Books you read as a kid that influenced your RKBA beliefs?

Heinlein's juvies for sure. They'd be banned in an instant if the antis ever bothered to read one! I think I own them all.

He also used to do the occasional story for Boy's Life.

Sadly, his later books were under-edited and too kinky sexual in nature for my tastes. Still, if it was a Heinlein, I bought it.

Matt Helm!!! I'd love to re-read one of those!

Doc Savage. I used to love reading the adventures of Clark Savage Jr. and his aides :) (possible movie starring Arnold).

Ian Fleming. Despite the wimpy .25 Baretta (later a .380 Walther) they were very cool. Way different from the movies.

The Shadow. Carried two 1911s folks (of course today he'd switch to Glocks :) )

The Phamtom. Another 1911 user.

Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin. Archie never left the Manhattan brownstone on a murder case w/o wearing his trusty .32 in a shoulder holster rig.

Great thread! It really brought back some memories.
 
I would have to say that the best book I have ever read is One by Richard Bach. It gave me a whole new outlook on the importance of life, and why we need to defend that life from the evils that be.

------------------
"Freedom has always existed in a very percurious balance. And when buildings stop blowing up, people’s priorities tend to change..." Enemy of the State
 
John Taylor's "Pondoro" was the biggest rifle related hit for me as a young teen. I still remember many of the tales vividly. The idea of earning your living in the wild with little more than a rifle and a good friend was enormously appealing
Jim Corbett is still a hero to me for hunting down Man Eating Tigers. Simply could not think of anything more noble that a hunter could do.
Jack O'Conner's "The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns was a bible for sometime.
Though not gun related, Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanho" really swept me away. The rightous and noble spirit is there, even if the arms are different.
Strangely enought, Capt. Joshua Slocum's "Sailing alone around the World" (he was the first to do it) was also important. You might first suppose that you would be relatively safe in a boat at sea, but he ran into pirates off North Africa and got boarded by unfriendly local in the straights of Magellon. He didn't need arms often, but when he did, he really needed them.
The most horrible, brutal tyrannt of my youth was Julius Ceasar. I bought the Classic Commics gloriously illustrated first version of Ceasar's Gallic Wars when I was about eight. I hated his conquest of the Gauls, admired thier courageous resistance and was so happy that the Germans escaped him.
 
Three more that I remember were:

Shane, by Jack Warner. I read the book first and loved it. I was a little disappointed in the movie. Talk about teaching a lesson about why people need to be armed!

Ole Yeller, by Fred Gipson. Again, the movie was a disappointment after having read the book. Anyone here who's ever had to put a dog to sleep (when I was growing up, you didn't take him to the vet--you did it yourself) will relate to this book.

R. E. Lee by Douglas Southall Freeman. This four-volume set won a Pulitzer Prize, and rightfully so. In my opinion, Lee is the most fascinating character in American history. People living in today's world could learn a lot from Lee. And Freeman made him come alive.

Robert
 
Looks like you guys had the same reading list I did. Old Yeller, the Mack Bolan books, Louis L'Amour, Max Brand were all good reads. There was another "Executioner" type series called "Death Merchant", very much into guns and explosives.
Are the Jim Kjelgaard books still in print?
I was thinking about them the other day - my son just turned one, and he'll need some good reading material one day.
How many of you had parents that read to you before you were able to read? My grandmother read the entire "old Yeller" book to me when I was very young. It was a life changing experience for me - hooked me on reading before the first grade!
Thanks, Grandma!
 
I had Old Yeller, but I read a lot of Zane Grey novels and I was ALWAYS reading my grandfathers Field & Stream and American Rifleman magazines. In fact, that's how I learned to read. :)

------------------
We ARE the Militia!
 
P. C. Wren's trilogy Beau Geste; Beau Sabreur; and Beau Ideal

E. R. Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series

of course, Holmes and Watson!

Books about Wild Bill and Wyatt Earp by writers like Stuart N. Lake;

Field and Stream, American Rifleman, Guns and Ammo, Shooting Times, Jack O'Connor, Charles Askins, Skeeter Skelton, Elmer Keith, etc., etc.



------------------
o I raised my hand to eye level, like pointing a finger, and fired. Wild Bill Hickok
o If you have to shoot a man, shoot him in the guts... Wild Bill Hickok
o 45 ACP: Give 'em a new navel! BigG
o It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. Justice Robert H. Jackson
o It is error alone that needs government support; truth can stand by itself. Tom Jefferson
o When you attempt to rationalize two inconsistent positions, you risk drowning as your own sewage backs up. BigG
 
"Swiss Family Robinson," by Johann Wyss. I read this novel when I was ten (unabridged), and it fired my imagination to the nth degree. It proved that guns were a useful tool, and that they have a place for the common man in the world.

In my teen years, Tarzan books, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, entertained me and taught me that life was not always fair, and that one had to watch out for one's self.

