Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- -One format of radio show that is common around the nation is classifieds, the garage sale, yard sale, trash and treasure, or other nomenclature used to describe similar shows. The shows have callers offer items for sale, along with a telephone number for contact.
In deep blue, Madison, Wisconsin, I was listening to the local conservative talk radio station. I was pleased to see the show accepted individual callers who had guns for sale.
A local radio station in Yuma has a similar show. But firearms are specifically excluded from the items that are allowed to be advertised for sale on the show, as are automobiles. Maybe it is because Yuma is on the border with Mexico and California. At least one station owner in Yuma is politically left of center.
At the Madison station, in the first few minutes of the show, there were callers with a Mossberg .410 shotgun, a Ruger Standard model .22 pistol, two black powder rifles, an 870 pump shotgun, .22-250 and a .220 Swift varmint rifles (model not mentioned), and a .300 ultramag Remington 700.
That’s a pretty good cross section of firearms for a few minutes of show.
Since at least 1934, those pushing for a disarmed population have been attempting to demonize and make illegitimate, private sales of firearms.
The path is pretty clear. Make private sales illegal and difficult. Then require registration of all guns. After that, make possession of any non-registered gun a felony.
One of their schemes has been to remove venues for people to advertise private firearms for sale. There was a push to have newspapers refuse to advertise firearms. Some papers have done so, but print papers are hard pressed for any revenue.
Attempts to ban private firearms from Internet sales have backfired significantly. Instead of providing extra revenue to ebay, amazon, or craigslist, firearm specific sites such as armslist, auctionarms, gunbroker and gunsamerica have found successful niches.
The city of Madison banned the sale of handguns within the city for a couple of decades. Gun shops moved out of the city. Private purchasers, if risk averse, drove to the city boundary to transfer the firearm.
All was changed with a strong preemption law passed by the Wisconsin Legislature. The Madison ban on gun sales became illegitimate in 1995.
Gun advertisements on various media are a measure of how much the gun culture is winning the culture war. Advertisements for guns were common and culturally accepted in the 1960’s. Ads for guns in non-gun magazines were common.
In the 1970’s through the 1990’s, gun advertisements in mainstream media sources were rare. By 2000, in my recollection, gun culture advertisement began to pick up, primarily for concealed carry courses and shooting ranges.
Now, I commonly see billboards with firearms advertisements.
I routinely hear advertisements for gun shows, gun shops, gun instruction, and guns on the radio. They are easily found on the Internet, which is becoming more mainstream than television.
Comments, from readers about gun advertisements they have noticed, and whether they are increasing, would be enlightening.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained.
He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.