From my 1930s File -- Boys Guns

[rhmc24]

BOYS AND GUNS - 1930s to Now

Little boys wanted to grow up - usually to be a policeman, fireman or a cowboy. The two out of three had guns. So we kids had guns, cap guns, wooden guns we made or occasionally a real pistol a rusty junker that wouldn't shoot.* We played the cowboy movie we saw last Saturday morning. Later we warred with 'rubber guns' we made from wood, shooting heavy rubber bands made by cutting inner tubes from car tires. It would really sting to be hit on bare skin.

Around the eighth grade we were into hunting and shooting our own .22 rifle or .410 shotgun. My Grandfather and to a lesser extent my Father trained me in proper and safe gun handling. Some of us got cheap pistols, frowned on but tolerated by our elders, under strict instruction. I/we spent many an hour tramping over the Criner hills shooting whatever moved. A lot of jack rabbits then -- but no more.

School tolerated guns to some degree, old-ish guns sometimes came to school for 'show and tell'. I remember, sixth grade, boy brought a little .22 pistol (not loaded) to school. Teacher took it away and gave it back to him at end of the day with admonition to leave it at home.

My best friend shooting his H&R 922 in the back yard sends a richochet thru a lady's kitchen window. Detective gives him a stern lecture about shooting hazards. He had to pay $2.50 for the window.

We didn't get expelled, arrested, psycho-explored or turn out to be criminals. Later, upper 1940s, one of our class shot another but neither had been members of our juvenile 'gun culture'. In that case, a romantic triangle, nobody died and nobody did any time for it.

My Grandmother often said "boys have to make it up fool's hill". Most of us made it - some only to fall in WW2.

Time changes everything --- from 1960s I have a show and tell school project that won a red ribbon for a board display of a number of live ammunition types. Today our divided society on one hand demonizes guns, our legislature legalizes 'open carry'.

Below is my Son's 5th grade school project he won a red ribbon for, ca. 1963 --

After decades in the attic ---->

 

[Iggy]

I had a rifle in the car all through High School.. If I got a new gun, I took into the gym to show the coach and he would call the Ag teacher and the Principal to come look at it.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

Circa 1975 my best friend's school locker always had a 8mm or 7mm Mauser in it and 4 sale! (303's and Russians were a latter passion!)

In 1966 my brother got on the school bus with his 12 gauge (unloaded & cased) went to High School and kept the gun lockered (in later years we kept them in the office), then after School got on a different school bus to go hunting.

Even after 1968 as teenagers we could walk into Fling's Hardware and buy loose shotgun shells or loose 22's and go plinking or hunting!

Every day we carried pocket knives or Buck folders on our belts, and nobody ever got stabbed. But if we misbehaved in class we did get "spanked"! We grew up to serve in the community or went off to serve the country. We settled down to raise kids in the same life we had.

Then some jerks we never knew, stole that life away! My kids weren't allowed to take a knife to public school or even talk about hunting or guns. I sidestepped this by sending them to a privet Christian school, where their buts got boarded for serious misbehavior, and carrying a knife was rare but not outlawed (even the principle called my oldest to the office, to borrow a sharp knife!)

My youngest got out of HS in 2003. My grand kids will never see the Mayberry RFD life we had. I believe the world is diminished because of that!

Ivan

 

[mrchuck]

Always carried a long folding knife in my jeans, and always had a long gun out in the car, as I went hunting just about every day after school was over.
I graduated in 1956.

 

[Rustyt1953]

In the 60's, I regularly carried a small pen knife. Most of my schoolmates did as well.

 

[JohnRippert]

We still carried shotguns and lever actions in the truck's gunrack up until I graduated high school in 1981. This was just southwest of Houston.

 

[Grayfox]

I think it was 8th grade (mid 1960s) , My class had to do a history display for the month in our school library. The theme was farm life in the 1930-40s. I brought my Grandfather's hardware store single shot 12 gauge for the display. It lay there on the table there for the whole month. Nobody bothered it and I never got into trouble.
BTW: I carried a pocket knife all through school.

 

[garddogg56]

In the early 70's we brought our hunting rifles to school for show and tell and we always had a pocket knife handy,mine was an Imperial Kamp King

 

[Skeet 028]

For me it was a shotgun in the car...everywhere I went. I went to pick a gal up for a date in Cambridge Md one evening. Ol H Rap Brown was down there inciting riots and the national guard wouldn't let me go into town with the gun in the trunk. Gal came out and picked me up. Never even thought about the gun till they asked me.

