Monday, March 26, 2012

Fetch me my time travel trousers.

Over at P-F.com, one poster indicated that he was looking for a carbine for his wife, preferably a Colt 6920 (basically a semiautomatic M4 carbine.) Another poster replied:
Have her take a look at Wal-mart if you can’t fine one anywhere else. I saw a 6920 today for just under $1100.
Imagine, if you will, using a magic browser plug-in that would let you copy and paste that whole thread on TheFiringLine.com or GlockTalk.com back in, say, 2003. Or even better, 1999. Back in those days:
  1. Wal-Mart was definitely not in the business of selling scary-looking rifles.
  2. Colt only sold the 6920 model through law enforcement distributors.
  3. The rifle was unsalable anyway, since it was slathered with a full menu of Evil Features prohibited by the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" of '94.
If you told the folks on an internet gun board back in '99 that in the year 2012, you could walk into Wally World and buy an honest-to-Stoner Colt®-brand "pre-ban"* M4gery, they would look at you like you were John Titor, only less plausible.

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*Now there's a word I haven't used in a while. Ask your parents, kids.

25 comments:

ZerCool said...

Maybe it's one YOU haven't used in a while, but for a few of us it's still a magic word.

And I make a standing offer of TWO new-in-the-package stripped lowers for ONE pre-ban in functional condition...

Keads said...

I saw one in my Wally World last week and went "huh, imagine that". Interesting times indeed. Shame that I am interested in a 6940.

Ian Argent said...

You don't need time travel trousers, just a trip to NJ...

Firehand said...

For that matter, throw in "There will be 'X' many manufacturer who've jumped into the AR manufacturing pool, the demand is so great." They'd have called for the people in white coats.

Robert said...

And they're gonna start making M1 carbines again!

Anonymous said...

....and Snooki is pregnant.

Anonymous said...

They are already making them, cept they got plastic stocks.

Anonymous said...

So what swung things our way?

Business just responds to demand, but what made Mr. & Mrs John Q Public decide to either become closet gunnies or at least not anti gunnie?

Gerry

Borepatch said...

Gerry, I think that it was the combination of the failure of the predicted disasters to materialize after gun laws were eased, and the spectacular failure of the government on 9/11. Google "security moms" to see just how deep this goes, psychologically speaking.

Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited...

Sigivald said...

My first AR was/is a "post-ban" A2. Good times.

I've considered "pre-banning" it, but frankly I kinda like the heavy barrel and don't care about the bayonet lug and flash hider issue.

(I don't like the idea of banning them, but it turns out I don't feel like spending $200 or so to put them on a perfectly working AR.)

Bram said...

Auto-Ordnance has been making M1 Carbines for years. I can buy an AR but not an M1 Carbine here in NJ unless they name it something else.

John A said...

I will admit to drooling a bit over an M! (rifle, not carbine) I saw in Pennsylvania. Not so much because I wanted an M1, but because as a mainframe programmer for 30 years I would love one stamped as made by IBM.

Stranger said...

Rumor has it Auto-Ordinance's new Carbine will be all parts interchangeable with a WWII MI, in two delicious flavors. Carbine and folding stock. Serial number on side of action, etc., so it will not be sold as a veteran of Omaha Beach but otherwise authentic.

At $900 I am interested. My brother was issued a Carbine in '44 and carried it all the way across the Rhine.

Stranger

Hmm. WV in Croat.

Critter said...

feh, bugger WalMart. i roll my own.

NotClauswitz said...

Or if you'd told me at that circa '99 I'd own three rifles and a half dozen pistols I'd a looked at you like you had three heads.

Commander_Zero said...

Major Art-Bell-points for the Titor reference.

Old NFO said...

LOL, isn't THAT the truth... :-)

Rob Reed said...

John A.

IBM never made M-1 Garand rifles. The Garand was made by Springfield Armory & Winchester in WWII and by SA, Harrington and Richardson (HRA) and International Harverstor (IHC) during the Korean war.

IBM *did* make M-1 Carbines during WWII. Possibly you looked at both a caribne and a Garand at the same store and later mixed up which was which in your memory.

Tam said...

^^What Rob Reed said.^^

(My old landlord bought an IBM carbine because he was a Mac nut. He wanted an Apple computer and an IBM gun hanging on the wall above it. :D )

dustoff 28 said...

I got a 1943 GM (Saginaw) last year in great shape at a steal. Means a lot because I had a M1 carbine for awhile in Vietnam. What a great shooter! So much better than a mini 14. And a great size for my airplane survival kit when flying over rough country out west.

Leslie Sapp said...

I always smile when I look at the "IBM" stamped underneath the flaming bomb on my 1942 carbine and think - "International Business Machines - Heh!"

UncommonMurre said...

Yay for the Professor Elemental reference!

Thomas said...

My first AR Was a franken-gun I completed last month, even built the upper myself. parts from a dozen manufacturers and has run 250 rounds failure free so far! truly a miracle of modern machining technology.

I'm surprised I didn't see the suggestion in the comments since it's a pretty baseline project from a gunsmithing perspective.

Sebastian said...

Imagine if we got into a war today of that magnitude. What would an Apple surface-to-air missile look like? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure you'd have to buy the guidance software from the app store.

Windy Wilson said...

Wonderful essay and comments, but Californication still forces its inmates to exist under the unconstitutional strictures of the AWB. Walmart here hasn't sold something that goes "Bang" for more than 20 years, I can't buy a folding stock, let alone bolt it to an M1, and any AR has to be built up and neutered like a chicken kept in a factory farm environment.
It is very difficult to keep the faith and continue being a mole for the NRA in the Sierra Club and in the PR of Kalifornia.