THIS is what firearms looked like when the 2nd Amendment was written ...
Do you think the Founding Fathers could even imagine automatic weapons with 30 round ammo clips?
I don't.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Air rifle from 1790: The Girandoni air rifle was in service with the Austrian army from 1780 to around 1815. The advantages of a high rate of fire, no smoke from propellants, and low muzzle report granted it initial acceptance, but it was eventually removed from service for several reasons. While the detachable air reservoir was capable of around 30 shots it took nearly 1500 strokes of a hand pump to fill those reservoirs. Later, a wagon-mounted pump was provided. The reservoirs themselves, made from hammered sheet iron held together with rivets and sealed by brazing, proved very difficult to manufacture using the techniques of the period and were always in short supply.
In addition, the weapon was very delicate and a small break could make it inoperable. Finally, it was very different from any other weapon of the time and any soldier using it needed to be highly trained.
Apparently someone thought this gun was a big whoop.
Is like saying "you seem to be stuck on facts." Uh, yea, and the "fact" that you have a problem with it means you're obviously bullshitting.
As far as the founders, I never said they "looked back" all the time. They did to a certain extent. The english civil wars, the greeks, the protestant reformation, they also looked forward somewhat. (WTF is with you gun freaks and "all or nothing?"
But to say that they could look forward and see the guns of today is a superman sized leap. The people who used the maxim machine gun in the 18th century couldn't see the slaughter on the battlefield of world war I. They all thought it would be over in month.
Einstein, the most intelligent man of the 20th century, thought quantum theory was bullshit. Even the most intelligent can't read the future.
"Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory yields a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that He doesn't play dice." - Albert Einstein
You want me to believe they were some sort of supermen who could could see 150 years into the future to see the assault weapons of today. Even 100 years to see the maxim machine gun?
Yea, right. Do you have a great offer from Nigeria I can't pass up?
PS.
The 16th and 17th centuries had just as many big inventions as many as the 18th, yet you keep wanting to say there was "so much change."
As I pointed out, it took 65 years for the steam engine to become something marginally useful.
"understanding" electricity, that would have to be the 19th century again.
your search words were pretty lame BTW
Even more so if you were the one doing the writing. Ever proofread before you click the reply button? LOL.
(You're just adorable!)
You're really gone, and using NRA taking points did you in. Now you will have more time to play with your Gungeon buddies on FR...
They had no fucking CLUE how technology would advance. Technology advanced so slowly that four score and seven years later a war was fought primarily with weapons that were barely improved over what was used in the revolutionary war. The weapons technology would advance considerably more in the twenty years after the civil war than it did in the 84 years prior to the civil war.
So don't throw around an idiotic canard. The men who wrote the second amendment could NEVER have foreseen this:
the "Founding Fathers" actually wanted every American to be armed with a semi-automatic, high capacity weapon is more than laughable. You and your Gungeon buddies reflect the type of mentality that placed this country in the number one position in the world for gun deaths and injuries.
You and your "but the 2nd Amendment guarantees my right to own as many guns and as much ammo as I want," crowd are the embodiment of all that's wrong with this country. No one gives a rat's ass about the advancement of "firearm technology" except gun fetishists and NRA sheep. No, you do NOT have the right to flood this country with weapons designed specifically for the purpose of killing large numbers of people quickly. No, you do NOT have the right to carry a gun anywhere, at anytime, and for any reason. No you do NOT have the right to totally ignore the first part of the sentence of the 2nd Amendment.
There is a growing movement of sane Americans who have decided that hiding behind the 2nd Amendment is no longer a valid excuse for encouraging the death of our children. Your NRA idol's answer of placing even more guns in schools is a slap in the face to the parents and victims of the recent carnage we witnessed. The NRA is about to fight its last repugnant battle against the American people before it becomes totally irrelevant.
No we don't want to take your guns away. We want you to be responsible for the fucking things, and to also be accountable when you are not responsible. We want to bring some sanity back to the sale, registration, and tracking of your fucking precious gun. We want some assurances that you meet the requirements of the community in order to purchase and own a gun.
Thanks for your time...
And what did you do while you were reloading and were being charged by the person you shot non-fatally because the balls you shot weren't real consistent and tended to fly off target?
Could you kill 27 people in a couple of minutes, pumping up to 10 rounds in each?
What's irrelevant is your lack of realization that those guns have only a barrel in common with today's weapons of death.
....was about 2-3 shots per minute in the hands of someone who really knew what they were doing. That's assuming the shooter was not being shot at from close range which tended to cause problems with one's concentration while attempting to reload. Additionally, weather played a role because wet conditions tended to make exposed gunpowder unusable.
