No Profanity *** No Flaming *** No Advertising *** No Anti Trappers ***NO POLITICS
No Non-Target Catches *** No Links to Anti-trapping Sites *** No Avoiding Profanity Filter


Home~Trap Talk~ADC Forum~Trap Shed~Wilderness Trapping~International Trappers~Fur Handling

Auction Forum~Trapper Tips~Links~Gallery~Basic Sets~Convention Calendar~Chat~ Trap Collecting Forum

Trapper's Humor~Strictly Trapping~Fur Buyers Directory~Mugshots~Fur Sale Directory~Wildcrafting~The Pen and Quill

Trapper's Tales~Words From The Past~Legends~Archives~Kids Forum~Lure Formulators Forum~ Fermenter's Forum


~~~ Dobbins' Products Catalog ~~~


Minnesota Trapline Products
Please support our sponsor for the Trappers Talk Page - Minnesota Trapline Products


Print Thread
Hop To
Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control #6493429
03/17/19 12:01 PM
03/17/19 12:01 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,932
SEPA
L
Lugnut Offline OP
trapper
Lugnut  Offline OP
trapper
L

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,932
SEPA
What an Old Sears Roebbuck Catalog Teaches Us About Gun Control.

Jeff Minick | March 5, 2019

As I write these words, a reproduction of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, published in 1968 by Chelsea House, sits at my elbow.

The fat catalog is a casual reader’s delight and a historian’s treasure trove. Here are medicines like laudanum, herb tea, and castor oil. Here are tools, bobsleds, gasoline stoves, windmills, bicycles, clothing and footwear, valises, books, clocks and watches, fountain pens, banjos and snare drums, furniture and cutlery, buggies and wagons. (The price of most surreys is under $100, a belt is fifty cents, a child’s high chair a dollar, a ball room guide for gentlemen twenty-five cents.)

And in the Sporting Goods Department we find 28 pages of guns, ammunition, and accessories.

Here we have weapons ranging from the Daisy Air Rifle to “Our $1.55 Revolver,” from shotguns for $7.95 to Marlin Repeating Rifles. Sears, Roebuck & Company also sold ammunition, pistol holders, reloading tools, and cleaners for these weapons.

No one was monitoring these sales. The government had no part in regulation. No one conducted background checks on the buyers. Indeed, Sears brags that it is “the headquarter for everything in guns,” that their prices are below all others, and that “we will send any revolver to any address.”

Yikes, right? Even a common laborer, for three or four days wages, could order a Saturday night special from Sears. With guns and ammo so easily available, we might guess that the streets of every American city and town were running red with blood every day of the week. Mass murder surely occurred on a weekly basis. Assassination and terrorist attacks must have happened so regularly that no one blinked an eye.

We might guess so, but we would be wrong.

In 1900, the number of murders and “non-negligent homicides” in the United States was approximately 1 in every 100,000 inhabitants (This figure and the others in this paragraph include all murders, not just those by firearms.) In 1980, that figure was close to 11 murders per 100,000 people. Since then, that figure has declined to between 4 and 5 murders per 100,000. (For a deeper analysis, see here.) Bear in mind too that unlike today, a gunshot wound in 1900 frequently resulted in death.

These statistics contrasted with the easy availability of guns should raise some questions. Why in 1900, when firearms were so readily accessible, were murders so infrequent? Why are murders today quadruple what they were in 1900? Based on what gun-control activists tell us, shouldn’t we expect the exact opposite?

Doubtless such questions might provoke many responses. They deserve study by investigators whose education, credentials, and research are superior to my own. But surely some obvious reasons account for our higher murder rate. Here are a few of them.

First, our recent ancestors had more respect than we do for human life. People living in 1900 died from diseases and ailments now vanquished. They were more familiar with death than most of us living today. Relatives often died at home rather than in a hospital. In a time of high infant mortality and death due to diseases now casually treated with antibiotics, perhaps each life was regarded as special.

