http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr7Z_1WM8pg

-T.

My first was a crappy ChiCom Colt Agent looking thing.  It came apart the next day after I bought it, but it did give me some way-pre-eliminary insight of how revolvers work.

Excuse my lack of familiarity with revolver terminology, but DA guns have this arm that physically rotates the cylinder via these little ridges along the inner circumference of the cylinder.  Anyhow, this arm became disengaged because of that ChiCom's spotty workmanship.
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Since I haven't been around for a while (unlike you guys) How did this Cowboy fad get so strong in Baby Boom America?  Currently in my AP US History class, we are learning about Levittowns, Mc Carthy, Eisenhower, post-war economy, and even Elvis but no explanation of John Wayne or Roy Rogers.

I understand that due to this fad, Ruger started manufacturing single action revolvers.

BTW I'm willing to bet that playing "cowboys & indians" in the present would be a de-facto no-no from the PC brigade.

We used to run around in each others front yards and between the houses "shooting" at each other with cap guns, Star Wars blasters, squirt guns, G.I. Joe guns, and all manner of toy weaponry.  We'd be shouting "Pckkkhhhooo!", calling in reinforcements, falling over dead.

Kids doing that today would likely have SWAT sicked on them, and you'd be sure to hear about it on the 6 o'clock news.

It turns my stomach a little (seriously) how things have changed. 


-T.

It hasn't even been that long, T. It hasn't been too many years since I was a kid, doing all that same stuff. I used to patrol the neighborhood with my toy rifle and nobody gave me a second look.

Great video - thanks T!

Now I don't feel too bad for picking up a pair of Durango cap guns at Wal-mart the day I went to see Watchmen.  Silver color with white grips, but not to scale, unless they're somehow .36's like my old Colt Navy (it even fits in the plastic holster).

I still sometimes carve guns out of cardboard.  Used to do tons of it as a kid because I wanted an M-16, or an Uzi or a Colt Python.

Hell, I used to run around with my Kentucky Long Rifle FROM DISNEYLAND on Austin Avenue - a busy street with a bus line, stop lights and loads of traffic.  The other kids on the block had cooler guns, like M-14's and Schmeissers.

I'm 37 and things have really changed.  When I was a kid in the single digits we ran around town with pellet guns.  When I was barely into the double digits we all had 10/22s which we adorned with as much crap from the Ram-Line catalog as financially possible.  We wandered all over town and through the countryside with our .22s and spent time shooting rats at the dump or terrorizing the woodland creatures in season.  We'd buy entire bricks of ammo at the store without so much as a second glance from the clerk.  Now days five or six  12 year old boys toting semi-automatic "assault rifles" buying 6 or 7 thousand rounds of ammo would result in the activation of multiple SWAT teams and eventually end with some bill named after someone being passed.  The Precious Roy Pre-Teen Militia Prevention Act or something.

In high school we built crossbows, muzzleloaders and gun cabinets in shop class.  Probably 60-80% of trucks and cars driven to school had rifles or shotguns behind the seat or in the trunk.  Heaven help a whackjob who decided to shoot up our school.  There was more firepower in the parking lot than was possessed by the city and county police.  Knives were simple tools or fashion accessories.  Everyone carried a knife of some sort.  In the 5th grade until high school boot knives were all the rage.  If you were poor you had one of those cheap Pakistani imports and if you had a bit more money to spend you had a Gerber Mark I or II.  In elementary school the big thing was to keep a .22 round in the tag of your levi jacket.  Remington Yellow Jacket and Hornets were the most popular.  Those truncated bullets looked cool you know.  A regular round nosed bullet was a fashion faux pas unless it was at least a coated hollowpoint or something.  A kid with a bullet in school these days would be expelled and subjected to psychotropic drugs and extensive deprogramming.

Precious Roy,
I'm the same age.  I didn't grow up in your utopia.  Pellet guns etc weren't popular.  I've had a regular sized swiss army knife in my pocket since I was 16 regardless of any school rules etc.  I doubt that I would have been in trouble if someone saw that I had it in school.

