Gun Culture in MD/NJ/IL/NY etc...An outsiders Prospective

[anothernic]

If there are alot of Libs that own guns, they sure don't stand up to their Lib buddies who are pushing this anti gun crap ! Stop voting for the Libs that created this nanny state ! And what does approached correctly mean ? We have approached with every possible statistic, fact driven approach possible....There is no commons sense to these people !

I've got a low post count, so I don't know if this counts for as much here. I've lurked on and off for a couple of years. Never felt the need to be heard / sign up as I was trying to absorb things like a sponge during that time (and money for range toys permitting).

I'm "far-left" of center, but I argue regularly with people I know about weapons who have an anti-gun attitude. I try to network some with fellow shooters, and make it out to the range as money permits.

The problem, as I see it, is most of the people who consider themselves "liberal" are fine with the nanny state because they've never known a state to act outside of their interests to such an extreme that they feel self defense from it is a necessary option.

I blame Boy Scouts and family from Kentucky for my initial love of shooting though; nothing in Maryland made it particularly easy for me growing up in the 90s/00s. YMMV

 

[scouse]

I remember those days, good times, different world.

And WE let it happen!

 

[foxtrapper]

I was born in Takoma Park back when it was hippies and 7th Day Adventests ( I was born at the Adventist hospital, of 2 semi hippy parents). Grew up in Baltimore. I had NO exposure to gun culture growing up. I don't recall ever seeing a gun in another person's home of anyone my parents knew or any of the few friends I had. My exposure didn't start until my teen years, more like 15 to be precise. That was when my parents bought 10 acres in the country. First were some redneck neighbors who kept a .22 handy to shoot groundhogs, plus I'd hear people target shooting all the time. Go anywhere rural and you'd see pickups with gunracks inside them, with shotguns or rifles on them. Next was in January of 1989 when the news media started going full tilt over "assault weapons". They totally got my attention and I became obsessed with gun issues, and later was all fixated on Uzis. In 1990 I went to Hereford HS and was exposed to some kids who hunt, and then there was the 2 water tower incidents. Some naughty kid or another shot the thing on 2 separate occasions, causing it to leak. No one was ever caught for it, but the rumor was it was a student or ex student, and some kids said they knew who but no one was snitching. Now when this happened both times, there were no SWAT teams, no school lockdown, I didn't even see any cops period. No one at school ever talked about ADHD, autism, or being on pharma drugs for behavioral reasons. We had an English teacher who used to talk about 1911's. Hereford HS was already mostly inhabited by suburbanite type kids, and city transplants like myself. There was no school resource officer. In fact the very concept of an SRO is something I continue to be unable to wrap my head around, unless it is an inner city school ( like in those old 1970's movies about the Bronx...).

In college, I was stuck in dirty smelly semi crime ridden Baltimore of Bolton Hill. Holy hell. I lived with North ave behind me. I was the only person who wasn't a sheeple that I knew ( other than a few guys I met over the years there). The cluelessness was thick. But I was fully obsessed with guns by then. I was probably the only one who thought about concealed carry though. ( lightbulbs on!) I think what really made me think about how "gun people" really are is when I was able to get invites to go to a range ( in PG county too LOL) with my gay friend David and his dad. His dad was a real eye opener. He was retired from working for NASA ( a rocket scientist perhaps?), and had a huge gun collection, including at least 3 with happy switches and an M60 that was in some class 3 shop somewhere being worked on. He was NOT a crazy redneck lunatic gun nut who reads Soldier of Fortune while hunkering in his bunker! The 2 experiences of going to the range were just amazing! I was totally pro gun after that, but my obsession waned and I didn't really think about guns and gun issues again until 2007. I am now in gun obsession part 2, est april 2007 and still running strong. In this go-round I was obsessed about concealed and open carry at first, then it morphed, and even included deer hunting, and now evil black rifles. I am currently fixated on P90/PS90's and the 5.7 round.

 

[HiballHiside]

It was nice carrying my Arsenal AK around slung at the gun show in York today. It felt like I was in another world, one that actually didn't suck. Nobody screamed, got terrified, called 911, or even gave me a second look beyond the occasional "Hey, nice gun", or "that's cool. What is it?".

I hate Maryland.

This!

 

[HiballHiside]

If there are alot of Libs that own guns, they sure don't stand up to their Lib buddies who are pushing this anti gun crap ! Stop voting for the Libs that created this nanny state ! And what does approached correctly mean ? We have approached with every possible statistic, fact driven approach possible....There is no commons sense to these people !

I think the difference is trying to have the same gunversation with Frosh may be different than talking to the Average marylander that doesn't have much gun culture or has been brainwashed by the media.

The handful of people that are pushing this legislation aren't in touch with the majority of the citizens which is why the government approval rating is piss poor.

