1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae]

[Phantasm]

Until the most recent set of restrictive anti-gun laws, and even nowadays in some regions, in most rural areas you could shoot at wild and stray animals on your property at any time, regardless of day of the week or license. Most of the time, it counts as "self-defense" or "defending the home".

Growing up in a rural area in Pennsy in the '70s and '80s, we didn't have to deal with coyotes that much, but feral dogs and even the occasional black bear digging through the garbage happened on a fairly regular basis.



The most common hunting round was a .308 Winchester or .30-08, meant for taking down deer and occasionally bear. I'm not sure about the availability of other rounds, but JHP and FMJ rounds were fairly common in the .308Win, .30-08, 5.56mmNATO, .44-40, .45 ACP, .40S&W, .38 Special, and .357 Magnum rounds. 12-gauge, 16-gauge, and 20-gauge 00-buckshot was also common, as we had a lot of shotgun hunters, prized because the shot would not travel over the borders into no-shoot zones. IME, the .22-sized rounds were, except for the 5.56mmNATO/.223 Armalite rounds, pretty much reserved for plinking at the range, not hunting.