$40 for "Like new surplus Model 1911 .45 - Delivered right to your door via Postal service

[Anti Federalist]

That's what you could buy, among a great many other deals, if it were 1965.

Thumbing through a 1965 mail order catalog from Heritage Firearms in Wilton CT.

All delivered right to your door via US Mail with no more of "background check" than if you were buying, oh, towels.

How far we've come.

Oh, and BTW:

Violent crimes per 100,000 people in 1965 - 2,449

Violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2009 - 3,466

(2009 is the most recent year stats are available)

[Pericles]

And I have a copy of the 1927 bannerman catalog with "rapid-fire" machine guns and cannons as used in the Great War.