Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire For God's Sake, Man, Don't Buy Your Boy A .22 For Christmas

Funny, my father gave me a Remington 550A .22 LR rifle for Christmas when I was about the age of the boy in the Dragnet. I've never shot anyone nor did the other boys I knew who received rifles for Christmas, birthdays, etc.

FWIW, Jack Webb was a very good friend of Bill Parker, Chief of Police, Los Angeles Police Dept. Webb got all the cooperation from Parker and LAPD he wanted.

Bill Parker was extremely anti-Second Amendment, and thought that only police officers should be allowed to own firearms. I read a book once authored by Parker and he was adamant about his anti-guns for honest citizens position.

Naturally, Webb would have never done a show on Dragnet regarding guns that was opposite his friend and benefactor, Bill Parker, C.O.P., LAPD.

L.W.

I figured there was something like that at play.

PS My dad gave me my first .22 on my sixteenth birthday. It was a Remington Fieldmaster slide action rifle. I sold it to my brother about ten years later. He still has it. Shoots it with his boys.

My son got a Henry .22 when he was almost able to hold it steady. No injuries amazingly.

Bill Parker was a blithering idiot and one of the reasons CA is the liberal anti-gun cesspool it is today, and the J Edgar Hoover of the LAPD.

got a rem 700 bdl 243 for Christmas when i was 10.

The kid next door to me got a shotgun at age 10. I was pretty jealous.

I can't remember if I was 5 or 6 when Dad brought home my Winchester Model 47 Target. I was not allowed to roam free with it, but he and I would hit the town dump on Sundays after church to shoot cans, bottles (the horror!), and whatever targets of opportunity were provided. I remember one particularly cold day when the shooting was done out the side window of the car.

Winchester model 77 magazine fed semi auto for me at 12. Beat it up bad hunting rabbits and such. Moved on to bigger firearms as I got older and forgot about it. Found in in storage shed 5 years ago and fully restored it. I'll never get rid of it.

Got a Win 94 at age 10. Had a .22 and shotgun before that.

Got one of these with a scope when I was 14. A Crosman 760 pellet rifle. Not that scope, though. This picture was taken off Google.

Haven't seen a Dragnet shoe in probably over 40yrs. Thanks TRH for the memories. I too was blessed with a .22LR at an early age with no accidental shootings to report. I don't remember the deputy in thidn pix; I seem to recall that Jack Webb's partner was casted as someone named Ben Alexander.

My granddad bought me one of those when I was about 6... I know I had hell pumping it at that age. The one I had had a wood stock as well. No scope.

Bought both of my daughters 10/22s when they turned 12. I never cared if they ever took up hunting or "plinking", it was all about teaching gun safety.

In the late 40's and early 50's in my home town, if you had not found a .22 under the tree by the time you were 8 or 9, your peers considered you deprived and neglected.

Now, if you give a kid a .22, some folks considered him/her neglected or worse. Sad.

I never found a 22 under the Christmas tree although I looked every year. I finally bought one when I was 18. For some reason my brothers and I never understood, Dad was dead set against any of his three sons having a 22. Back in the early 60's I guess I could have bought one without him knowing, but I had too much respect for him (fear actually) to go against his wishes. I had a 357 magnum Colt when I was 16 and a 44 Magnum Marlin 336 when I was 15. That was hard to figure. I guess he thought I would be more careful with a centerfire.

Me too, but mine was an ADL in a early Bell and Carlson stock. Was very cool in the 80's.

I was 9 and brother was 7 when we got single shot bolt action .22s for Christmas. Came mail-order from Sears. My father wasn’t a hunter but we spent years prior with a Daisy BB gun learning gun safety. When we went squirrel huntin my brother and I could only take one gun with us. My dad like every other adult male I knew at that time served in WWII.
I also believe he got involved in the moonshine bidness to raise the cash for those .22s. If I remember correctly they were $16.95 ea.

Christmas morning, when I was eight, I found my Daisy BB gun under the tree. Like you, that was the gun on which I learned the basics of gun safety and marksmanship. Spent many an hour in the backyard with that gun for years, till it was replaced at age 14 with a Crosman pellet rifle.

think i was 8 when i got the Sheridan pellet gun for Christmas.