An amazing case for reducing gun ownership in America
- Thread starter Wez
- Start date
Sheriff Joe
DA
100 years and still going strong. 1911 .45 ACP.
Sheriff Joe
DA
TheBlaze
Black Friday posts new all-time record for number of background checks in single day, FBI says
1 hour ago
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...LDAB&usg=AOvVaw3CaJ3BPUMHncRkKw1czDI5&cf=1
Black Friday posts new all-time record for number of background checks in single day, FBI says
1 hour ago
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...LDAB&usg=AOvVaw3CaJ3BPUMHncRkKw1czDI5&cf=1
Bruddah IZ
DA
You Can Thank American Indians for American Gun Culture
Europeans may have brought the guns, but Native Americans definitely brought the arms culture.
https://fee.org/articles/you-can-thank-american-indians-for-american-gun-culture/
A Wider View of the History of American Arms Culture
American legal history of the right to arms has always paid attention to English legal history, especially the 1689 English Bill of Rights. Sometimes, efforts have been made to draw one-to-one comparisons, to assume that English law and practice about the right to arms must have been fully transposed to America. To the contrary, Anglo-American arms culture began diverging from English arms culture starting in 1606 and continuing ever since. The different environmental conditions in America were one cause; another was the distance from London and the necessity that the colonists take care of themselves. Accomplishing the opposite of what the despotic Stuart monarchs were attempting to impose on England, the Anglo-Americans developed a culture of near-universal armament, with a preference for guns that were more reliable, easier to conceal, faster to shoot, and quicker to reload.
The American colonists of the 17th century moved away from the European model that civic virtue in use of firearms meant standing in line, blindly obeying your social superiors and shooting with minimal skill a gun you didn’t even own. The American model was responsible individual initiative, widespread personal ownership of high-quality arms and proficient accuracy. The divergence between English and American arms ideals was a cause and an effect of similar divergences in social and political life, including a broader electoral franchise and less rigid class distinctions in America compared with England.
The colonists’ new arms culture was profoundly influenced by Indian arms culture, which the colonists imitated in many respects. Perhaps this weekend you may practice precise riflery on a 200-yard range. Or you may take a defensive handgun class that trains you to make quick individual decisions under pressure. Whether or not you like American arms culture, you shouldn’t think of it as something that was brought across the Atlantic Ocean by European immigrants. It’s true that those immigrants brought the firearms. Yet those firearms were quickly integrated into an arms culture that had already existed in America for centuries and that would eventually become the arms culture of American of all races. That was the arms culture founded by the first Americans, the American Indians.
Europeans may have brought the guns, but Native Americans definitely brought the arms culture.
https://fee.org/articles/you-can-thank-american-indians-for-american-gun-culture/
A Wider View of the History of American Arms Culture
American legal history of the right to arms has always paid attention to English legal history, especially the 1689 English Bill of Rights. Sometimes, efforts have been made to draw one-to-one comparisons, to assume that English law and practice about the right to arms must have been fully transposed to America. To the contrary, Anglo-American arms culture began diverging from English arms culture starting in 1606 and continuing ever since. The different environmental conditions in America were one cause; another was the distance from London and the necessity that the colonists take care of themselves. Accomplishing the opposite of what the despotic Stuart monarchs were attempting to impose on England, the Anglo-Americans developed a culture of near-universal armament, with a preference for guns that were more reliable, easier to conceal, faster to shoot, and quicker to reload.
The American colonists of the 17th century moved away from the European model that civic virtue in use of firearms meant standing in line, blindly obeying your social superiors and shooting with minimal skill a gun you didn’t even own. The American model was responsible individual initiative, widespread personal ownership of high-quality arms and proficient accuracy. The divergence between English and American arms ideals was a cause and an effect of similar divergences in social and political life, including a broader electoral franchise and less rigid class distinctions in America compared with England.
