What did your grandparents pack for personal protection in the Golden Era?

[Spitfire]

Maybe not your grandparents, but probably their neighbors.

After all, Beretta, FN, Mauser, Star, Walther and a dozen other manufacturers weren't selling all those civilian .25 and .32 vest pocket pistols overseas prior to the 40's.

I thik it's a very american thing to carry guns. Just look at all the entries here in this thread. They - more or less - all come from US.
In Europe we just dont have that culture - it died with The 3 Musketeers!
And those who still do are either cops or criminals.

 

[Spitfire]

I have better elaborate a little on this:
My grandparents lived in the countryside in 1900 - 1930. Back in those days, you used your fists if you got into a fight. And that was it!
No kicking. No sitting. Just a swing to the jaw!
And you fought till one was lying down - and then you stopped. And made up over a glass of beer.
Some criminals, robbers etc. offcourse could use weapons if it really became serious. But the ordinary man on the street, had no need for guns, knifes etc.
Not because there was no violence - it was just not as deadly as in some other countries.

On the other hand - my father was carrying a huge revolver, handgrenades and sometimes a stengun for protection, when he was young back in the forties. But that was because he was a member of the resistance fighting the nazis. But that's a whole other story.

 

[carebear]

I have better elaborate a little on this:
My grandparents lived in the countryside in 1900 - 1930. Back in those days, you used your fists if you got into a fight. And that was it!
No kicking. No sitting. Just a swing to the jaw!
And you fought till one was lying down - and then you stopped. And made up over a glass of beer.
Some criminals, robbers etc. offcourse could use weapons if it really became serious. But the ordinary man on the street, had no need for guns, knifes etc.
Not because there was no violence - it was just not as deadly as in some other countries.

On the other hand - my father was carrying a huge revolver, handgrenades and sometimes a stengun for protection, when he was young back in the forties. But that was because he was a member of the resistance fighting the nazis. But that's a whole other story.

Spitfire,

I don't disagree the culture is (and was) somewhat different but you make a very telling remark. Americans who carry, then and now, aren't using guns in "friendly fights with the neighbors". A friendly brawl is a friendly brawl, law-abiding US gun owners don't shoot people in them, then or now. So saying "my grandpa used his fists" is a non-sequiter. So did mine, against an acquaintence who called him a jerk or slighted him in a bar in some minor way. But, as you say, trying to use your fists against an armed robber isn't going to end with both people shaking hands and buying each other beers. Please continue to make the distinction when you think about violence.

Guns are carried (by non-criminals), then and now, for protection against criminal assault not for indiscriminate use. Ownership and carry was not uncommon in European cities (crime being primarily an urban problem in Europe due to a lack of true wide-open undeveloped spaces for banditry in the latter part of the 19th/early 20th Century) among the middle/upper classes (there's a culture divide right there) as it was not uncommon for the general populace in the US. Look at your own history for when laws restricting carry and possession came into being and when and whom they were enforced against. Look at histories of European gun manufacturers and who they sold to. Read period novels and news stories and biographies and see how matter-of-factly the concept is addressed. It's a part of many European countries historys that has been swept under the rug, for good or ill.

I apologize if this seems solely political, that isn't my intent. It's primarily historical accuracy. I dislike revisionism and this is one subject it is so very blatant in.

 

[John in Covina]

A gun is a tool, the real weapon is the mind.

 

[carebear]

A gun is a tool, the real weapon is the mind.

"This is the law:
There is no possible victory in defense,
The sword is more important than the shield,
And skill is more important than either,
The final weapon is the brain.
All else is supplemental."
-John Steinbeck

1902-1968, he's vintage

 

[Spitfire]

Matthew
I have no interest or need to discuss the way weapons (guns) are used in USA. It's your culture (and your problem.)
I did not write my comment to start a political discussion either.
Only to underline that there were countries in this crazy world, were everybody did not feel the need to carry guns to feel safe. And there still is.

 

[carebear]

Matthew
I have no interest or need to discuss the way weapons (guns) are used in USA. It's your culture (and your problem.)
I did not write my comment to start a political discussion either.
Only to underline that there were countries in this crazy world, were everybody did not feel the need to carry guns to feel safe. And there still is.

Consider it received and understood.

 

[green papaya]

Where was his cafe?

San Francisco, California

 

[Harry Pierpont]

I don't know by who or if it was carried, but after my grandmother died, granpa has been dead several years, we found a lead filled leather sap under her car seat

 

[Fatdutchman]

My grandfather had a sap that I used to play with when I was little in the '70's...he was a deputy sheriff.

 

[MudInYerEye]

Eightball in a sock.

 

[John in Covina]

Matthew
I have no interest or need to discuss the way weapons (guns) are used in USA. It's your culture (and your problem.)

