The WRight Way
By Ron Wright
(Cazenovia, NY – Jan. 2013) With the recent school murders tragedy caused by a deranged individual in Connecticut, the Second Amendment-haters have been on a rampage. Their focus is on an opportunity to demean and disarm legitimate firearm owners with a cover story of “reducing gun violence.” For them it is another opportunity.
With the NRA’s thoughtful and immediate action recommendation to place uniformed, armed officers in schools, we should not be surprised to see the reaction from anti-gunners. All sorts of excuses and diversions were scattered about to try confusing the public and not thoughtfully addressing the NRA proposal. Many of the anti-gun ownership people including big city mayors insist on armed guard protection for themselves but not for our schoolchildren.
Let’s explore one aspect of attacks on the Second Amendment.
What about the idea that American leaders in the post-Revolutionary era were (1) not aware of any advanced weapons technology or (2) could not even dream of any weapon besides a slow-to-reload single shot muzzleloader?
Key dates: the U.S. Constitution became effective March 4. 1789. The Second Amendment became effective Dec. 15, 1791, this the time era of our founding fathers and their writing of these important documents.
Consider the following regarding any notion that rapid cycling or repeating-type weapons were beyond the comprehension of those founders of our nation and the writers of our constitution and the bill of rights.
1779: The Girandoni-designed air rifle was used by the Austrian army. This gun had a high-pressure pneumatic detachable stock that could fire 20 shots a minute and was deadly at 100 yards. Extra pressurized stocks were carried by soldiers to enable them to rapidly resume shooting.
1777: Joseph Belton presented his 11-shot cylinder magazine gun to the Continental Congress, a weapon that could fire 20 shots in five seconds. The congress felt it was too expensive because of budgetary reasons at the time.
1770: The Ferguson breech-loading rifle of 1770 was used against Americans by British forces in limited numbers during the U.S. Revolution.
1722: John Montagu carried several revolving-chamber magazine guns in his ships for a planned invasion of several West Indies islands.
1720: The de la Chaumette breech-loading rifle system of that year was the basis for the 1770 Ferguson.
May 15, 1718: James Puckle presented and demonstrated live fire of his multiple-shot cylinder crank-locked gun to a British government group. (Time frame reference: The father of our country was not born until 1732, 14 years later.)
1712: Initial and continuing key research years for fulminate/chlorate percussion detonator chemistry includes 1714, 1774, 1785, 1787, 1800 and through Forsyths 1807 percussion detonator invention, resulting in the percussion primer used in the early 1800s and in most all modern ammunition.
1597: An eight-shot revolving wheel-lock pistol was invented.
1520: Leonardo Da Vinci designs a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight that can kill people at 300 yards.
1481: Da Vinci presents his 14-barrel, inline firearm system design set in a triple rotary bank arrangement for a total 42 loaded barrels that could be discharged in seconds. His war ship designs have a 13-barrel rotary turret. He designed helicopters and war planes along with anti-aircraft guns to shoot them down. His war tank designs were bristling with dozens of gun barrels.
1418: Korea gets semi-automatic cross bows from China.
Medieval Europe: Medieval cross bows and long bows with metal-tipped bolts and arrows in use that could penetrate the armor of that era, as well as modern technology woven fabric body armor that modern bullets often fail to penetrate. The cross bows in use then could penetrate steel and kill armored knights at 200 yards.
300 BCE: Chinese semi-automatic cross bows were killing enemy soldiers with poison-tipped arrows fired at the rate of 20 in 15 seconds.
421 BCE: The Greeks were using fast-firing semi-automatic cross bows in siege operations.
Considering this sampling of the types of technology known to the writers of our constitution, it is inconceivable that their thoughts on firearms and weapons technology development advances (and gun use and ownership into the future) were limited to single-shot muzzle loaders.
Ron Wright of Cazenovia is a retiree with keen interest in his family, history, politics and his church. He began putting his thoughts on paper a little over a decade ago to share with family and friends. Ron, whose column appears the third edition each month, may be reached at madnews@m3pmedia.com.