 

[Old TexMex]

During deer season, (from third grade through tenth)Friday I was not present at school and excused. Likewise Monday.
It was a four hour drive to the hunting camp in Real County. The Principal never cared, my grades were excellent. So were many of my contemporaries absent during deer season.
Duck and dove season, we always had our shotguns, a few of us, as kids in elementary school, rode our bicycles out south of town and shot dove in the sunflowers or ducks after school. It's just what we did. A little older and we took our skiffs up in the bay and gill netted flounder at night and cooned a couple baskets of big single oysters and shot ducks in the morning ( usually teal).

 

[DWalt]

I am probably the last of those who went to a one-room multi-grade country grade school. The older farm boys often brought their .22s and shotguns to school with them. They were just stood up along the back wall of the classroom. By the way, we had a water well and an outhouse, and no electricity, just lots of windows. And a big coal-fired pot-bellied stove. I was in the last class to attend that school when a new one was built when I was in the third grade.

 

[dave holl]

I began teaching math in the '60's at Worthington High School in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. During duck season I brought my Ithaca M37 to school, locked in the truck, and, after school, walked the banks of the Olentangy River jump shooting Woodies and Black ducks. Now, that area is wall-to-wall houses.

School administrators began what they called "Mini Course Day" where teachers could show students who signed up a special interest. Two other faculty members, hunting buddies, and I taught a 2 day trap shooting class. 8 students showed up, boys and girls. We hand loaded a case of AA's, brought 2 shotguns each, several cases of clays, and a trap. We used a now-defunct shooting range in nearby Dublin. First day was focused on safety with a few practice clays. Second day, several rounds of 5 each, to see who was the best shot. Winner received a gift card.
Very rewarding experience, for the kids and US!
Dave

 

[BAM-BAM]

Pa. Game commission announced that they expected 450,000 hunters to be in the woods on opening day of deer season..................... 30 years ago it was 1,000,000 to 1.2 million.............times they are a changin!

 

[Iggy]

I am probably the last of those who went to a one-room multi-grade country grade school. The older farm boys often brought their .22s and shotguns to school with them. They were just stood up along the back wall of the classroom. By the way, we had a water well and an outhouse, and no electricity, just lots of windows. And a big coal-fired pot-bellied stove. I was in the last class to attend that school when a new one was built when I was in the third grade.

I went to the same kind of school. Rode a horse to school the first 4 years.Teacher lived in one corner of the room.Bed and a hot plate and a gas powered refrigerator. Two students the first year. 4 students the last year. Then I moved to a big school. One teacher and 13 students, first thru 8th grade.

 

[BearBio]

We all had BB and pellet guns with a range in the back yard (50x100 ft).

In 1967, we did a play (Stalag 17) and had a war souvenir Browning HP for the Colonel and a 1903 Springfield for Sgt Schultz.

 

[nodpete]

This is a shot of my 1904 single shot .22 "Boy's rifle". It is only 37" tip to tip. My neighbor gave this to me last Spring.



I can't find what the original price was for these.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

This is a shot of my 1904 single shot .22 "Boy's rifle". It is only 37" tip to tip. My neighbor gave this to me last Spring.



I can't find what the original price was for these.

I believe they were around $4

Ivan

 

[the ringo kid]

I was in H.S till 84. We still hand-carried rifles in but had to stash them in lockers IF the lockers we got were the long ones able to hold rifles and shotguns. otherwise-we lugged them from class-to-class-along with books and such. Taking to class-we couldn't have em next to our desks-they were leaned up against the wall near the door-or teacher's desk depending on whether the teacher liked guns or not? If not? they were parked near the door.

Also, many-a-rifle/shotgun-in truck racks or sitting in the back window of a car. I had a Lee-Enfield MK 3 sitting in mine sometimes.

 

[DWalt]

I went to the same kind of school. Rode a horse to school the first 4 years.Teacher lived in one corner of the room.Bed and a hot plate and a gas powered refrigerator. Two students the first year. 4 students the last year. Then I moved to a big school. One teacher and 13 students, first thru 8th grade.

It was a fairly regimented school. There were little jobs assigned to the students such as carrying in coal (from a big coal pile in the playground), tending the stove, carrying out and dumping ashes, carrying in buckets of water from the pump to drink (you had your own cup), washing windows (lots of windows, the entire side wall was windowpanes), washing blackboards, dusting erasers, making sure the outhouses had TP, sweeping the floors, etc. If you wanted lunch, you could walk home if you lived close enough (I did), or else you had to bring your own. No cafeteria there. All that would be unthinkable and probably illegal today. But it just seemed normal then.

It was a very old and primitive school building, which I think dated from the late 19th century. It was torn down when the new and much larger school opened. I wish I had some pictures of it.

 

[DWalt]

This is a shot of my 1904 single shot .22 "Boy's rifle". It is only 37" tip to tip. My neighbor gave this to me last Spring.



I can't find what the original price was for these.

At that time, it would have sold for around $5.00