Freedom

I remember when anyone could buy a gun from a catalog and the US Post Office would deliver it to your house.  I've told the kids about this and they're amazed, but Brownells recently put a picture of one of their old catalogs on Facebook and I sucked it off of their Facebook page.

You can click on the picture to enlarge it, but a new Ruger Mark 1, bull barrel for $112.50.  What a deal.  Just fill out the order form in the back of the catalog, enclose a money order, and in a couple of weeks, your new pistol would come to your door.  No background check, no questions asked.

I wanted to buy a pistol out of the back of Field and Stream magazine, but Momma wouldn't let me.  I was about 10 years old at the time.  But, by the time I got to be 12 years old, I bought my first pump shotgun from the old McBride Rod and Gun Club at the now defunct England Air Force Base.  It was a Winchester Model 1200 and it cost me $87.50.  I saved that money myself by working Saturdays as a skeet boy for 50 cents per hour.  This was in 1965.

Of course, all that came to an end in 1968.  Congress passed a gun control law and freedom declined just a little bit.  Today, when people talk about gun control, I remember when a kid could walk into a gun shop, plunk down his money and buy a gun.

Freedom!  Let Freedom Ring.