What really killed the "Punt Gun" in the US was the Winchester 97 & the Browning A-5. There was virtually no resistence to outlawing them as hardly anyone was still using them anyway. This same legislation also outlawed the few sporting 8ga's in use. Accounts of this can be found by reading Nash Buckingham's works on the subject, & he was there when it was transpiring. The 97 Winnie put the ability to kill scads of ducks into the hands of "Hordes" of people who would never have owned a "Punt Gun", yet we do not look down on them as an unsporting gun.

Miller/TN
I Didn't Say Everything I Said, Yogi Berra