Kid's trading their heritage for a new Iphone.

Discussion in 'Firearms' started by wideym, Nov 20, 2018.


  1. wideym

    wideym Monkey+++

    Working part-time in a gunshop for several years now, I've seen an alarming amount of the current generation of kids trading grandpa's, uncle's, or even their fathers guns for the current Iphone, tablet, or current game system. It's not unusual to see an 18 year old come in to the shop with a beat up 30-06 from some sporterized military origin, or an old A1 or A2 style ar-15, or an nice Browning Sweet 16, that they were given to them or inherited from a family member. Yet they have zero interest in beyond how much can they get for it.

    I bought a nice Walther P-38 with capture papers from a guy who just wanted enough to buy an xbox 360. He didn't care that grandpa captured it just off the beaches of Normandy or even the Bronze Star citation that explained how he captured it. As an American soldier in Iraq, I was not allowed to bring home any war trophies, even those allowable under U.S. law, no matter what event transpired.
     
  2. Ura-Ki

    Ura-Ki Grampa Monkey

    Firearms have been so demonized these days, a lot of young people are afraid to have them around or to take them out and use them, so they figure they might as well profit from them while they can and not run the risk of becoming instant felons!
     
  3. hot diggity

    hot diggity Monkey+++ Site Supporter+++

    It's sad to see. Have seen whole collections sold off for pennies on the dollar by drug addicted kids.

    On the brighter side, I see many of these WWI and earlier rifles showing up at the range with young Marines who have recently started collections of their own, have researched their rifles history, and enjoy shooting and caring for them. It's nice when old collectors and younger ones can sit around and talk about guns.
     
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  4. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    I dare say some crusty old bugger several generations into the future will be complainig that their idiot grandkid has traded in their great-great grandpop's heritage MAGA hat for a bitcoin micro credit to buy some trashy bit of quantum digiporn. Such is the nature of conservatism....

    Not everything is worth conserving, just because it has some historical novelty value attached to it...why not sell a gun for peanuts to someone who may value it more than they do. The gun may just gain some additional historical value as a prosecution evidence exhibit perhaps.
     
  5. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    Blame the kids if you like, but their parents missed the boat on teaching the kids the worth of "things"in life.
    I could go on a rant but I won't.

    Time for a cup of coffee while reminiscing about the fun times with the kids growing up with the basics in life, like a Winchester Model 97 with a shortened barrel and a Briley custom screw in choke good for rattlesnakes or birds and so's I could know when the hammer was back and have a safer teaching tool.

    Briley's machine shop was along side of the rail road tracks next to I10.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
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  6. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    It is gone, just suck up and admit it, nothing to do with kids, parents, etc. I am, as most of you know 80, and raised in another time and in another world. Some of my earliest memories are of being in a play pen with my brother and sister in a barn while my mother and father milked cows by hand. I was with one or another of my parents for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By the time I was 6 I was either helping, watching, or being watched while the family did something, or playing with my cousins and their friends. I spent hours with my grandfather in the shop working on things, if truth be told, getting in his way and asking questions, but with him. I went to a 1 room schoolhouse with no indoor toilets, no running water, wood heat, 12 to 16 students in all 8 grades. We spent 2 1/2 hours on Sunday in church, Sunday school, Bible school, and services, said grace with our meals, and our parents and grand parents read us Bible stories at night before we went to bed. I sat and listened to the adults talk in the evening and was allowed to ask questions and be a part of it. The groups in the 1940's included Lakota from the reservation and my grand parents talking about Dakota in the 1890's, stories their parents had told them about the Civil war, Greasy Grass, etc,comments by people whose parents had been born free, who were raised on a reservation, and were finally getting some things back. I listened to vets from the Spanish American war, WW1, ones home on leave or who had been injured from WW2, then later from Korea. I got my first rifle, a 22, when I was about 7 or so, for Christmas, I shot my great grand dad's Civil war rifle when I was about 8 or 9, had fire arms ever since. In USAF had 45, M1, worked on 50 cal in aircraft and Vulcan rotary gun as well as missiles.
    My kids watched television, either at home or some one else's house I worked 8 hours a day and the job was such that they never participated, they went to school, scouts, played on ball teams, their grand parents lived 1000 miles away and they met them a few days a year, they had no real interactions with the generations before them other than thru TV, books, and school. Only 1 of my children and grand children has ever been in the military service and my great grand children are being taught from books, watching TV shows, and playing video games that present such a distorted view of what I heard from the vets and saw in my experiences, that they have no concept of what went on before them.
    When we gave up living in a family and a community and allowed the professionals to take over raising our children, we lost it. I have well hated and marginalized Christian friends who refuse to do that, they have no TV's, home school their children, and go to "cult" Christian churches that do not preach or believe that you can do whatever you wish as Jesus forgives you and fitting in and being a success is all that counts as do many of the main stream churches.