The fight to educate people who are on the fence is not over. People will always side with self preservation. Shaping the argument is important such that it applies to the individual situation will always work better than driving facts.

 

[HiballHiside]

I was born in Takoma Park back when it was hippies and 7th Day Adventests ( I was born at the Adventist hospital, of 2 semi hippy parents). Grew up in Baltimore. I had NO exposure to gun culture growing up. I don't recall ever seeing a gun in another person's home of anyone my parents knew or any of the few friends I had. My exposure didn't start until my teen years, more like 15 to be precise. That was when my parents bought 10 acres in the country. First were some redneck neighbors who kept a .22 handy to shoot groundhogs, plus I'd hear people target shooting all the time. Go anywhere rural and you'd see pickups with gunracks inside them, with shotguns or rifles on them. Next was in January of 1989 when the news media started going full tilt over "assault weapons". They totally got my attention and I became obsessed with gun issues, and later was all fixated on Uzis. In 1990 I went to Hereford HS and was exposed to some kids who hunt, and then there was the 2 water tower incidents. Some naughty kid or another shot the thing on 2 separate occasions, causing it to leak. No one was ever caught for it, but the rumor was it was a student or ex student, and some kids said they knew who but no one was snitching. Now when this happened both times, there were no SWAT teams, no school lockdown, I didn't even see any cops period. No one at school ever talked about ADHD, autism, or being on pharma drugs for behavioral reasons. We had an English teacher who used to talk about 1911's. Hereford HS was already mostly inhabited by suburbanite type kids, and city transplants like myself. There was no school resource officer. In fact the very concept of an SRO is something I continue to be unable to wrap my head around, unless it is an inner city school ( like in those old 1970's movies about the Bronx...).

In college, I was stuck in dirty smelly semi crime ridden Baltimore of Bolton Hill. Holy hell. I lived with North ave behind me. I was the only person who wasn't a sheeple that I knew ( other than a few guys I met over the years there). The cluelessness was thick. But I was fully obsessed with guns by then. I was probably the only one who thought about concealed carry though. ( lightbulbs on!) I think what really made me think about how "gun people" really are is when I was able to get invites to go to a range ( in PG county too LOL) with my gay friend David and his dad. His dad was a real eye opener. He was retired from working for NASA ( a rocket scientist perhaps?), and had a huge gun collection, including at least 3 with happy switches and an M60 that was in some class 3 shop somewhere being worked on. He was NOT a crazy redneck lunatic gun nut who reads Soldier of Fortune while hunkering in his bunker! The 2 experiences of going to the range were just amazing! I was totally pro gun after that, but my obsession waned and I didn't really think about guns and gun issues again until 2007. I am now in gun obsession part 2, est april 2007 and still running strong. In this go-round I was obsessed about concealed and open carry at first, then it morphed, and even included deer hunting, and now evil black rifles. I am currently fixated on P90/PS90's and the 5.7 round.

Thank you for sharing your background!

 

[HiballHiside]

I've got a low post count, so I don't know if this counts for as much here. I've lurked on and off for a couple of years. Never felt the need to be heard / sign up as I was trying to absorb things like a sponge during that time (and money for range toys permitting).

I'm "far-left" of center, but I argue regularly with people I know about weapons who have an anti-gun attitude. I try to network some with fellow shooters, and make it out to the range as money permits.

The problem, as I see it, is most of the people who consider themselves "liberal" are fine with the nanny state because they've never known a state to act outside of their interests to such an extreme that they feel self defense from it is a necessary option.

I blame Boy Scouts and family from Kentucky for my initial love of shooting though; nothing in Maryland made it particularly easy for me growing up in the 90s/00s. YMMV

Thanks for speaking up!

Maybe you can challenge some of the people who you know that are anti-gun to come out and shoot!? After shooting sit down and have a gun-versation. I'd be happy to participate.

 

[milldog]

I dunno where the OP lives, but maybe most of the people in HIS neighbor aren't anti-gun. But as long as we have Baltimore city, Prince George's county, and Montgomery county are part of MD, this will always be an anti-gun state because the takers outnumber the makers.

Tru'dat, though we know not everyone in those locales is anti-2A...though even now w/alll the resources available we still have some dummies...was trying to educate my pro-gun neighbor on 281 yesterday; he thought because he just bought a pistol he didn't have to do anything when it came to future post-Oct regulated , that owning a pistol made him exempt from 281 provisions. I've another co-worker who thought, because he was a reservist, 281 didn't apply to him so he wasn't too concerned about it.