The colonists’ new arms culture was profoundly influenced by Indian arms culture, which the colonists imitated in many respects. Perhaps this weekend you may practice precise riflery on a 200-yard range. Or you may take a defensive handgun class that trains you to make quick individual decisions under pressure. Whether or not you like American arms culture, you shouldn’t think of it as something that was brought across the Atlantic Ocean by European immigrants. It’s true that those immigrants brought the firearms. Yet those firearms were quickly integrated into an arms culture that had already existed in America for centuries and that would eventually become the arms culture of American of all races. That was the arms culture founded by the first Americans, the American Indians.
Another hot crossbow ......Review below.
Specs: Weight: 5.4 lb.; Draw weight; 280 lb.; Power stroke: 10.2”; Speed: 343 fps.
The Lowdown: One beef about recurve crossbows is that, while undeniably reliable, they’re flipping loud.
The Micro Suppressor goes after that problem with with Excalibur’s new Sound Deadening System (SDS),
a system of rubber dampening features that work in sync to reduce vibration and noise. The 280-pound draw
weight will make cocking the bow a challenge for some. But with a axle-axle width of 21 inches at full draw,
and overall length of just 31 inches, the Micro Suppressor is not just quiet, but also compact and handy for a recurve.
Bruddah IZ
DA
This essay is based in part on Nicholas J. Johnson, David B. Kopel, George A. Mocsary & Michael P. O’Shea, “Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy,” 2nd edition (Aspen Pub. 2017).
It is widely agreed that the United States has an exceptional gun culture. Although Great Britain is America’s “mother country,” the two nations have very different arms cultures. Why so? Historically, two reasons were especially important in the early colonial period:
1. The practical differences between conditions in America and in Great Britain.
2. The influence of American Indians.
What today is called “American gun culture” is founded on American Indian arms culture. The convergence of Europeans and American Indians produced a new, hybrid arms culture. Although that culture has changed over the centuries, we can still find in 21st-century arms culture the influence of the Anglo-Indian convergence along the 17th century Atlantic seaboard.
It is widely agreed that the United States has an exceptional gun culture. Although Great Britain is America’s “mother country,” the two nations have very different arms cultures. Why so? Historically, two reasons were especially important in the early colonial period:
1. The practical differences between conditions in America and in Great Britain.
2. The influence of American Indians.
What today is called “American gun culture” is founded on American Indian arms culture. The convergence of Europeans and American Indians produced a new, hybrid arms culture. Although that culture has changed over the centuries, we can still find in 21st-century arms culture the influence of the Anglo-Indian convergence along the 17th century Atlantic seaboard.
Bruddah IZ
DA
The Indians
American Indians got nearly all of their protein from hunting. Although the Anglo-Americans (English in America) did hunt, they were not as dependent on hunting because the Anglo-Americans had cattle-raising and Atlantic fishing as fairly reliable protein sources.
Not surprisingly, the Indians were highly proficient with bows (as the English had been long before). They could shoot accurately at moving targets and could shoot while moving.
Indian warfare was very different from European warfare. Whereas European battles were usually known in advance to both sides, Indians fought primarily with surprise attacks and small-scale raids. The European infantryman was trained to be an automaton, absolutely obedient to his officers; he had to stay standing in line, reloading his matchlock, while lines of enemy soldiers fired at him. The Indians, however, extolled individual valor in combat. In battle, each man was his own commander.
So for European warfare of the 17th century, mass, unthinking, unaimed fire was the correct doctrine. But for Indian warfare in the dense woods near the Atlantic seaboard, individual marksmanship and initiative were essential.
American Indians got nearly all of their protein from hunting. Although the Anglo-Americans (English in America) did hunt, they were not as dependent on hunting because the Anglo-Americans had cattle-raising and Atlantic fishing as fairly reliable protein sources.
Not surprisingly, the Indians were highly proficient with bows (as the English had been long before). They could shoot accurately at moving targets and could shoot while moving.
Indian warfare was very different from European warfare. Whereas European battles were usually known in advance to both sides, Indians fought primarily with surprise attacks and small-scale raids. The European infantryman was trained to be an automaton, absolutely obedient to his officers; he had to stay standing in line, reloading his matchlock, while lines of enemy soldiers fired at him. The Indians, however, extolled individual valor in combat. In battle, each man was his own commander.
