22 Long Rifle

[Tmitch]

What has happened to all of the 22's you used to find at every hardware and convience store?

 

[kilimanjaro]

Long gone. The store brands, like Ace Hardware, Sears & Roebuck, etc., etc., are now very collectible.

After Kennedy was assassinated, written log books were required for store ammo purchases, I think the stores that did most of their business selling tools and lawn mowers just decided it was too much bother to deal with the requirements. You couldn't take a box of .22 off the shelf anymore and go to the cash register, now a clerk had to get the box from behind the counter, you filled out the book and signed for it, then paid for it at the counter. All that for a forty cent box of .22 shells.

Presumably, untold numbers of homicides were prevented by this system.

I think the ATF abandoned the system as useless in the early 1970's, not sure when that occurred.

Between that and the rise of the lawsuit society, it just died out.

 

[g.willikers]

Even gas stations and grocery stores used to sell ammo.
Ah, the good old days.

 

[psyfly]

Even gas stations and grocery stores used to sell ammo

Some still do. The last 6.35mm ammo (.25ACP) I purchased was two boxes of Fiocchi at a grocery store in a small town in West Texas (was last year, though, so...).

Although the above store didn't have any .22, I saw some on the shelf at another little hole-in-the-wall convienience store a few weeks ago. They ad a pretty good selection of RF and CF ammo in various chamberings. Was too much for my pocketbook though.



W.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Some still do. The last 6.35mm ammo (.25ACP) I purchased was two boxes of Fiocchi at a grocery store in a small town in West Texas (was last year, though, so...).

Yep.
Every year (that we draw tags) I get to visit my favorite gas station in a tiny town in Wyoming. As I'm taking advantage of their ridiculously low price on tobacco products, I always take a few minutes to peruse their supply of ammunition.

It's a decent-sized building with quite a bit of shelf space, and they have more gun accessories and ammunition on the shelves, than they do tobacco products. ...And that's pretty serious, considering that they have 3 coolers full of tobacco, versus only 2 coolers with beverages.

The last year I was there, they even had some reloading components and a few sets of reloading dies.

 

[darkgael]

still

The Red Rock General Store in Red Rock, PA still carries ammo as does the general store in Lehman.
Pete

 

[carguychris]

minor reword

...written log books were required for store ammo purchases, I think the stores that did most of their business selling tools and lawn mowers just decided it was too much bother to deal with the requirements... I think the ATF abandoned the system as useless in the early 1970's, not sure when that occurred.

According to what I've been able to ascertain, the 68 GCA required ammunition sellers to be licensed, and to keep a logbook for handgun ammunition sales.

In December 1982, Congress passed a minor amendment specifically exempting .22 rimfire from having to be recorded in the logbook.

The handgun ammo registry and the licensing requirement were scrapped by the 1986 FOPA. AFAIK the law did not require dealers to do anything in particular with their now-outmoded logbooks, so most dealers presumably destroyed them. (Despite the ongoing teeth-gnashing about the Hughes Amendment, the FOPA did a LOT of good things.)

DISCLAIMER: I was a kid at the time, so I can't comment on any of this firsthand.

 

[natman]

It's a decent-sized building with quite a bit of shelf space, and they have more gun accessories and ammunition on the shelves, than they do tobacco products. ...And that's pretty serious, considering that they have 3 coolers full of tobacco, versus only 2 coolers with beverages.

Sounds like they've actually turned the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms into a convenience store.....