How Much My Gun Cost in 1964

[Black River Militaria CII]

A major contributing factor to the irrational and scurrilous effort to force pass the Hughes Amendment mid-‘86 was the year plus long high profile news arrticles demonizing of “black rifles”, semi-auto lookalike rifles of any type, etc, etc provided by Time, Newsweek, NY Times, and many other TV, newspaper, and mag articles. Lots of politicians jumped on this media gun bashing wagon to garner public support for gun control efforts. Hughes was not a sudden and spontaneous event, but a carefully planned and orchestrated succession of committee decisions culminating in inclusion of the amendment and the quick and deceitful hand count vote.

Keep in mind that the GCA’68 legislation was woefully incomplete in regard to the true intent of legislation against private possession of MGs, which was to do exactly what the Hughes Amendment did 18 years later. Legal, privately possessed MGs were truly invisible in those days, but there was enough publicity given to the scourage of legal DEWATs being illegally reactivated and not registered from the late 1950s into the early 1960s. There were quite a few articles over the post-war years about the threat to public safety from all the guns of every type brought back from overseas and how dangerous they were to th public. Towards the beginning of the end of the MG DEWATing craze, sometime in 1957 or 1958 I remember a Life magazine issue that had an article about a fellow who bought a DEWAT Thompson and mail ordered a new barrel under his daughter’s name and the reactivating the gun. This article was heavily slanted to the idea of public safety. Kennedy’s assassination pushed gun control mania into high gear and the previously slow increase of hostility to private possession of firearms gained speed. Publicity of high profile busts of MG “collectors” who thwarted the laws current at the time and had large numbers of both legal and illegal MGs kept the issue of private ownership of MGs on a low boil. Thoreson, a wealthy MG collector in San Francisco, provided months of news after he was busted for illegal MGs and his wife wrote a book about him, called, if I remember, “They Had Nothing Else To Do” or some such, which is a good read. I was living in the Bay Area at the time and followed the case which was quite spectacular. Gun control was a high priority in the US the late 1960s. However, despite the heavy presence of gun industry and regulatory players in the work up of the GCA’68, none of these legislators and parties to the design of the new law fully understood or researched the federal laws governing the manufacture and registration of MGs. The focus was on enforcing registration of all unregistered and illegally possessed MGs, revising firearms laws, licensing, etc, etc. GCA’68 completely overlooked the fed laws concerning who could manufacture and register an MG so the very fortunate consequences of this incompetence were profound for the burgeoning MG collector industry. It took many years for the pols and anti-gun adherents to grasp the error of the GCA’68. For 18 years MGs could be manufactured and registered for private possession by both individuals and licensed manufacturers, an immense benefit to our interests. Every MG enthusiast owes a small debt of gratitude to the fact that most politicians are too stupid, lazy and uninformed. The ramping up of public hysteria by the media, politicians and anti-gun groups of the day in ‘85 and into ‘86 about the threat of military lookalike rifles in the hands of the citizens, etc, etc in the year or so before the Hughes Amendment certainly helped to seed enough destructive energy into public awareness as well as to congress to produce such legislation in ‘86. Taking on the issue of the greater public’s right to possess black rifles was a fight that none would undertake at that time, politically difficult and a loser, but rectifying the error of ‘GCA’68 was an easy low level political task and clearly it would have been extremely dangerous for a pol who wanted to be reelected to counter that MGs should not be prohibited to citizens. The process by which the amendment was introduced and passed is standard procedure, and happens all the time. When one’s own interests fall victim to these congessional, political machinations, then we notice! Unfortunately, and it remains the same today as in ‘86, NFA interests have little organized political power to call upon when needed, but we do have a bit more now than in ‘86, in my view. FWIW

[gk1040]

Thanks for the history on gun regulations from someone who actually went through it. I have never heard of William Thoreson before. I can only imagine what the press put out once the government confiscated that large collection he had put together. I think the book that you were thinking about is titled: "It Gave Everybody Something to Do." I agree that we as a MG community owe a debt of gratitude for uninformed and lazy politicians.

[sc269]

Even the stamp should cost 3700 dollars. Been overlooked by those lazy politicians.

[DZelenka]

M3 Grease Gun receipt when bought from InterArms.

[colt21a]

Original paaperwork is so cool. sad that so much of it over the decades was lost or thrown out.I had the entire Viet -Nam LISt of what we left there and could buy offered to me around 1980. he used up my entire fax roll when sent at the time stupidly put it in bin box cabinet over the years it faded to nothing.The 1911'S and M-16 and Mini gun list was cool along with some serial numbers as proof, I told the broker [GUN LORD} iot was all left over GOV. prop we paid for as was contraband anyhow.crates and crates and train loads of stuff. can we say tens on thousands.And the gun ships had been complete. ready to fly and new engines still in crates.

 

I like the greasegun paper work

we also left crates of those and BARS and m1 Thompsons there also.Colt21RON.

Edited July 29, 2018 by colt21a

[huggytree]

i think you beat the stock market on that grease gun if your the original buyer

 

 

i ask for any receipts and old form 4's when i buy any gun now...just got a receipt from 1998 on my m11/a1 for $850.....seller made 750% on it...said there was a pallet of them when he bought it