It’s an ad for Neisner’s ( a “five and dime” store) featuring a variety of toy guns that ran in the Lorain Journal on September 16, 1959.
It’s not too surprising that boys wanted to play with guns back then. In the 1950s, there were dozens of Westerns on TV. One online article said there were more than a hundred from the 1950s through the 1960s.
The guns in the Neisner’s ad look pretty cool, since they employed “shooting’ shells.” This old TV commercial explains how they worked.
The Buckle Gun in the ad is pretty hilarious. As the ad copy notes, it fit any buckle and required no hands to shoot. “Just an outward push of the stomach fires the shootin’ shell from the gun.”
Hope the little hombres wearing that thing took it off before tying on the feed bag at the dinner table!
Anyway, we had toy guns in our house like everyone else. There are a few Christmas photos from the late 1950s/early 60s with my older brother and I each posing with our six shooters.
Later in the 1960s, my brothers and I each received our own toy rifle. We were disappointed that they didn’t shoot BBs, but they did make a tremendous ‘pop’ when pumped and fired. I remember we used to stick the end of the rifles in the dirt and blast away.