter either, you were still in trouble.

We have become so beaten down with myriad gun laws we forget that there were a LOT fewer mass murders and school shootings back when kids and teachers often took their pheasant or duck shotgun or a squirrel .22 to school for hunting the fields and woods on the way home. It is ludicrous that ALL citizens for time ETERNAL are forbidden to buy guns mailorder just because Oswald bought a surplus carbine via the mail and shot Kennedy. Like that has really deterred crime since then!

So true, my first handgun was purchased (1965) from Klein's Sporting Goods. The ad was in Outdoor Life. A Browning 32 ACP, was shipped to my front door. The pistol was new, in box and coated with cosmoline.

Those were the days.

I was 15 when I bought my first 22, 16 when I bought a 22 revolver and a 6.5 Carcano. Never bought one through the mail. In 1968 I bought a bb gun and had to get my mother to sign for it. That was the first year of the 68 Gun Control Law (don't know what the real name is) and the stores had no idea what was allowed. Some still don't.

Before GCA 68, I believe NFA 34 was the only real, impactful gun control law that was on the federal register.

There may have been state/county/local but I’m not familiar with what those would have been.

I grew up in New York City. Handguns were generally unavailable to regular folks as I recall, but we had a Mossburg 22 rifle that we took upstate to shoot at a friends farm.

First gun I personally purchased was an Enfield rifle. I was 17 and picked it out of a barrel full at an Alexander's departments store in Manhatten. Bought three boxes of ammo too. They wrapped it in brown paper and I carried it home on the subway. Price was around $19 I believe.

After my grandfather passed in 83, I found old gun magazines and popular mechanics in his garage. You could order various guns through them.

Circa 1960; when I was ten, there was a magazine ad for old Mauser rifles that had been rechambered to .30-06. IIRC they might have been Brazilian or from some other South American country. I'm sure they were rough because the price was only $9.95, which, even back then, was cheap. Couple of my buddies and yours truly wanted to pool our meager finances, get a money order, and purchase one. What stopped us was that we couldn't find an address to have it sent to. Couldn't be sent to a parental address as we didn't have parental permission to be out buying .30-06's. At that time I was still trying to get permission for a BB gun.

This ad is from the early sixties. You could order by mail and have the gun delivered to your home. I wish I knew then what I know now.

Ah, the old Sear & Roebucks catalog had a page or three of guns sold mail-order.
Along with kits for houses and AllState motor scooters.

My folks had a small, country store/gas station when I was growing up. They didn't sell a lot of guns through it, but they sold a few. I remember Dad telling me there was a pretty good markup in guns, so he liked it when a customer would come in and order one. My folks would just order whatever gun the customer wanted from their wholesale company over in Oregon, and in a few days the gun would show up. Then the happy customer would come in, pay for it, and take it home.
That all ended with GCA 1968. Whatever the markup in guns was back then, it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for my folks to sell them anymore. They still sold a lot of .22 and shotgun shells though, and they had a pretty decent selection of popular deer and elk rifle ammo.
My folks went through their wholesale company to buy my first big game rifle (a Winchester Model 100, .308) during deer season 1963, when I was 15. Then they bought a Remington 1100, 12 gauge through their wholesale company for my 16th birthday in 1964. It was either later that year, or early the next year when I ordered my first handgun, a .22 High Standard Sentinel through my folks.
At any rate, I've been listening to this gun control nonsense, and arguing against it, since JFK was shot. I'll be 70 years old soon, and I'm tired.

Aside from handguns, even NYC was no problem. My uncle got an NRA M-1 and 1911, he had a target permit, delivered right to him. Any number of sporting goods and Army-Navy stores in Manhattan would sell you rifles or shotguns, no paperwork necessary. Long guns through the mail were fine.

I remember an ad in a gun magazine advertising a WWI era anti-tank rifle in a millimeter equivalent to .50 BMG. It looked like it weighed 50 or 60 lbs and probably had the recoil of a mule kick. You could also buy ammo for it. There were also submachine guns for sale that were supposedly made unable to be fired. All they did was fill the barrel bore with lead and people heated the barrel melting the lead and had an operable firearm. Once that was discovered it ended but no telling how may full auto guns got in the hands of the public.

