Walt Kowalski had an M1 Garand in “Gran Torino” (2008), but he must have somehow managed to bring his home from Korea personally.

The Garand rifle was the primary US long-arm used in WWII, making it a favorite of collectors. Garands are also favored for high power rifle match shooting. High demand makes Garands fairly expensive.

You have to jump through the hoop of belonging to certain gun clubs and participating in certain kinds of target match competitions before you can buy a Garand from the Civilian Marksmanship Program, and a decent one will still cost you over a thousand dollars.

Mr. Mosin Crate offers some Garands for sale from time to time. He just posted a new batch of mostly post-Korean-War 1950s examples which looked generally well-used, and they were all going for $800+.

Meanwhile South Korea is sitting on nearly a million Garands and M1 carbines supplied by the American taxpayer as military aid during the 1950s and 1960s, and Century Arms in Vermont is eager to import them to sell to American target shooters and collectors, but Barack Obama in August of 2013 issued one of his famous executive orders banning the importation of surplus military weapons by private companies.

The White House announced:

Today, the Administration is announcing a new policy of denying requests to bring military-grade firearms back into the United States to private entities, with only a few exceptions such as for museums. This new policy will help keep military-grade firearms off our streets.”

I seriously doubt that a Garand has ever actually been used in the commission of crime anytime in several decades.

Last summer, Century Arms laid off 41 employees as a direct result of the Korean deal falling through.

Let’s hope that the Republican Congress will do something about all this.