Here's a standard loading/reloading procedure during the 18th century as typified by a soldier using the English Brown Bess musket:
Upon the command "prime and load", the soldier would make a quarter turn to the right at the same time bringing the musket to the priming position. The pan would be open following the discharge of the previous shot, meaning that the frizzen would be tilted forward.
If the musket was not being reloaded after a previous shot, the soldiers would be ordered to "Open Pan".
Upon the command "Handle cartridge", the soldier would draw a cartridge from the cartridge box worn on the soldier's right hip or on a belt in front of the soldier's belly. Cartridges consisted of a spherical lead ball wrapped in a paper cartridge which also held the gunpowder propellant. The end of the cartridge opposite from the ball would be sealed by a mere twist of the paper. The soldier then tore off the twisted end of the cartridge with the teeth and spat it out, and continued to hold the now open cartridge in his right hand.
Upon the command "prime", the soldier then pulled the hammer back to half-cock, and poured a small amount of powder from the cartridge into the priming pan. He then closed the frizzen so that the priming powder was trapped.
Upon the command "about", the butt of the musket was then lowered and moved to a position against the soldier's left calf, and held so that the soldier could then access the muzzle of the musket barrel. The soldier then poured the rest of the powder from the cartridge down the muzzle. The cartridge was then reversed, and the end of the cartridge holding the musket ball was inserted into the muzzle, with the remaining paper shoved into the muzzle above the musket ball. This paper acted as wadding to stop the ball and powder from falling out if the muzzle was lowered.
Upon the command "draw ramrods", the soldier drew the ramrod from the musket. The ramrod was grasped and reversed when removed, and the large end was inserted about one inch into the muzzle.
Upon the command "ram down cartridge", the soldier then used the ramrod to firmly ram the wadding, bullet, and powder down to the breech of the barrel. The ramrod was then removed, reversed, and returned to half way in the musket by inserting it into the first and second ramrod pipes. The soldier's hand then grasped the top of the ramrod.
Upon the command "return rammers", the soldier would quickly push the rammer the remaining amount to completely return it to its normal position. Once the ramrod was properly replaced, the soldier's right arm would be held parallel to the ground at shoulder level, with the right fingertips touching the bayonet lug, and lightly pressing the musket to the soldier's left shoulder. The soldier's left hand still supported the musket.
(At no time did the soldier place the musket on the ground to load)
Upon the command "Make Ready". The musket was brought straight up, perpendicular to the ground, with the left hand on the swell of the musket stock, the lock turned toward the soldier's face, and the soldier's right hand pulled the lock to full cock, and grasped the wrist of the musket.
Upon the command "present", the butt of the musket was brought to the soldier's right shoulder, while at the same time the soldier lowered the muzzle to firing position, parallel to the ground, and sighting (if the soldier had been trained to fire at "marks" along the barrel at the enemy.
Upon the command of "fire", the soldier pulled the trigger, and the musket (hopefully) fired. A full second was allowed to pass, and the musket was then quickly lowered to the loading position, butt against the soldier's right hip, muzzle held off center to the left at about a forty-five degree angle, and the soldier would look down at his open pan to determine if the prime had been ignited.
Obviously, an individual shooter using a muzzle-loader is going to go through the steps noted above as quickly as possible without having to rely on someone giving the orders at each stage. Yes, the old weapons killed just like modern weapons, but the rate of fire, consistency of the gunpowder, ballistics, effects of each round, long-range accuracy, and muzzle velocity of a modern semi-automatic is VASTLY improved over the old weapons. Plainly speaking, the old 18th century musket with a sustained rate of fire of 2-3 rounds per minute under optimal conditions is definitely NOT comparable in any way to the modern semi-automatic rifle capable of firing 45-60 rounds per minute under any weather conditions.
RL
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And they fired stuff like this
Facts matter.
because most field guns were owned by militias and kept in armouries, not owned by individuals (there may have been individual ownership of seagoing cannon on privateering vessels, which is something else, but again not within the scope of "well-regulated militia" .
And I find the arguments by certain people in this thread ("look at this very rare air rifle! What about cannon, eh?" to be pretty disingenuous, really, because there's not any case to be made that either of the cited examples was ever common or, in the case of the latter in militia use, would have been privately and not collectively owned.
Do you think the Founding Fathers could even imagine instant publishing worldwide with the Internet?
I don't
Before you object: published works convinced a shit-ton of Americans to vote for George W. Bush. How many people did that kill? Or do you just not care, because they're Arabs?
Response to Bozita (Original post)