You're right, nowadays those circumstances would land kids and parents in jail.

Jim

I'm not that old and I can remember cap-gun fights in the school at recess.  The teachers just insisted that we didn't shoot them in the school.

Almost everyone I know had knives in school, we were in a more rural part though. Then in high school, they had the drug dogs and crap, a lot of kids got in trouble because of shotgun shells in the truck beds because it was dove season. The rules are a joke, and are helping no one.

I'm 37 and things have really changed.  When I was a kid in the single digits we ran around town with pellet guns.  When I was barely into the double digits we all had 10/22s which we adorned with as much crap from the Ram-Line catalog as financially possible.  We wandered all over town and through the countryside with our .22s and spent time shooting rats at the dump or terrorizing the woodland creatures in season.  We'd buy entire bricks of ammo at the store without so much as a second glance from the clerk.  Now days five or six  12 year old boys toting semi-automatic "assault rifles" buying 6 or 7 thousand rounds of ammo would result in the activation of multiple SWAT teams and eventually end with some bill named after someone being passed.  The Precious Roy Pre-Teen Militia Prevention Act or something.

In high school we built crossbows, muzzleloaders and gun cabinets in shop class.  Probably 60-80% of trucks and cars driven to school had rifles or shotguns behind the seat or in the trunk.  Heaven help a whackjob who decided to shoot up our school.  There was more firepower in the parking lot than was possessed by the city and county police.  Knives were simple tools or fashion accessories.  Everyone carried a knife of some sort.  In the 5th grade until high school boot knives were all the rage.  If you were poor you had one of those cheap Pakistani imports and if you had a bit more money to spend you had a Gerber Mark I or II.  In elementary school the big thing was to keep a .22 round in the tag of your levi jacket.  Remington Yellow Jacket and Hornets were the most popular.  Those truncated bullets looked cool you know.  A regular round nosed bullet was a fashion faux pas unless it was at least a coated hollowpoint or something.  A kid with a bullet in school these days would be expelled and subjected to psychotropic drugs and extensive deprogramming.

This was my experience too. I'm 35 and grew up in Rural ND. Guns were as common as screwdrivers in the home. Most of my friends and I grew up with a .22 standing in the corner somewhere in the house. I got a bb gun when I was 6, my dad let me use the .22 when I was 8 or 9. I remember having it proped up against the wall by my bed at that time.  As a 10th grader I remember taking my .243 to english class to do a demonstration speech on how to disassemble it and clean it. It had to stay on the office until class, but our principle was a hunter who also taught shop class. Several people built compound bows in shop. I built a walnut stock for my grandma's remington 22 as my first shop project.

In middle school the cool thing was knives. Several of us carried those cheap boot knives strapped to our calves.

We'd run around with .22's and shoot gophers and things in town. My grandma would regularly shoot blackbirds and starlings off her porch in town to keep them away from her bird feeders. No one ever once thought anything of it.

Of course we played all the cowboys/indians, cops/robbers games with our toy guns as well. My mom to this day still doesn't like guns, but she let us play with them.

Times have changed, although I think in ND, things haven't changed that much. Now I live in VA and miss being able to step out on my porch and take shots at the geese passing over our farm during goose season.

Just a few years ago, when I was in junior high, some people carried around folding knives or multitools. Somehow, against the principal's best efforts, word had gotten out that the district regs allowed knives that were too small to count as weapons by state law. Now, our principal lied about that, said that they were illegal, but she had just handed out printed copies of the handbook that explicitly stated what constituted a weapon, and at least some of the teachers didn't care. The art teacher actually borrowed a classmate's multitool when he needed a knife, and didn't appear to give it a second thought. On the other hand, though, my best friend's girlfriend got expelled for having a pocket knife, I'm not sure if it was a case of not knowing the rules well enough to challenge it or if the blade was too long.