So for European warfare of the 17th century, mass, unthinking, unaimed fire was the correct doctrine. But for Indian warfare in the dense woods near the Atlantic seaboard, individual marksmanship and initiative were essential.
Bruddah IZ
DA
The Anglo-Indian Encounter
In the Western Hemisphere, just as in the Eastern Hemisphere, the control of territory was based on right of conquest. Whoever could take and hold territory by force of arms could keep that territory as long as they could defend it. To be sure, the various groups in both hemispheres made treaties and alliances and often managed to resolve territorial disputes without resorting to force. But when push came to shove, possession was at least 9/10th of the law and possession was based on armed victory. None of this changed when Europeans began arriving in America. Indian territories, such as the lands of the Powhatan Confederation in Virginia, that had been conquered from other Indians came under pressure from the Europeans. Warfare was endemic, with many shifting alliances between various colonies and various tribes.
Trade was also endemic. The Anglo-Americans had plenty of high-quality trade goods. For Indians, the most desired of these were firearms, right from the start of the early days in Virginia. (See Frederick Fausz’s “Fighting ‘Fire’ with Firearms: The Anglo-Powhatan Arms Race in Early Virginia.”)
Desire for the best European guns, the flintlocks, compelled Indians to develop a sophisticated and large-scale trade economy, according to Patrick A. Malone in “The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians.” Eventually, the Indian fur trade economy would bring fur pelts from the trans-Mississippi, through a network of tribes, to Euro-American traders near the Atlantic seaboard. Whereas European colonists in some other parts of the world could get away with selling primitive firearms, the Indians quickly became sophisticated arms consumers, knowing and demanding quality.
The Anglo-Americans faced a dilemma in their Indian trade. On the one hand, firearms sales were often a sine qua non for trade relations with any tribe of unconquered friendly Indians. On the other hand, the colonists were desperate to keep firearms out of the hands of hostile Indians. The colonists enacted many laws to attempt to control the Indian arms trade, but they were exercises in futility. To the limited extent that the laws deterred Anglo-Americans from selling arms to the Indians, Indians could acquire arms from trade networks linked to New Netherland (Delaware to Albany) or New France (Canada down to New Orleans, via the Mississippi River). Indian wars continued until the late 19th century, and nobody’s policies, including those of the U.S. government, managed to prevent Indians from acquiring arms. (See David J. Silverman’s “Thundersticks: Firearms and Violent Transformation of Native America.”)
Especially in frontier regions, many colonists lived in a state of constant peril from Indian raids. Even when there were formal treaty relations with the most proximate Indians, the Indians might change their minds and launch a surprise attack. For example, Virginia was nearly wiped out by the Powhatan in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War, which began in 1622.
To defend families and communities, the colonists were on their own. The general 17th century model of Spanish and French colonialism centered on trade outposts run by the central government in Europe and protected by that government’s standing army and navy. The English approach, though, was usually to grant a charter to a joint stock company or to a proprietor, to create some basic rules for colonial governance and relations with the mother country, and mostly to leave the colonists to fend for themselves. The English policy reduced the central government’s burden of expense for the colonies and forced the colonists to provide for their own defense.
Accordingly, most colonies enacted strict laws to instill and foster a firearms culture. This required changing the habits of some of the immigrants from Europe, most of whom came from places with much weaker arms cultures.
Of course, the colonial laws included mandatory participation in the militia by able-bodied males and mandatory personal arms ownership for such participation. That part of the story is well-known. But the colonial laws went further.
One effect of the Anglo-Indian encounter was to foster a culture of widespread household gun ownership and widespread arms carrying.
Many laws required firearms ownership by any head of a household, even if the head were not militia-eligible (e.g., the head of the household was a woman or an old man.) Heads of households had to ensure that there was at least one firearm for every male in the household age 16 or over. This included free servants and indentured servants. Some colonies required that when a male indentured servant completed his term of service, his “freedom dues” (goods given by the master, so that the former servant could live independently) had to include a firearm.
