One very troublesome aspect of human psychology is normalcy bias, our hesitance to believe that the way things are right now is how they’ll always be, and how they always were. In many ways, that’s how it is with gun control. It’s easy to think that just because something has been a certain way your whole life that it can’t possibly change. Whether we live in denial or not, sometimes the world changes anyway.
After the NYSRPA v Bruen decision, anti-gun politicians and commentators accused the Supreme Court of things like “repealing the 20th century.” But, the truth is that even most of the 20th century wasn’t a gun control paradise. In this article, I’m going to give several examples of things that are “unthinkable” today that show gun control is both relatively new and entirely worthless.
Let’s start with this ad from 100 years ago:
100 years ago today…
Open up your issue of Popular Science. See ad. Hey.. neat.
Send postcard, don't send money. To California.
Company sends you pistol(s). From California. To your house.
You pay the postman.This is the way… pic.twitter.com/1s9RjfG0qG
— 2A History (@2aHistory) January 2, 2024
Not only was concealed carry and gun ownership common in those days, but one could simply send in a postcard requesting one. When the gun arrived, you’d pay the postman for the gun and then have it. There was no waiting period, background check, or any other hoop to jump through. The gun would go straight to your door.
But, if you wanted to go to a store and get one. Hardware stores sold firearms, suppressors, and many other highly-regulated things right on the shelf like a BB gun today. But, this guy thinks such a thing is crazy, despite it being normal only decades ago.
If you're against the ban on ghost guns, you in essence believe there should be no background checks on gun purchases whatsoever. You believe you should be able to pick up a gun at Ace Hardware next to the hammers.
It would be nice for RMGO to just admit this. #copolitics #coleg https://t.co/3MTTAY1Bdg
— 𝖠𝗅𝖺𝗇 𝖥𝗋𝖺𝗇𝗄𝗅𝗂𝗇 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@alanfranklin) January 1, 2024
Yes, we freely admit it!
If you ask around in your family, you can probably find similar tales of completely uncontrolled guns. In my family, my grandfather (who graduated high school in 1953, just 50 years before I did) says that he would just take guns to school. The teacher would have kids put their rifles in the back of the room or put them in their lockers during class so they could go to the school’s shooting range or go hunting after school.
Nobody got hurt. Nobody shot the place up.
My dad, who was in high school a couple decades later, tells similar stories. They didn’t want guns in the building, but it was completely normal for a gun or two to sit on a rifle rack in the back window of the cab of a pickup. Once again, despite students having guns on school grounds, nobody got them out and shot the place up. Shootings of any kind were far more rare than they are today (and they’re still pretty rare today).
People taught their kids to be responsible with guns. They taught them to be good people for the most part. Schools weren’t like prisons and kids got a healthy dose of personal freedom to grow as they became adults. The country has always had atheists, anarchists, socialists, and queer people (even if we had to hide in the closet), so those social changes don’t explain it, either. After all, the 1960s were a wild time, and we didn’t see anyone shooting people on campuses except the government (and Charles Whitman), right?
Something else changed, but it sure wasn’t the guns. If anything, removing guns and personal freedom from childhood contributed to this problem or caused it entirely.
We Shouldn’t Let People Treat Gun Control Like It’s Normal
When we see gun control activists acting like we’re crazy for not accepting their laws as normal, we need to remind them that what they’ve done to society isn’t normal. We should be able to take a gun just about anywhere we want without having to grovel for permission and pay money. We should be able to order guns online and have them shipped to our door, or go get one from a vending machine if someone wants to offer them and we want to buy one.
Kids should be taught not only gun safety, but marksmanship and an appreciation for human rights and freedom for all in schools. It should be normal for an older kid or teenager who has proven to their parents that they’re responsible to be able to go shooting after school and not have to swing by the house first.
They may have won against us decades ago, but that doesn’t mean we have to pretend that it’s acceptable or normal today.