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I was born in '86, so I can't account for back then, was gun culture different then?
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Oh, yeah. Everybody belonged to shooting clubs, which were really more about clubs than shooting. We had a smaller available selection of firearms because there wasn't much demand to drive innovation. Glock hadn't happened yet, so you were still stuck with the same old standbys.
More to the point, the 2nd Amendment was about the National Guard or something back then.
Emerson and
Heller hadn't happened, so the prevailing "logic" was that there was no individual right. Since everyone got their information from television news, that was an easy interpretation to push.
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I know the NRA platform has changed, I think it was about safe shooting sports and now it's about making the gun industry bucks.
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That's a narrative being pushed by gun-control advocates to drive a wedge. I've often and long challenged them to show some correlation between NRA donations and the "gun lobby." There isn't one. In fact, the organization that most closely fits that definition would be the NSSF.
As for the platform, it hasn't changed. If you have a chance to check out back issues of their magazines from the period, you'll see the same insistence on the RKBA they have now. The idea that they can't be a gun safety organization AND an advocacy organization is silly.
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Back in the 60s 70s and 80s did many civilians own and shoot ar15s etc?
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Some did. The AR-15 in my circle was something of a rich person's toy. The civilian models were expensive, and they had a reputation for unreliability, though that might have been due to the ammunition available at the time. The idea of civilians wanting and having military rifles is by no means some fetish thing that just popped up recently. The military often has sound criteria for choosing the equipment they do, and it's natural that civilians would perceive those products as being of good quality.