TexasCHLforum.com

TexasCajun wrote:

VMI77 wrote:
I don't disagree, I just lament the loss of the culture I grew up in where walking down the street with a long gun was not considered suspicious activity.

I don't think there ever was a time where just hanging out with an openly carried long gun was common. I remember pick up trucks with gun racks. I remember guys walking to/from a quick hunt along country roads. But anybody not in hunting gear & not headed somewhere would've most certainly had to explain what they were doing.

Well, you'd be wrong...I don't know your age, but I'm 57, and I grew up in a small town, (have lived in the same county all my life, except for College), and as kids in the 60's and early 70's we walked around town with shotguns and rifles quite frequently. Occasionally, someone might pull up alongside us in a car, but not to question what we were doing...it was to ask us if we'd got anything for supper. If we were going very far out of town to hunt, we actually wired a gun rack on the back of our bicycles after finding out the hard way that strapping it to the handlebars wasn't a good idea if you rode to close to a tree or bush. Once we were able to drive, every PU in the school parking lot had a gun rack in it...with guns in them. When someone got a new gun, it was normal for a group of kids...and sometimes the teachers...to be out in the parking lot between class or at lunch to get it out and let everyone have a look at it. In Grade School, at Christmas for the class party, we all exchanged gifts with a maximum cost of $1.00...all the boys brought a boy's gift & the girls brought a girl's gift ( I know, not politically correct now), and the boys all wrapped up a box a .22 Long Rifles (cost $0.79) to give to each other...and nobody thought anything about it. It WAS a totally different culture back then, and I too lament it's passing.