 

[ma_deuce]

I grew up outside Frederick, 1956-74. When I was a kid in the '60s, Routzahns, the one department store in town other than Sears, was located on the "Square Corner" (Market and Patrick) and sold everything. The Boy Scout stuff was displayed right around the gun counter, where I used to salivate over the handguns, particularly a nickel-plated 6 1/2" Colt Frontier Scout with rosewood grips I'd have given my eyeteeth for. You could walk down to Sears and buy or order damned near any rifle made or available from surplus, and handgun and shotguns, too. Shooting was a regular part of life in the country, my old man would take pot-shots out the kitchen window at the groundhogs in his garden, and he taught me how to shoot a 1911 (he was a miserable shot with a handgun) in our back yard. We shot in Scouts, and got to shoot on the nearby Army ranges as part of our Scout training. Not just .22 trainers, either, hee, hee.

Like other have said before me, Maryland's culture has been transformed by outsiders. Only on the "fringes" of the state, the Eastern shore, the western counties, parts of southern Maryland, rural Harford and northern Baltimore counties, does one find remnants of the old Maryland. And here in Timonium, among the Korean shopkeepers, who value their freedom and intend to defend it.

 

[tsmith1499]

I was born and raised and have stayed in MoCo. I remember back in the mid 70's I used tocarry a Buck 110 in it's sheath all day in high school. Never had an issue. Different times then. We didn't think of our knives as "weapons". They were tools to cut hay bales open with or take cuttings from bushes or tree's in horticulture class and many other things. Totally different mindset now.

 

[Kinetic]

Born and raised in Harford county.

When I got out of the Army in the late 70's, I remember going into the Woolworths in Harford mall. They had a circular rack of M1 Garands on the floor at what must have been a great price. Customers didn't give it a second thought. Now the Woolworths and the Garands are long gone.

The times they are a changin', I suppose.

Sigh.

 

[sfchoffman]

I was born and raised and have stayed in MoCo. I remember back in the mid 70's I used tocarry a Buck 110 in it's sheath all day in high school. Never had an issue. Different times then. We didn't think of our knives as "weapons". They were tools to cut hay bales open with or take cuttings from bushes or tree's in horticulture class and many other things. Totally different mindset now.

Hell yeah, Make your hand in the form of a gun, and your expelled !

 

[sfchoffman]

Born and raised in Harford county.

When I got out of the Army in the late 70's, I remember going into the Woolworths in Harford mall. They had a circular rack of M1 Garands on the floor at what must have been a great price. Customers didn't give it a second thought. Now the Woolworths and the Garands are long gone.

The times they are a changin', I suppose.

Sigh.

I remember that, I believe they were Blue Sky rebuild Garands...Now I wish I had bought one !

 

[TrevorWills]

I'm a transplant to the state. Though in saying that I have been here for over 14 years now so I've spent almost half my life here so far. The sad thing is that I really didn't pay that much attention to politics when I was younger and even when I became old enough to vote I still didn't pay that much attention to local politics as it was always my idea that I would move away from here as soon as I found a good job. Problem was that I found a good job for me back down here in Southern Maryland. Now that I am starting and raising a family I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! But with new laws and regulations coming down like the sh!t it is rolling down hill I don't know how much longer I can stand to just sit here and take it. I can vote all I want against or for legislation but if Baltimore/PGCO/MOCO/or even Charles Co. are the opposite they always win. Almost makes it appear that Im in an episode of Who's Line is it Anyway? Where the legislations made up and the votes don't matter.

 

[K31]

Born and raised in Harford county.

When I got out of the Army in the late 70's, I remember going into the Woolworths in Harford mall. They had a circular rack of M1 Garands on the floor at what must have been a great price. Customers didn't give it a second thought. Now the Woolworths and the Garands are long gone.

The times they are a changin', I suppose.

Sigh.

I forgot about barrels of Swedish Mausers in the Woolworths in Frederick.

 

[JoeRinMD]

Anybody remember the Prince George rod and gun club off of George Palmer hwy and Rt 50.

Yes!! When I was a kid in the late 60s, I remember driving by there in my grandfather's car and seeing guys shooting trap within a hundred yards of the highway. Those were special times with my grandfather and I think about it frequently when I'm near there. Now there's a series of low-rise office buildings on that site. From what I've been able to gather, that used to be a private trap and skeet club, then they closed up and moved to the Eastern Shore (Millington, MD?) where they started another shotgun club.

I grew up in PG County and as others have noted, it was a much different place back then. In Iverson Mall, there was the Montgomery Wards gun counter right below the escalators that sold the "Ted Williams" and "Western Field" branded guns. Also in the mall there was a Marvin's Sports City that had a full line of rifles, pistols and shotguns on the first floor. My first rifle was my Christmas present in 1971 that my father bought from the Memco store on Allentown Rd across from Andrews AFB.

Most of my shooting was actually at the indoor range at the Anacostia Naval Air Station. I actually had one of the brothers who taught at my HS take me shooting several times down near Wayson's Corner in an abandoned sand and gravel quarry. That was my first time shooting a shotgun. Of course, today they would probably investigate him for being alone with a student.

JoeR