Civil Defense Marked Firearms?

[CountryGent]

Over the years, I've seen a small number of Civil Defense marked firearms. A handful were obviously newly made items with the logo slapped on them, but many were vintage and appear to be genuine. The few that come to mind were revolvers (mainly Victory model .38s) and shotguns.* I've read that there was a program to surplus out firearms after the war to local law enforcement agencies, though I'm still looking into specifics. I've also read on more than one source that there were M1 Garands supplied to fallout shelters, including a citation from the GCA Journal, but I have less details on if this was an actual thing or simply lore.

Would any know of the story of firearms marked, stored, supplied, or otherwise handled under the auspices of The Department of Civil Defense? If so, how, what, when, and where? Would you have any source material I could read?

Thanks!

* Here's a couple examples of what I mean.

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[clearconscience]

Sounds like a old school, but new school militia.

Sounds nice. Let's re-ignite this flame

 

[cigars]

Very cool and interesting thread. Love that shotty! I have the military version with the ordnance stamps on it. I wish I had CD version to keep it company.

 

[Tao_Haus]

I purchased this at an auction, Tuesday. Waiting to get it in hand. Serial # is in the correct range for U.S. trench guns of the WW2 period, and it has all the correct markings. I assume it got deaccessioned to the Civil Defense agency or a local branch at some point, likely following the war.

 

[dangerranger60]

One of the court houses I worked in had a fallout shelter that in its inventory showed 12 Ga Riot guns, and 30 cal Krag rifles that were stored in the Sheriffs Armory. I never saw the guns, but the inventory said they were there. That shelter and Court house were built in 1962. DR

 

[gmerkt]

Huh. Somehow, I've missed seeing these marked guns over the years. The S&W Victory, Colt Commando and probably others were available to domestic law enforcement agencies during The War years. So it makes sense that left-overs would be available to OCD.

So thinking about it, I'm wondering what the doctrine was behind their use. For example, if the shelter had a capacity sign of, say, 250, would the door be forcibly barred to the 251st arrivee? Or was the idea to keep the weapons on hand in the event of a longer sheltering event. When those sheltered started to go stir crazy from confinement and caused trouble? Firing an M1 Rifle in a fallout shelter would be an attention getter. The concept of Civil Defense wasn't limited to nuclear encounters, so these firearms could've been envisioned for use in maintaining order in others kinds of disasters.

Wasn't Civil Defense at local level administered by local officials? Re. those mentioned above that were stored in the local sheriff's office, that may have been SOP. I'm thinking that maybe the guns weren't routinely stored at shelter level. We could probably learn more about this if we could get ahold of the various little handbooks and manuals that were published by the OCD.

One of the categories of Civil Defense personnel that local governments were encouraged to create was Auxiliary Police. Who were supposed to supplement local police in time of Civil Defense emergency. I suppose the weapons under discussion would've found their way to these people. The Auxiliary Police manual states that one of their responsibilities was to control panic. The instructions included inspiring people to sing "The Star Spangled Banner" to distract them from panic.

The 1903A3 rifle was over-produced in WW2, which resulted in quite a surplus. Has anyone seen one of these with Civil Defense markings?

 

[dangerranger60]

The court house I worked in had a 3-story parking garage under it. it had no doors to close. as a fall out shelter it relied on concrete and the curve of the driving ramps to keep out radiation. on the lowest level they had stored supplys of things like cots, blankets, barrel toilets, gas masks, etc... The guns were to put down riots and defend the building and shelter.
I don't know about the guns but I do know that they changed out the stored supplies in the late 70's, trading WWII surplus for Viet Nam era stuff.