To encourage settlement, the Carolina colony (today, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) induced immigration by offering immigrants freehold land ownership, along with strong guarantees of religious liberty. To receive the land grant, an immigrant had to bring six months worth of provisions to take care of his family while his farm was being cleared and cultivated. Also required: ‘‘provided always, that every man be armed with a good musket full bore, 10 pounds powder and 20 pounds of bullet.’’ (See “A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina” (London 1666), a pamphlet by proprietors encouraging immigration, reprinted in “9 English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776,” David C. Douglas gen. ed., Merrill Jensen ed., 1955).
The Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered parents to arrange for arms training for all their children aged 10 or above, both boys and girls. Conscientious objectors were exempt.
Arms carrying was often mandatory for travel outside of towns and for attendance at large public events, particularly church services. Then, as now, unarmed church services were favorite targets for attack, because there would be lots of people gathered in a small space.
So one effect of the Anglo-Indian encounter was to foster a culture of widespread household gun ownership and widespread arms carrying. This was very different from conditions back in England, where the government was certainly not ordering people to always carry guns to the weekly (and mandatory) Church of England services.
Not until the New Englanders learned to fight like Indians could they defeat the Indians.
Today, when we think of the ideal armed American, we think of a person ready to act responsibly without waiting for orders from above. He or she doesn’t stand in place, but instead can move and can engage mobile threats. Another aspect of the ideal is what one writer calls “the cult of accuracy.” (See Alexander Rose’s “American Rifle: A Biography”.) Such accuracy can include slow fire from a difficult distance — perhaps an arrow against a bison many yards away — or a Chris Kyle sniper shot from 600 yards. Rose traces the origins of the cult of accuracy to the popularity of the Pennsylvania-Kentucky rifle, which was first produced in the early 18th century by German and Swiss immigrants near Lancaster, Pa. They modified the traditional rifles of central Europe to meet American conditions and produced an astonishingly accurate, lightweight rifle perfectly suited for dense forests of the American colonies.
Yet the first Americans to participate in the cult of accuracy weren’t the 18th-century hunters of Kentucky. They were Indians of the previous century, who quickly transferred their traditional bow and arrow skills to the newfangled flintlocks.
Two volunteer units proved exceptionally able at finding and engaging King Philip’s very mobile warriors. Benjamin Church’s volunteers were 70 percent Indian. Moseley’s rangers were all from the social periphery: apprentices, servants, prisoners, and Indians. Even when the volunteer units could not catch King Philip’s forces, they kept up a fast pursuit, so that the camps of King Philip and his allies had to be abandoned quickly. Stores of food, ammunition, gunpowder and other supplies had to be left behind. The war of attrition gradually deprived the Wampanoag and their allies of supplies and destroyed their morale, leading eventually to surrender.
Not until the New Englanders learned to fight like Indians could they defeat the Indians.
Colonial Massachusetts never repeated its error from the first phase of King Philip’s War. Thereafter, military responsibility within the colony was more equally shared. To the extent that armies for extended operations could be raised by paying well for volunteers, they were. As the English militia theorists (e.g., James Harrington, “The Commonwealth of Oceana,” 1656) had predicted, a genuine people’s militia served the people. ‘‘A survey of Massachusetts records reveals no instance in which the colony’s rulers attempted to employ the militia as a police force, as a tax collector, or as an instrument of social control.’’ (See Timothy Breen, “Persistent Localism: English Social Change and the Shaping of New England Institutions,” 32 Wm. & Mary Q. 3d ser. 3, 23 (1975).)
In the Western Hemisphere, just as in the Eastern Hemisphere, the control of territory was based on right of conquest. Whoever could take and hold territory by force of arms could keep that territory as long as they could defend it. To be sure, the various groups in both hemispheres made treaties and alliances and often managed to resolve territorial disputes without resorting to force. But when push came to shove, possession was at least 9/10th of the law and possession was based on armed victory. None of this changed when Europeans began arriving in America. Indian territories, such as the lands of the Powhatan Confederation in Virginia, that had been conquered from other Indians came under pressure from the Europeans. Warfare was endemic, with many shifting alliances between various colonies and various tribes.