I also read a lot of hunting magazines when I was a kid, although I stopped hunting years ago. I am, however, thinking about hunting again.
DAL

------------------
Reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," by Ayn Rand, should be required of every politician and in every high school.
GOA, JPFO, PPFC, CSSA, LP, NRA
 
Usenet groups rec.guns and talk.politics.guns. While not books, they are an endless source of reading material that made me understand that a basic right is in danger, and motivated me to start doing something about it.
 
When I was a kid I read every, and I mean every Louis L'amour book there was. Tell Sackett was probably the character that convinced me that shooting was "cool" when I was about eight or nine or so. (I started reading really young).

When I was a teenager I read a lot of Dean Koontz, in his books everybody packs heat, mostly Uzi's and snub nosed .38s. And it is always kind of the same, the hero or heros are always people who take responsibility and defend themselves.

Starship troopers is one of the best books ever written.

I won't try and share my religious convictions with you guys, but the scriptures contain hundreds of examples of righteous self-defense.
 
I have to second (or third or fourth) the reccomendation of Starship Troopers. It had some thought provoking social commentary as well.

How about David Drake's stuff? I like the way he reworked The Oddesy and The Iliad into science fiction settings.
 
Thanks JimR and Guy B. Meredith I have begun looking into Robert A. Heinlein and you can be sure I'll be reading something from him soon.
As far as my school went It was flat broke (like every other school I know) All the books I could get a hold of were either from the local library or my teachers own personal collection.
If he is as good as you say I may have read somthing from him and just didnt bother to catch the author.
Authors weren't big in my mind then, but now that I'm trying to be one myself they have become an issue to me.
I wish I could remember the titles to the books I read then... I would definatly pick them up again.
The only ones I remember are the ones I own... How strange.
Anything by Richard Bach is deffinatly a must read!!

------------------
Freedom by its self is just a word. To have freedom we must protect our rights to be free.
 
As a teenager I read almost all of Heinliens novels. My dad got me started on them in the seventh grade (1987) but Im not really sure that he influenced my stand on RKBA. I think growing up around firearms and hunting had a more profound affect on my RKBA stand. Ive read several books by other authors who are probably not for RKBA (eg. Kurt Vonnegut,Josheph Heller) and really enjoyed them. Maybe on some subconscious level the scifi books had an affect its hard to tell. I could talk all day about scifi novels but I just have to say check out Larry Niven and Jerry Pournels novels Im pretty sure they are definitely pro RKBA. I cant give any titles for LN or JP cause Ive had a few too many George Killians :) have a nice day.
 
How interesting to hear about Robert Anson Heinlein. I have read nearly every book he wrote. I like Green Hill of Earth, Starship Troopers(movie ok/book better), Rocket Ship Galileo, Stranger In a Strange Land(my favorite of RAH), and Have Space Suit Will Travel. I never thought about it, but I was really drawn to his writings, as there is a theme in nearly all his books of self sufficiency, freedom to make decisions, and characters are only limited by those things they place on themselves. I believe all these ideas to be true for me in my own life.

As far as books that influenced my RKBA, I would put up there George Orwell's 1984, and Animal Farm. I would also recommend the book Night, by Eli Weisel, about his experience during WWII in a Nazi Concentration Camp.

Further readings would also include US Supreme Court decisions on 2nd Amendment, The Federalist Papers, and Robert Bork's book, Slouching Towards Gamorrah-GREAT BOOK, on how liberalism is eroding our country's foundation away.

Mike
 
I have only scanned this but I will have to second the works of Rudyard Kipling and I will add Thomas Macauley (probably butchered his name) with Horatius At The Bridge. Nothing to do with guns but it shaped my atitude about fighting against long odds.
 
Of all the pro-RKBA science fiction, and there's a LOT out there, the single best is "The Man Who Never Missed" by Steve Perry. The first in a longish series but stands alone VERY well and is by far the best.

H. Beam Piper did several classics; the Fuzzy series had several small pro-RKBA kicks in it.

The single best "how a General's mind should work" story was "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. It will completely revamp your ideas of what "winning" means and what's necessary to get there at times.

The entire Cyberpunk craze focuses in part on "infowar", on the use of electronic media and warfare and information gathering divorced from "big money and central governments". Start with "Neuromancer" by William Gibson but there's plenty more.

Finally, ANYTHING BY NEIL STEPHENSON, especially Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Zodiac ain't bad either. The Diamond Age is a good example of what happens when personal total control of dataflow leads to an end of taxation and large central goverments. Encryption could really do this; personal untracable international wire transfers scare the PISS out of Clinton and the like.

I wouldn't have tried anything so crazy as suing my Sheriff over CCW policies if Orson hadn't explained that "sometimes, the only way to win is to pull something highly unlikely". And I wouldn't have relied on the possibilities for electronic networking and info packaging without a healthy scoop of cyberpunk.

It's all working, too...see my site.

Jim
Equal Rights for CCW Home Page http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw

[This message has been edited by Jim March (edited February 11, 2000).]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top