Reloader
Ultimate Member
And for another buck each for the gas tank, 3 or 4 kids were riding all night long.
The gas pumps started selling by the half gallon during Carter because they were never capable of over 99 cents a gallon
And for another buck each for the gas tank, 3 or 4 kids were riding all night long.
Back in the early 70s, there were not one, but two gunshops in the Iverson Mall in Prince Georges County. I remember riding my bike up there just drool over the guns at the Montgomery Wards gun department and the Marvin's Sports City. At MW, the gun dept was under the escalator on the first floor. And there were still a few guns at the Western Auto, not more than about 400 yds away in the Marlow Heights Shopping Center.
JoeR
I remember Memco from the early 80's. They must have been one of the first membership big boxes? fred55
Sears, KMart, J.C. Penney's, and Montgomery Wards continued selling guns in their WV stores until the mid-1980s. For about 3 years, you could buy a gun at the mall downtown in Charleston WV from any one of three anchor stores (Sears, J.C. Penney's, and Monkey Wards) that had a firearms counter. I feel like KMart stuck in there a little longer, but not by much.
As to what happened? Hippies and Yuppies. Stores changed their offerings to reflect the desires of those wielding the most money at the time. Sales at gun counters slowed, it didn't make sense for large corporations to continue paying for so many licenses, so they closed them down and replaced them with expanded sporting goods sections with more home exercise equipment or whatever the fad of the day was. By the early 1980s, former hippies were firmly entrenched in the middle class and the latter half of the boomer generation were climbing up the corporate ladder quickly. They had the money, their folks hadn't passed on the hunting and shooting traditions as much, or they shied away from guns for social reasons, and that was it.
During a summer break from school I worked at the local Monkey Wards. I drooled over the Marlin 39 and S&W Model 52 they had...and they sat all summer and were still there when I left for school.
After graduation I worked for JC Penney for six years. I bought a Remington Nylon 66 and a Remington 870 Wingmaster there...still have both.
As far as Penney's goes...the corporate masters decided to have a major image upgrade...it was referred to as "Fashion Project"...all hard lines (lawn and garden, tools, tires and accessories, sporting goods) were all done away with as they didn't fit the image of what upper management wanted. To be honest...Penney's was a soft lines company historically and I don't believe their old-line buyers and managers had a clue about how to compete in those markets. They went back to what they knew...clothing, sheets and towels and the like.
In the DC, Md area the first Membership box store I remember was call GEM, in the early mid 60s maybe even before then. It was on Chillum road in Queenstown section of Hyattsville next to the bowling ally, Drive in Theater and the Mighty Mo hamburger drive in.
I'm the OP and that Western Auto is where we bought the marlin 30.30.
I still have a few passed down boxes of ammo from Kmart, Target and sears.
Dad grew up in the twin cities in the 60's and graduated in 1974, the HS had a rimfire shooting range in the basement. He tells me the stories of taking his .22 to school, it got 'checked in' and put in a locker with everyone else's during the day but beyond that... NOBODY gave two ****s and when you left after shooting practice you could walk home with your cased rifle and NOBODY thought anything of it. Now if you were carrying it like rambo and being stupid pointing it at people... then not so much.
Hell even up until the late 80's or early 90's it was nothing to see a populated gun rack in the back window at any of the high schools here in st marys during hunting season.
What happend ?
The left's war on guns has been a slow and methodical approach to make them taboo and out of place in society. With maryland being a text book example of boiling the frog. They cannot come right out and ban everything everywhere (they would sure love too) so it is easier to just keep passing more feel good BS and by default make everything illegal one little check box at a time. Handguns in MD being a good example.
I worked in Sporting Goods at Zayre’s during high school. The one peculiar thing I remember was having to “log” all ammo sales in a notebook with the buyer’s name and drivers license info. We were on the Canadian border, so perhaps this was to minimize the sale to Canadians? Not sure.
I worked at Woolworth in Bel Air in the mid 80’s. We sold Garands for $99 and M1 Carbines for $89. I could have gotten an employee discount if I were old enough.
Montgomery Ward and Western Auto used to have their own branded guns (Western Field and Revelation) I saw my very first stainless handgun at Montgomery Ward at Eudowood Shopping Center