Trade was also endemic. The Anglo-Americans had plenty of high-quality trade goods. For Indians, the most desired of these were firearms, right from the start of the early days in Virginia. (See Frederick Fausz’s “Fighting ‘Fire’ with Firearms: The Anglo-Powhatan Arms Race in Early Virginia.”)
Desire for the best European guns, the flintlocks, compelled Indians to develop a sophisticated and large-scale trade economy, according to Patrick A. Malone in “The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians.” Eventually, the Indian fur trade economy would bring fur pelts from the trans-Mississippi, through a network of tribes, to Euro-American traders near the Atlantic seaboard. Whereas European colonists in some other parts of the world could get away with selling primitive firearms, the Indians quickly became sophisticated arms consumers, knowing and demanding quality.
The Anglo-Americans faced a dilemma in their Indian trade. On the one hand, firearms sales were often a sine qua non for trade relations with any tribe of unconquered friendly Indians. On the other hand, the colonists were desperate to keep firearms out of the hands of hostile Indians. The colonists enacted many laws to attempt to control the Indian arms trade, but they were exercises in futility. To the limited extent that the laws deterred Anglo-Americans from selling arms to the Indians, Indians could acquire arms from trade networks linked to New Netherland (Delaware to Albany) or New France (Canada down to New Orleans, via the Mississippi River). Indian wars continued until the late 19th century, and nobody’s policies, including those of the U.S. government, managed to prevent Indians from acquiring arms. (See David J. Silverman’s “Thundersticks: Firearms and Violent Transformation of Native America.”)
Especially in frontier regions, many colonists lived in a state of constant peril from Indian raids. Even when there were formal treaty relations with the most proximate Indians, the Indians might change their minds and launch a surprise attack. For example, Virginia was nearly wiped out by the Powhatan in the Second Anglo-Powhatan War, which began in 1622.
To defend families and communities, the colonists were on their own. The general 17th century model of Spanish and French colonialism centered on trade outposts run by the central government in Europe and protected by that government’s standing army and navy. The English approach, though, was usually to grant a charter to a joint stock company or to a proprietor, to create some basic rules for colonial governance and relations with the mother country, and mostly to leave the colonists to fend for themselves. The English policy reduced the central government’s burden of expense for the colonies and forced the colonists to provide for their own defense.
Accordingly, most colonies enacted strict laws to instill and foster a firearms culture. This required changing the habits of some of the immigrants from Europe, most of whom came from places with much weaker arms cultures.
Of course, the colonial laws included mandatory participation in the militia by able-bodied males and mandatory personal arms ownership for such participation. That part of the story is well-known. But the colonial laws went further.
One effect of the Anglo-Indian encounter was to foster a culture of widespread household gun ownership and widespread arms carrying.
Many laws required firearms ownership by any head of a household, even if the head were not militia-eligible (e.g., the head of the household was a woman or an old man.) Heads of households had to ensure that there was at least one firearm for every male in the household age 16 or over. This included free servants and indentured servants. Some colonies required that when a male indentured servant completed his term of service, his “freedom dues” (goods given by the master, so that the former servant could live independently) had to include a firearm.
To encourage settlement, the Carolina colony (today, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) induced immigration by offering immigrants freehold land ownership, along with strong guarantees of religious liberty. To receive the land grant, an immigrant had to bring six months worth of provisions to take care of his family while his farm was being cleared and cultivated. Also required: ‘‘provided always, that every man be armed with a good musket full bore, 10 pounds powder and 20 pounds of bullet.’’ (See “A Brief Description of the Province of Carolina” (London 1666), a pamphlet by proprietors encouraging immigration, reprinted in “9 English Historical Documents: American Colonial Documents to 1776,” David C. Douglas gen. ed., Merrill Jensen ed., 1955).
The Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered parents to arrange for arms training for all their children aged 10 or above, both boys and girls. Conscientious objectors were exempt.