    Rant off. The lack of respect for the family, one's forebear's, our cultural and religious heritage, the clan nature of the races, political parties, and social groups is destroying our economy, our country, and in the long run I expect anyone who isn't totally a member of the hive. Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mao, Pol pet, Castro, and all the others thru history have shown that it is not a good idea or really sustainable in the long run, but as they all proclaimed, this time it will be different. The best I can hope for is to live with those who have not drank the cool aide, go to a church that still believes in God, reach the few that I can and pass on what I can, and live out the rest of my life as an outsider in my own nation in as much comfort as I can.
     
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  7. Tempstar

    Tempstar Monkey+++

    Agree with Chell. (Did I just say that?) Better some things wind up in the hands of those that appreciate them.
     
  8. SB21

    SB21 Monkey+++

    Duane, I used to spend summers around my grandparents during the summers . Both sets lived on opposite sides of the same old farming town . I was raised in a big city , but grew up in that farming town. I , like you spent as much time as I could around my grandparents , traveling around on Saturdays and Sunday's visiting family that I didn't even know was family. Listening to the stories from earlier times. It was like 2 different lives from the city with my parents , and the town with my grandparents. At home with my parents , I guess I was the generation were the schools and TV did the child raising , as Dad , worked full time , and Mom worked part time , outside of the home. Back at the grandparents it wasn't like that , one grandpa worked outside the home , and one grandpa worked the farm . Both grandmothers stayed home. Probably around 9-10 , I was plowing the soybean fields with grandpas old Farmall Cub tractor on one side of town , and pushing an old one wheel turning plow on the other side of town. Back then I would work my butt off in the fields and gardens , but later in the day , I got to play , go hunting or fishing. One grandpa was released from the Army in 1939 after spending most of his enlistment in Pearl Harbor. Said he used to work on a government farm , they supplied him with an old shack to live in , with a shed for a barn and a cow for milk , and a little land for a garden, and he worked the government farm for 10 cents an hour. He said he'd come home at night , have to milk the cow , said it was so dark he couldn't see and had to feel around to find the cow and feel around to find which end to milk. My Mom was born in that shack , that was 1940.
    All of them are gone now , except Mom , she's in a home , Alzheimer's , terrible disease. I wish I'd have been able to spend my school days in the farm town , I probably wouldn't have gotten in as much trouble as I did with them damned city folk. My dad inherited the old home place and some of the farmland , and then around '88 , my wife and new baby wanted to move to the farm house. I told the wife it was a different life there than where we were , she said she wanted to move there. That lasted 6 months for her. And I had to follow later to be able to be near my daughter. That was the last time I was there except for short visits.
    Damn I got long winded here , but , being able to be around my grandparents and uncles and hear those stories , and work those fields , and hunt and fish those ponds creeks and swamps , is some of my best memories growing up. Those are just about lost times these days , taken over by technology.
     
  9. oldawg

    oldawg Monkey+++

    Take heart as not all of them. All my kids are shooters and all my grands,save one, who are old enough are shooters. Mrs. Dawg will be presenting a Cricket to an 8 year old grandson for Christmas with the blessing of his parents. I have passed down most of my inherited guns and a fair amount of my own already and most of those see the hunt,range,and/or carry regularly. A lot of our friends also see this in their families too. Rockwellesque maybe but a nice picture to have of our families. Not all is lost yet.
     
  10. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    the historical / family importance of an object diminishes after a couple of generations removed from the origin story/event.
    the rusty old knife that great grandpa used to save his life in WW1 was really important to his son, his sons' son was less important too because his dad had stories too … and so on down the line.