In addition, the men and women of 1900 were not drenched in today’s artificial violence. According to some studies, the average young person will see 200,000 acts of violence in movies and on television by the age of 18. Furthermore, numerous studies show that playing violent video games lead to aggressiveness, especially in young men. Were Mortal Kombat, Postal, and Mad World available to sixteen-year-old Johnny in 1900, perhaps he too would have been more prone to take to the streets with his father’s revolver.

The breakdown of the family, accompanied by the erosion of religious faith and moral teaching in schools and the public square, has surely contributed as well to the increase in gun violence and the murder rate. Young men growing up fatherless, the belief that we can create our own moral code, the move away from the Commandments, including the one enjoining us not to kill, may all contribute to our higher murder rates.

Many citizens today advocate “gun control.” If we restrict or eliminate gun ownership, their argument goes, we will reduce the number of murders. Nevertheless, the puzzle remains: Why were so few of our ancestors shooting one another when guns could be bought as easily as soap, shoes, and slipcovers?

Instead of pointing at firearms as the cause of violence, maybe we should ask: “What sort of people have we become? What part of our humanity have we lost in the past six-score years?”

To steal a construct from Shakespeare: Perhaps the fault lies not in our guns, but in ourselves.


Eh...wot?

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493437
03/17/19 12:10 PM
03/17/19 12:10 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,751
williamsburg ks
D
danny clifton Offline
"Grumpy Old Man"
danny clifton  Offline
"Grumpy Old Man"
D

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,751
williamsburg ks
In 1967 the sears catalog was full of firearms. A 12 year old with a paper route and a trap line could buy a new 22 pistol by going to the post office, buying a money order, mailing it to sears, and in a couple 3-4 weeks the mailman would bring him his brand new 9 shot h and r sportsman trapline pistol.

We need to bring that back.


Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493452
03/17/19 12:30 PM
03/17/19 12:30 PM
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 16,951
OH
Catch22 Offline
trapper
Catch22  Offline
trapper

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 16,951
OH
In 78 I purchased my first shotgun. A Savage 20 gauge single shot and a box of shells for $47.00. Got it at the downtown main st sporting goods store. Those stores are gone here now, and of course a kid can't buy guns anymore. That article is spot on, it's not the guns, it's how society has evolved and has become broken. Thanks for sharing Lug!


I wonder if tap dancers walk into a room, look at the floor, and think, I'd tap that. I wonder about things.....
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493458
03/17/19 12:36 PM
03/17/19 12:36 PM
Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,666
PA
W
w side rd 151 Offline
trapper
w side rd 151  Offline
trapper
W

Joined: Jul 2017
Posts: 2,666
PA
Lugnut Good post The next to last paragraph of Mr Minick article Is "What sort of people have we become?' That just about nails it in 6 words

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493491
03/17/19 01:25 PM
03/17/19 01:25 PM
Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,655
Meridian , ID
B
Badgerman50 Offline
trapper
Badgerman50  Offline
trapper
B

Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,655
Meridian , ID
One word answer is all that is needed. Demographics.


Badgerman
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493499
03/17/19 01:38 PM
03/17/19 01:38 PM

K
krispcritter
Unregistered
krispcritter
Unregistered
K



I remember shopping for sporting goods with my Dad at sears.

[Linked Image]


I don't go through many shells. Blue box marked $4.99 and the other $2.25
That was a big outing for the family. May have even got out to eat as a treat.

Last edited by krispcritter; 03/17/19 01:39 PM.
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493593
03/17/19 03:26 PM
03/17/19 03:26 PM
Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 4,951
rogers city mi.
J
jeff karsten Offline
trapper
jeff karsten  Offline
trapper
J

Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 4,951
rogers city mi.
100 percent true, people took care of their business and if it wasn't theirs it belonged to someone else and crimes were punished repeat offenders didn't exist at least not for long


olden tyred
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493660
03/17/19 05:30 PM
03/17/19 05:30 PM
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 15,540
Champaign County, Ohio.
K
KeithC Offline
trapper
KeithC  Offline
trapper
K

Joined: May 2009
Posts: 15,540
Champaign County, Ohio.