GarySTL said:

I grew up in New York City. Handguns were generally unavailable to regular folks as I recall, but we had a Mossburg 22 rifle that we took upstate to shoot at a friends farm.

First gun I personally purchased was an Enfield rifle. I was 17 and picked it out of a barrel full at an Alexander's departments store in Manhatten. Bought three boxes of ammo too. They wrapped it in brown paper and I carried it home on the subway. Price was around $19 I believe.

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The Sullivan Act is a gun control law in New York State that took effect in 1911. The law required licenses for New Yorkers to possess firearms small enough to be concealed. Possession of such firearms without a license was a misdemeanor, and carrying them was a felony. The act was named for its primary legislative sponsor, state senator Timothy Sullivan, a notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall politician.

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You could order guns from Sears, JC Penney, Montgomery Wards and have them delivered either to the store or to your door; after '68, to the store.

Shawn C Henderly said:

All that came to an end with the 1968 gun control act.

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because of 2 assassinations that had little to do with mail order guns

The deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968 and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968 renewed efforts to pass the bill

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and

Private sales between residents of two different states are also prohibited without going through a licensed dealer,

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"The Sullivan Act is a gun control law in New York State that took effect in 1911. The law required licenses for New Yorkers to possess firearms small enough to be concealed. Possession of such firearms without a license was a misdemeanor, and carrying them was a felony. The act was named for its primary legislative sponsor, state senator Timothy Sullivan, a notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall politician."

No cite, but wasn't the Sullivan Act passed to keep the in place politicos for being armed? Just like in most of California today. If you're in with the right folks a permit to carry is no problem.

From the Wiki:
"According to Richard F. Welch, who wrote a 2009 biography of Sullivan, "all the available evidence indicates that Tim's fight to bring firearms under control sprang from heartfelt conviction."[3] Sullivan's contemporaries disagreed with this assessment and saw the law as disarming lawful citizens or as a way for Sullivan to guarantee his bodyguards could be legally armed while using the law against his political opponents."

Some also said it was a racial/ethnic thing to prevent those folks from having guns............I wasn't around back then (though sometimes I FEEL that old!)

Shawn C Henderly said:

All that came to an end with the 1968 gun control act.

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Look what it brought us. I don't remember crazies going off before 1968. Now? Look at what we. have.

Speedo66 said:

Aside from handguns, even NYC was no problem. My uncle got an NRA M-1 and 1911, he had a target permit, delivered right to him. Any number of sporting goods and Army-Navy stores in Manhattan would sell you rifles or shotguns, no paperwork necessary. Long guns through the mail were fine.

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Wasn't it Bergmans that had one of the small islands in the East River that had MILLIONS of firearms they sold worldwide.

In the 70s, you could get an FFL for $30. Shotgun News had pages and pages of firearms for sale by mail, provided you had paid your $30. Raising the fee to $250 kind of put a stop to that.

OTOH, concealed carry was much more restricted than it is now.

Cayce Charles said:

Look what it brought us. I don't remember crazies going off before 1968. Now? Look at what we. have.

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That is what I see as well. Back in the 1960s I don't remember hearing of much "gun violence" at all. And there was a lot more leeway of neighbors and family giving a beat down to someone messing with their kids, wives, homes, etc. A guy rapes a girl and the father whips the tar out of him back then? The cops would applaud most likely, toss him in jail and tell him he was lucky that is all he got. Shooting at a school? Many kids were raised to know and respect guns and use them for sport or hunting. There would likely be several gun owners near a school and if a mass shooting started it would have lots of parents show up with hunting rifles, revolvers and shotguns. Kind remember anyone was stupid enough to try that back then. Probably several of us kids would jog home and grab our .30-30 or 12 ga as well. Now we wait for an hour while the police get themselves sorted out. And woe to any citizen who tries to do something. We have a legal/court system not a justice or peace keeping system.

2ifbyC said:

This ad is from the early sixties. You could order by mail and have the gun delivered to your home. I wish I knew then what I know now.
View attachment 778946

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I need like 10 45 autos and 10 Lugers please!

Cayce Charles said:

Wasn't it Bergmans that had one of the small islands in the East River that had MILLIONS of firearms they sold worldwide.

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I believe that was BANNERMANS