    Unless the artifact is held in high reverence through the generations .. meh. It's just a thing that gets carted from one house to another. Put her up on ebay/gunbroker and let the bidding by those that desire it begin.

    I myself sold grandpa's sweet16 off some years ago.

    It was a beauty of a gun, but had some cracks in the forearm, light rust spots from being cased in the musty basement for years. He never used it, sat bagged in the cedar closet. No story like he used it to shoot a deer in the winter of 54 to keep the family from starving after the terrible harvest ..
    Does that make me one of these idiots?

    Ok, maybe not sold .. more like traded it for a Saiga12 and an AK74. ;)
    I'm pretty sure I got the best part of this deal.[gun]
     
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  11. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    That requires effort on the part of the owner/seller to find such an appreciative buyer. The latest tablet is worth more than that to the seller.
     
  12. Big Ron

    Big Ron Monkey+++

    About half the country(or more) Doesn't see the need for the second amendment. Society has changed and I admit my kid's thinking makes me wonder at times. My son wants my guns, so at least that is good. The computer I am using and many electronic devices will be dead if SHTF Ever Happens. Things will change then.
     
  13. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    OTOH
    Worked a Regular job but was always home before the kids.
    I choose to make a little less money.
    We had a machine shop on the place and that was where the kids came after school.
    All of them learned tools and how to work.
    The Nintendo lasted about 6 months, it's still in the box of which I packed it away.
    No TV on in the afternoons.
    DD Got her first real job because she was a Lady and understood auto mechanics. A real pulse for a service writer at a repair shop. She is currently responsible for some of the Oil ya'll pump at the service station.

    The boys were maneuvered into the service when they showed no interest in University. Did Mil time and got out with Honorables. Moved on their own and both finished University of their choice.

    It takes a plan that is ever changing to raise the next generation.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2018
  14. UncleMorgan

    UncleMorgan I like peeling bananas and (occasionally) people.

    An important thread, this. Good to read, and better to think about.
     
  15. AndyinEverson

    AndyinEverson Black Powder Monkey

    I worked at a pawn shop for a while and I did see folks of various ages , sell "heritage" or family items...
    While bothersome to me , it is good to remember that :
    One , its not my stuff...
    And two...Don't go "borrowing" or getting wrapped up in other people's troubles / emotions / problems...

    When interacting with folks it is also good to remember that what is good or better for someone is just a matter of perspective...
    What is good or better for one person is not always what is good or better for another.

    Being the history nerd that I am...it is bothersome when someone looks at my antique muzzleloaders and asks :
    "Why do you bother with that old stuff , when a new gun is better....? "
    When that happens I try to explain that my guns and my love of the history behind them is better for me , than a new gun with no history....

    I have experienced many positives when showing and allowing folks to shoot one of my antique muzzleloaders such as :
    The excitement they get when they hit a target with a 100-200 odd year old gun...
    The understanding they get of the work and art that went into the making of the gun , when they can actually hold it , rather than just view it thru glass...

    To sum up , while it is distressing to hear of trading a classic firearm for the latest electric bliss item...there are still folks out there , young and old who like classic firearms and history...
    And the selling or trading of a historic item , may give it a chance to "live on" with someone who will appreciate it.
    Andy
     
  16. oil pan 4

    oil pan 4 Monkey+++

    Fewer snow flakes with guns?
    I don't see the problem.
     
  17. BenP

    BenP Monkey++

    I agree and when the SHTF those weak minds who traded their guns will go to be with Darwin their leader.
     
    Gator 45/70 likes this.
  18. Seawolf1090

    Seawolf1090 Retired Curmudgeonly IT Monkey Founding Member

    Yep, let the unappreciative sell them off. A buyer will use and enjoy them.
     
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  19. hot diggity

    hot diggity Monkey+++ Site Supporter+++

    I don't hear comments like that... but after I pull in my targets I often have young shooters inquiring about my old revolvers. I'm encouraged by that, and by the daily arrival of new young shooters who have never been to the range before. I've had new shooters from all over the World, and even though some are visibly fearful when they arrive, they all leave with smiles, having had a good time. :)
     
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  20. hot diggity

    hot diggity Monkey+++ Site Supporter+++

    ;)
     
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