The murder rate went up with the increase of minorities in the US. If you remove black and Hispanic murderers, the numbers of murders per 100,000 is virtually the same as in the 1800s.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/race-and-homicide-in-america-by-the-numbers

The US Government, through welfare programs, increased the population of minorities and poor whites, with low work ethic and morals, increasing the murder rate and the number of welfare recipients. The US will fall because the government breeds culls.

If you can't support yourself, you should not be allowed to have kids and definitely not encouraged to.

Keith

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493933
03/17/19 10:39 PM
03/17/19 10:39 PM
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 484
MO
T
trap master Offline
trapper
trap master  Offline
trapper
T

Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 484
MO
keithC you are absolutely right! my grandfather on my mothers side retired from sears after many years, i still got me some Ted Williams 20 guage shells! ive got some old sears catalogues that still look brand new. 22 rifles for $4.25!

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6493968
03/18/19 12:12 AM
03/18/19 12:12 AM
Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 3,211
Co.-Wy. part time AK.
W
wy.wolfer Offline
trapper
wy.wolfer  Offline
trapper
W

Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 3,211
Co.-Wy. part time AK.
Originally Posted by Lugnut
What an Old Sears Roebbuck Catalog Teaches Us About Gun Control.

Jeff Minick | March 5, 2019

As I write these words, a reproduction of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, published in 1968 by Chelsea House, sits at my elbow.

The fat catalog is a casual reader’s delight and a historian’s treasure trove. Here are medicines like laudanum, herb tea, and castor oil. Here are tools, bobsleds, gasoline stoves, windmills, bicycles, clothing and footwear, valises, books, clocks and watches, fountain pens, banjos and snare drums, furniture and cutlery, buggies and wagons. (The price of most surreys is under $100, a belt is fifty cents, a child’s high chair a dollar, a ball room guide for gentlemen twenty-five cents.)

And in the Sporting Goods Department we find 28 pages of guns, ammunition, and accessories.

Here we have weapons ranging from the Daisy Air Rifle to “Our $1.55 Revolver,” from shotguns for $7.95 to Marlin Repeating Rifles. Sears, Roebuck & Company also sold ammunition, pistol holders, reloading tools, and cleaners for these weapons.

No one was monitoring these sales. The government had no part in regulation. No one conducted background checks on the buyers. Indeed, Sears brags that it is “the headquarter for everything in guns,” that their prices are below all others, and that “we will send any revolver to any address.”

Yikes, right? Even a common laborer, for three or four days wages, could order a Saturday night special from Sears. With guns and ammo so easily available, we might guess that the streets of every American city and town were running red with blood every day of the week. Mass murder surely occurred on a weekly basis. Assassination and terrorist attacks must have happened so regularly that no one blinked an eye.

We might guess so, but we would be wrong.

In 1900, the number of murders and “non-negligent homicides” in the United States was approximately 1 in every 100,000 inhabitants (This figure and the others in this paragraph include all murders, not just those by firearms.) In 1980, that figure was close to 11 murders per 100,000 people. Since then, that figure has declined to between 4 and 5 murders per 100,000. (For a deeper analysis, see here.) Bear in mind too that unlike today, a gunshot wound in 1900 frequently resulted in death.

These statistics contrasted with the easy availability of guns should raise some questions. Why in 1900, when firearms were so readily accessible, were murders so infrequent? Why are murders today quadruple what they were in 1900? Based on what gun-control activists tell us, shouldn’t we expect the exact opposite?

Doubtless such questions might provoke many responses. They deserve study by investigators whose education, credentials, and research are superior to my own. But surely some obvious reasons account for our higher murder rate. Here are a few of them.

First, our recent ancestors had more respect than we do for human life. People living in 1900 died from diseases and ailments now vanquished. They were more familiar with death than most of us living today. Relatives often died at home rather than in a hospital. In a time of high infant mortality and death due to diseases now casually treated with antibiotics, perhaps each life was regarded as special.

In addition, the men and women of 1900 were not drenched in today’s artificial violence. According to some studies, the average young person will see 200,000 acts of violence in movies and on television by the age of 18. Furthermore, numerous studies show that playing violent video games lead to aggressiveness, especially in young men. Were Mortal Kombat, Postal, and Mad World available to sixteen-year-old Johnny in 1900, perhaps he too would have been more prone to take to the streets with his father’s revolver.

