In the last few days I have seen letters to the editor referring to our Founding Fathers. In my opinion they had more smarts than the total combined assembly of both houses of Congress today. John Kennedy had this to say at a dinner in Washington back when he was president:
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
They also say these very intelligent men did not know the advancements that would be made to rifles over the ages. I say “bull.” In 1680 there was a 12-shot repeating rifle called the Cookson Repeating rifle.
In 1718 there was the Puckle gun, built on the design of the Gatling gun, which came along later. It came in two models, a six-shot model using square bullets and a nine-shot model.
Lewis and Clark had carried a semi-automatic 20-round magazine air rifle in .46 caliber on their trip across the country. It had a range of 150 yards. This was 12 years before the Second Amendment was ratified.
During the Revolutionary War the civilians were better armed than the military. The Second Amendment is to ensure that the law-abiding citizens are as well or better armed than the bad guys, whomever they may be.
Today there are more 100 million law-abiding gun owners in this country. They are the militia referred to in the Second Amendment. Every year, 800,000 to 2.5 million times, guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are used to prevent crime.
P.S. The rifles used are not “automatic.” Most of the writers do not know “automatic” rifles have been banned since 1934.
This article appears in May 10-17, 2018.