Arms carrying was often mandatory for travel outside of towns and for attendance at large public events, particularly church services. Then, as now, unarmed church services were favorite targets for attack, because there would be lots of people gathered in a small space.
So one effect of the Anglo-Indian encounter was to foster a culture of widespread household gun ownership and widespread arms carrying. This was very different from conditions back in England, where the government was certainly not ordering people to always carry guns to the weekly (and mandatory) Church of England services.
Not until the New Englanders learned to fight like Indians could they defeat the Indians.
Today, when we think of the ideal armed American, we think of a person ready to act responsibly without waiting for orders from above. He or she doesn’t stand in place, but instead can move and can engage mobile threats. Another aspect of the ideal is what one writer calls “the cult of accuracy.” (See Alexander Rose’s “American Rifle: A Biography”.) Such accuracy can include slow fire from a difficult distance — perhaps an arrow against a bison many yards away — or a Chris Kyle sniper shot from 600 yards. Rose traces the origins of the cult of accuracy to the popularity of the Pennsylvania-Kentucky rifle, which was first produced in the early 18th century by German and Swiss immigrants near Lancaster, Pa. They modified the traditional rifles of central Europe to meet American conditions and produced an astonishingly accurate, lightweight rifle perfectly suited for dense forests of the American colonies.
Yet the first Americans to participate in the cult of accuracy weren’t the 18th-century hunters of Kentucky. They were Indians of the previous century, who quickly transferred their traditional bow and arrow skills to the newfangled flintlocks.
Two volunteer units proved exceptionally able at finding and engaging King Philip’s very mobile warriors. Benjamin Church’s volunteers were 70 percent Indian. Moseley’s rangers were all from the social periphery: apprentices, servants, prisoners, and Indians. Even when the volunteer units could not catch King Philip’s forces, they kept up a fast pursuit, so that the camps of King Philip and his allies had to be abandoned quickly. Stores of food, ammunition, gunpowder and other supplies had to be left behind. The war of attrition gradually deprived the Wampanoag and their allies of supplies and destroyed their morale, leading eventually to surrender.
Not until the New Englanders learned to fight like Indians could they defeat the Indians.
Colonial Massachusetts never repeated its error from the first phase of King Philip’s War. Thereafter, military responsibility within the colony was more equally shared. To the extent that armies for extended operations could be raised by paying well for volunteers, they were. As the English militia theorists (e.g., James Harrington, “The Commonwealth of Oceana,” 1656) had predicted, a genuine people’s militia served the people. ‘‘A survey of Massachusetts records reveals no instance in which the colony’s rulers attempted to employ the militia as a police force, as a tax collector, or as an instrument of social control.’’ (See Timothy Breen, “Persistent Localism: English Social Change and the Shaping of New England Institutions,” 32 Wm. & Mary Q. 3d ser. 3, 23 (1975).)
Bruddah IZ
DA
Another hot crossbow ......Review below.
Specs: Weight: 5.4 lb.; Draw weight; 280 lb.; Power stroke: 10.2”; Speed: 343 fps.
The Lowdown: One beef about recurve crossbows is that, while undeniably reliable, they’re flipping loud.
The Micro Suppressor goes after that problem with with Excalibur’s new Sound Deadening System (SDS),
a system of rubber dampening features that work in sync to reduce vibration and noise. The 280-pound draw
weight will make cocking the bow a challenge for some. But with a axle-axle width of 21 inches at full draw,
and overall length of just 31 inches, the Micro Suppressor is not just quiet, but also compact and handy for a recurve.