The breakdown of the family, accompanied by the erosion of religious faith and moral teaching in schools and the public square, has surely contributed as well to the increase in gun violence and the murder rate. Young men growing up fatherless, the belief that we can create our own moral code, the move away from the Commandments, including the one enjoining us not to kill, may all contribute to our higher murder rates.

Many citizens today advocate “gun control.” If we restrict or eliminate gun ownership, their argument goes, we will reduce the number of murders. Nevertheless, the puzzle remains: Why were so few of our ancestors shooting one another when guns could be bought as easily as soap, shoes, and slipcovers?

Instead of pointing at firearms as the cause of violence, maybe we should ask: “What sort of people have we become? What part of our humanity have we lost in the past six-score years?”

To steal a construct from Shakespeare: Perhaps the fault lies not in our guns, but in ourselves.

Great post! Eloquent and direct!

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6494034
03/18/19 07:45 AM
03/18/19 07:45 AM
Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 2,446
Tug Hill, NY
S
Squash Offline
trapper
Squash  Offline
trapper
S

Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 2,446
Tug Hill, NY
In the 60 ‘s where I went to school there was a general store across the street from the school less than 200’. They sold guns and most anyone could walk in and purchase a gun without a background check. I don’t remember any school shootings back then ?

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6495077
03/19/19 05:34 AM
03/19/19 05:34 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,751
williamsburg ks
D
danny clifton Offline
"Grumpy Old Man"
danny clifton  Offline
"Grumpy Old Man"
D

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 29,751
williamsburg ks
There were no school shootings because the insane cowards that do that, knew there were firearms in pickups, in car trunks, maybe in a locker or in shop class, and somebody but more likely somebodies, were going to fight back.


Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: danny clifton] #6495514
03/19/19 03:07 PM
03/19/19 03:07 PM
Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 1,240
Minnesota
Woodsloafer72 Offline
trapper
Woodsloafer72  Offline
trapper

Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 1,240
Minnesota
Originally Posted by danny clifton
There were no school shootings because the insane cowards that do that, knew there were firearms in pickups, in car trunks, maybe in a locker or in shop class, and somebody but more likely somebodies, were going to fight back.


When my son was in high school he always parked on the street. Shotgun was in his truck. They had an "active shooter" drill one day and the shop teacher asked the class if they knew what to do. My boy said to go to his truck, grab the shotgun, and end the problem . grin The teacher agreed, but said he wasn't allowed to do it.

Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Lugnut] #6495524
03/19/19 03:22 PM
03/19/19 03:22 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 15,594
MN, Land of 10,000 Lakes
T
Trapper7 Offline
trapper
Trapper7  Offline
trapper
T

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 15,594
MN, Land of 10,000 Lakes
When I think of Sears catalogs I think of JC Higgins and didn't Ted Williams have his name on some Sears sporting goods too?


I don't care how nice the hand soap smells, you should never walk out of the restroom sniffing your fingers.
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Trapper7] #6495526
03/19/19 03:25 PM
03/19/19 03:25 PM
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 16,951
OH
Catch22 Offline
trapper
Catch22  Offline
trapper

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 16,951
OH
Originally Posted by Trapper7
When I think of Sears catalogs I think of JC Higgins and didn't Ted Williams have his name on some Sears sporting goods too?

Yes he did. I still have some Ted Williams fishing line and I used to Have a boat motor with his name on it. Wish I still had it!


I wonder if tap dancers walk into a room, look at the floor, and think, I'd tap that. I wonder about things.....
Re: Old Sears Catalog and Gun Control [Re: Catch22] #6495533
03/19/19 03:40 PM
03/19/19 03:40 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,932
SEPA
L
Lugnut Offline OP
trapper
Lugnut  Offline OP
trapper
L

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,932
SEPA
I still have a boat with Ted Williams name on it. It’s a Sears Gamefisher 16 foot fiberglass Tri-hull.


Eh...wot?

Previous Thread
Index
Next Thread