A few months back, I walked into a gun store in California that I frequented in the early 1970s. It hasn’t changed very much—same large log building with no change in floor space or show cases. This is a full-service gun shop that is deep into everything available. In the old days, there was room for several samples of everything current in handguns. Today, there are so many kinds of competing handguns that usually there is one example of each on display with more under the counter. In essence, that’s the difference between then and now—there is a lot more from which to choose. That is particularly true in the field of automatic pistols. For reasons that don’t seem to make much sense now, in those days everybody was mad for pistols with DA/SA triggers, particularly .45s. They were perceived to be somehow “safer.” Many current 21st century models fill the bill, but there weren’t that many in the 70s.
December 31, 2012
