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Trip with a time machine
I bought a December 1966 issue of The American Rifleman at an estate sale today. It's quite a trip back in time.
Circulation -- it was then the only NRA magazine -- 855,000. It lists all the new life members for the month, a bit over a page of fine print.
Harlon Carter was President, Harold Glassen the vice president.
An article on handgun training, with everyone shooting one-handed. One on an NRA member who'd earned the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, and another member who won the Navy Cross, on top of six Purple Hearts.
And of course the ads... M-1 carbines for $65, Mauser 98 barreled actions in many chamberings for $59, surplus Winchester 97 shotguns, with military markings, for the same price, ordinary M98 Mausers for $28-30....
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One of my favorite sayings ... "these are the good old days."
Read enough issues from that era (a friend bought me a foot or more's worth in the early '80s) and you'll see coverage of innumerable Dodd Hearings, where Chris Dodd's father (later pushed out for corruption) was working on getting his gun control bill passed, eventually the GCA of '68.
And a whole bunch of other stuff that reminds you that was a different time, different world. An organization proud of and interested in riflemen in Vietnam (well, the protestors got and get all the good MSM press, but there was at least one other side to it).
I own almost every issue of the Rifleman going back into the 1920s. Every so often I pull out a years' worth or two and remind myself of what we've lost. Not too often though. It's depressing.
Mr. Hardy,I have been collecting the Rifleman since 1960. I have had complete years bound at a library bindery. My bound collection is complete from 1923 thru 1974. I am getting old and am going to need a home for them. In 1924 or so, NRA announced they had signed the 50,000 th member. In those days, NRA clubs shared the magazine with their members (they had club houses associated with their shooting ranges) and individual members did not get a magazine subscripion. Not many early issues survived . Any ideas ? I have been thinking E-bay.
And you could buy 'em all by mail. O frabjous day.