Slogan: When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them. (December 21 1967)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Usage covered either likelihood, but the press (you know, "the news media")
generally explained the name as in my previous post.

JL

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Slogan: When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have
> them.
>               (December 21 1967)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/4/2013 06:23 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >The phrase became popular right after the 1968 assassinations of King and
> >Kennedy prompted a campaign to end sales of "Saturday night specials":
> >cheap roscoes supposedly marked down on weekends, allowing the impulsive
> to
> >pony up just a few bucks to go out and plug that creep.
>
> Was it that they were bought on weekends, or that they were taken out
> on Saturday nights?  (And employed, say at 3 AM when the bars emptied
> and fights erupted in the streets.)
>
> Joel
>
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