Today, when we think of the ideal armed American, we think of a person ready to act responsibly without waiting for orders from above. He or she doesn’t stand in place, but instead can move and can engage mobile threats. Another aspect of the ideal is what one writer calls “the cult of accuracy.” (See Alexander Rose’s “American Rifle: A Biography”.) Such accuracy can include slow fire from a difficult distance — perhaps an arrow against a bison many yards away — or a Chris Kyle sniper shot from 600 yards. Rose traces the origins of the cult of accuracy to the popularity of the Pennsylvania-Kentucky rifle, which was first produced in the early 18th century by German and Swiss immigrants near Lancaster, Pa. They modified the traditional rifles of central Europe to meet American conditions and produced an astonishingly accurate, lightweight rifle perfectly suited for dense forests of the American colonies.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Gun-control advocates often argue that gun-control laws must be more restrictive than the original meaning of the Second Amendment would allow, because modern firearms are so different from the firearms of the late 18th century. This argument is based on ignorance of the history of firearms. It is true that in 1791 the most common firearms were handguns or long guns that had to be reloaded after every shot. But it is not true that repeating arms, which can fire multiple times without reloading, were unimagined in 1791. To the contrary, repeating arms long predate the 1606 founding of the first English colony in America. As of 1791, repeating arms were available but expensive.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Centuries of Repeating Arms
What kind of repeating arms were available before 1815, when the Madison-Monroe mass production innovation program began? The state of the art was the Girandoni air rifle, invented around 1779 for Austrian army sharpshooters. Lewis and Clark would carry a Girandoni on their famous expedition, during the Jefferson administration. The Girandoni could shoot 21 or 22 bullets in .46 or .49 caliber without reloading. Ballistically equal to a firearm, a single shot from the Girandoni could penetrate a one-inch wood plank, or take an elk. (For more on the Girandoni, see my article “The History of Firearms Magazines and Magazine Prohibitions,” 88 Albany L. Rev. 849, 852-53 (2015).)
The first repeaters had been invented about three centuries before. The earliest-known model is a German breech-loading matchlock arquebus from around 1490-1530 with a 10-shot revolving cylinder. M.L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology, 1492-1792, 50 (1980). Henry VIII had a long gun that used a revolving cylinder (a “revolver”) for multiple shots. W.W. Greener, The Gun and Its Development, 81-82 (9th ed. 1910). A 16-round wheel lock dates from about 1580. Kopel, at 852.
Production of repeaters continued in the seventeenth century. Brown, at 105-6 (four-barreled wheel-lock pistol could fire 15 shots in a few seconds); John Nigel George, English Guns and Rifles, 55-58 (1947) (English breech-loading lever-action repeater, and a revolver, made no later than the British Civil War, and perhaps earlier, by an English gun maker).
The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.
The first repeaters to be built in large quantities appear to be the 1646 Danish flintlocks that used a pair of tubular magazines, and could fire 30 shots without reloading. Like a modern lever-action rifle, the next shot was made ready by a simple two-step motion of the trigger guard. These guns were produced for the Danish and Dutch armies. Brown, at 106-7.
In Colonial America, repeating arms were available for people who could afford them, or who were skilled enough to make their own. For example, in September 1722, John Pim of Boston entertained some Indians by demonstrating a firearm he had made. Although “loaded but once,” it “was discharged eleven times following, with bullets in the space of two minutes each which went through a double door at fifty yards’ distance.” Samuel Niles, A Summary Historical Narrative of the Wars in New England, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th ser., vol. 5, 347 (1837). Pim’s gun may have been a type of the repeating flintlock that became “popular in England from the third quarter of the 17th century,” and was manufactured in Massachusetts starting in the early eighteenth. Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America 1526-1783, 215-17 (Dover reprint 2000) (Smithsonian Institution 1956). Another repeating flintlock, invented by Philadelphia’s Joseph Belton, could fire eight shots in three seconds. Idem, 217. Pim also owned a .52 caliber six-shot flintlock revolver, similar to the revolvers that had been made in England since the turn of the century. Brown, 255. A variety of multi-shot pistols from the late eighteenth century have been preserved, holding two to four rounds. Charles Winthrop Sawyer, Firearms in American History: 1600 to 1800, 194-98, 215-16 (1910).
