Dude, I LOVED that movie, the dude who shot the little girl used to be my AIM avatar. 
The theme was sampled for "Megablast" by Bomb The Bass. ^___^
Yea the theme music totally kicked ass,esp for the 70ies. It holds up well today easily. I hated the remake,it sucked. This movie is pure classic. It's mix of western/ realistic horror action really pulls you in.
This is actually something that could easily really happen in any ghetto city,and I think thats part of its strong horror appeal,since it could actually happen.
People really don't like to think about that kinda stuff,it scares them deep down. Part of the reason why I think rentals in the 80ies and early 90ies where I lived wouldn't carry it was because of the large amount of crime,gang activity we had going on in LR and NLR.
Most of the gangs had AK47s,M16s,Uzis,anything the pawns would carry the gangs could get to,so most of the gangs were better armed then even the NLR/LR Swat units. Because of this eventually alot of pawn shops that dealt in weaponry got busted and shut down.
Haha - gangs bought guns from pawn shops? Weapons down here are underground and probably much cheaper than what a pawn shop would sell. I grew up with guns in the house hold. I shared a room with my bother growing up and we always had 3 guns in the room; A .45 auto, A MAC-11 with modified 32 round clips, a SPAS semi automatic 12 gauge, and for a while a .44 magnum revolver with changeable long barrel. The clips were always fully loaded as well as the SPAS. It was never a big dealt since I got to go shooting (plinking) on a regular basis. The only thing I had to worry about was when friends came over and I had to remind them not to touch the guns. My father kept his guns in his room. Strange thing is that I never bought a gun after moving out. Maybe because one of my best friends blew his teeth out the back of his head around the time I moved out.
Pawn shops here were bad about just buying and selling the stuff without keeping records or doing checks for stolen goods. Cash was king,thats all that mattered.
Back then it was the way to get a automatic,and not just some crappy piece off the street,as most of the pawns would have just about anything.
A&B Pawn off MacCarther Drive in NLR actually even had at one point a small bazooka/rocket launcher thing. I was around 12/13 at the time but I remember it was always sitting there. I used to buy and sell Nes carts there,as it was maybe a 20 min walk from my home.
They went out of business. There was also Midsouth Guns and Ammo,one of the owners got shut down finally in the late 90ies or around 2000. They were also a big pawn with,wouldn't you guess,a large stash of guns coming and going constantly. They did a big investigation on them and finally shut them down for gun trafficking. That place no longer exist.
Back then the pawns would sell guns illegally just as cheap as you could get on the street,but at better quality.