*****
Guns are not the problem, criminals are the problem.

 

[ramblinBOB]

a tommy gun now try and mess with me labor board

 

[up196]

The "gun culture" of the USA

Matthew
I have no interest or need to discuss the way weapons (guns) are used in USA. It's your culture (and your problem.)
I did not write my comment to start a political discussion either.
Only to underline that there were countries in this crazy world, were everybody did not feel the need to carry guns to feel safe. And there still is.

. . . the ordinary man on the street, had no need for guns, knifes etc.
Not because there was no violence - it was just not as deadly as in some other countries.

On the other hand - my father was carrying a huge revolver, handgrenades and sometimes a stengun for protection, when he was young back in the forties. But that was because he was a member of the resistance fighting the nazis. But that's a whole other story.

I know that in some places, the US is viewed as a country that has never been able to get away from its "gun culture," and the perception is that everybody goes around totin' iron like it's the Old West.

On the other hand - we've never been invaded, but we've supplied guns to the resistance in countries that have been, where everybody did not feel the need to carry guns to feel safe.

Hmmmm . . .

 

[Spitfire]

I know that in some places, the US is viewed as a country that has never been able to get away from its "gun culture," and the perception is that everybody goes around totin' iron like it's the Old West.

On the other hand - we've never been invaded, but we've supplied guns to the resistance in countries that have been, where everybody did not feel the need to carry guns to feel safe.

Hmmmm . . .

Hmmm...I guesse US can thank it's geografic position more than the fact that every other or third person in the country has a weapon, for not being invaded.
Who should invade you? The canadians? The mexicans? The Cubans???

And the perception that US delivered weapons to all the occupied countries?
My father carried a Stengun - british!
A large revolver - from the danish army, originally a british production!
Handgrenades - German! (Stolen.)
But besides that - you are right.

 

[Fatdutchman]

Don't worry, America is becoming more and more like Europe every day!

We are no longer the "Shining city on a hill" to stand as an example for the rest of the world. I'm only 34 years old and have seen an immense decline even during my lifetime.

People no longer want freedom (in fact, most are scared to death of it). They prefer license.

 

[carebear]

This is out of character for me but...

watch the politics, however polite. I can PM y'all dozens of links to boards where we talk about nothing but guns and gun control (and the politics of freedom vs. statism) if you want them.

I'd like to continue to hear about different actual elder's choices, for two reasons.

First, because it's kind of neat to be reminded it isn't (and hasn't ever been) an unusual or particularly uncommon thing for ordinary people (not "nuts", "paranoids" or "thugs") to do;

second, because the weapons choices and history of where those family heirlooms came from and went to is part of our history that gets ignored or actively denied nowadays.

Movies and books of a period aren't the best way to learn history but by looking at the background, at the things taken so naturally they really don't form part of the story, you can get an idea of what was "regular living" at the time. Firearms are one such thing, they're just "there", like cigarettes or a highball at 3, and no one really remarks if someone has one.

Hearing about our own elders who it appears just "had protection" and didn't make a big deal about it, shows it to not be movie convenience but rather a real part of ordinary living in the times.

Part of our Vintage Past. I'd like to keep hearing it.

Thanks guys.

 

[Doctor Strange]

You know, there are plenty of American folks here with nothing to contribute to this thread. Not all Americans have a history of armed ancestors...

My grandparents were immigrant Jews who lived in NYC, and as far as I know, none of them ever owned any "protection" beyond a baseball bat or kitchen knife. My parents both served in WWII - my dad in the Army Air Corps and my mom in the Marines. Both went through weapons training, of course - but neither carried a weapon on a regular basis, nor was ever involved in active combat.

The only guns I have ever personally handled were some old 1903 Springfield rifles that my parents had in their basement when I was a kid. These were left over from Veteran's Day parade use by the Jewish War Veterans (of which my dad was a local president in the 1950s), and were not really in working condition, nor was there any ammunition for them. My mom later (when I was in college) traded these for an M1 carbine... she took it to the range a few times, and kept it around for a few years. But she ultimately sold it. I never saw it fired.

While I am vaguely interested in gun technology the same way that I appreciate old mechanical cameras and cars, I haven't fired one since I shot a .22 in Boy Scouts nearly 40 years ago. My own teenage son has never held a real gun.

I mention all of this as a bit of a corrective to our foreign friends: not every American grows up surrounded with firearms. Many of us have little or no personal experience of them. And that's just fine.

 

[Spitfire]

You are so right, Doc!

Thank you for your very wellwritten and balanced post.
I guesse Hollywood has to take a bit of the blame here.
But we are also many foreigners who take Michael Moore with a grain of salt.

 

[Mindraker]

The image of America as being one having guns everywhere is partially due to movies. In 1986, while my family was abroad, my mother was asked in an international women's club by an Iranian woman whether or not she carried a gun around with her in the United States. lol
Obviously, these stereotypes seemed ridiculous to us -- just as much as everyone asking the Russians after the Cold War... "Oh, you're from Russia! It's cold there -- right?"