What kind of repeating arms were available before 1815, when the Madison-Monroe mass production innovation program began? The state of the art was the Girandoni air rifle, invented around 1779 for Austrian army sharpshooters. Lewis and Clark would carry a Girandoni on their famous expedition, during the Jefferson administration. The Girandoni could shoot 21 or 22 bullets in .46 or .49 caliber without reloading. Ballistically equal to a firearm, a single shot from the Girandoni could penetrate a one-inch wood plank, or take an elk. (For more on the Girandoni, see my article “The History of Firearms Magazines and Magazine Prohibitions,” 88 Albany L. Rev. 849, 852-53 (2015).)
The first repeaters had been invented about three centuries before. The earliest-known model is a German breech-loading matchlock arquebus from around 1490-1530 with a 10-shot revolving cylinder. M.L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology, 1492-1792, 50 (1980). Henry VIII had a long gun that used a revolving cylinder (a “revolver”) for multiple shots. W.W. Greener, The Gun and Its Development, 81-82 (9th ed. 1910). A 16-round wheel lock dates from about 1580. Kopel, at 852.
Production of repeaters continued in the seventeenth century. Brown, at 105-6 (four-barreled wheel-lock pistol could fire 15 shots in a few seconds); John Nigel George, English Guns and Rifles, 55-58 (1947) (English breech-loading lever-action repeater, and a revolver, made no later than the British Civil War, and perhaps earlier, by an English gun maker).
The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms.
The first repeaters to be built in large quantities appear to be the 1646 Danish flintlocks that used a pair of tubular magazines, and could fire 30 shots without reloading. Like a modern lever-action rifle, the next shot was made ready by a simple two-step motion of the trigger guard. These guns were produced for the Danish and Dutch armies. Brown, at 106-7.
In Colonial America, repeating arms were available for people who could afford them, or who were skilled enough to make their own. For example, in September 1722, John Pim of Boston entertained some Indians by demonstrating a firearm he had made. Although “loaded but once,” it “was discharged eleven times following, with bullets in the space of two minutes each which went through a double door at fifty yards’ distance.” Samuel Niles, A Summary Historical Narrative of the Wars in New England, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th ser., vol. 5, 347 (1837). Pim’s gun may have been a type of the repeating flintlock that became “popular in England from the third quarter of the 17th century,” and was manufactured in Massachusetts starting in the early eighteenth. Harold L. Peterson, Arms and Armor in Colonial America 1526-1783, 215-17 (Dover reprint 2000) (Smithsonian Institution 1956). Another repeating flintlock, invented by Philadelphia’s Joseph Belton, could fire eight shots in three seconds. Idem, 217. Pim also owned a .52 caliber six-shot flintlock revolver, similar to the revolvers that had been made in England since the turn of the century. Brown, 255. A variety of multi-shot pistols from the late eighteenth century have been preserved, holding two to four rounds. Charles Winthrop Sawyer, Firearms in American History: 1600 to 1800, 194-98, 215-16 (1910).
Bruddah IZ
DA
“the cult of accuracy.” I love this term
Hüsker Dü
DA
Nice post, way to branch (but not too far) and show an opinion . . . baby steps . . . baby steps.
Hüsker Dü
DA
You know there are too many guns in the USA when someone finds one and (allegedly) accidentally kills someone via ricochet. Then, on top of that, the laws concerning guns, and the use thereof, are so lax that a felon can't even get convicted of manslaughter in such a circumstance. It's time to toughen our gun laws for the good of all!
That's how fucked up you are and the system......
That guy KILLED Kate Steinle and we all know it.
The jury was given railroad instructions to support
Illegal Aliens and to spite the President ....Nothing but Shit
from San Francisco " The Shithole " by The Bay !
Wez
DA
More guns, more gun deaths.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...lues-in-google-searches-and-background-checks
Researchers Look For Gun Violence Clues In Google Searches And Background Checks
A study published Thursday concludes that a subsequent increase in gun exposure led to more accidental firearm deaths than otherwise would have occurred in the months after the school shooting.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health...lues-in-google-searches-and-background-checks
Researchers Look For Gun Violence Clues In Google Searches And Background Checks
A study published Thursday concludes that a subsequent increase in gun exposure led to more accidental firearm deaths than otherwise would have occurred in the months after the school shooting.