SECOND AMENDMENT REFERS TO FLINTLOCK MUSKETS NOT BUSH MASTERS

Assault weapons and the Second Amendment

Queen Elizabeth I of England, to help protect her small, weak nation against the threat of powerful continental enemies instituted a wise and reasonable laws to encourage and support the use and practice of archery, chiefly of the long bow, the main weapon of the day. All able bodied men were required to keep a long bow and an adequate supply of arrows and to be proficient with this weapon. It made great sense. In a national emergency, were the government to have to raise an army, the Queen wanted her bowmen to be proficient with the most effective military weapon of its day and be able and ready to defend the state.

Our own founding fathers, had a similar problem. In 1791 when the Second Amendment was drawn up and voted into law, the USA was a newly formed and weak nation faced with formidable and powerful foreign enemies. The constitutional amendment that established the right to " bear arms" as part of a "well regulated militia" was designed to insure that were an armed defensive force needed to be quickly called up, our defenders would have the requisite skills and proficiency to use the weapons of the day...the single-shot muzzle loader musket and perhaps the more difficult and slow to load Kentucky rifle. These weapons, though vastly more advanced and deadly than the bow and arrow of Queen Elizabeth's day were what the Founders were imagining when they envisioned US citizenry "bearing arms". They could not have imagined the highly mechanized armies and powerful nation we would become, or how military technology would make most hand-held weapons obsolete in the 21 Century.

The muzzle loading weapons of the late 18th century --the time of the adoption of the Second Amendment in 1791, were deadly, but were difficult to reload and frequently more threatening to the user than to the enemy they were intended to kill or disable. The muzzle loader musket of the late 18th Century was a simple hollow metal tube open at one end, and affixed to a wooden stock. It was loaded from the front, or open muzzle-end of the tube. To load it a measured charge of black powder was first poured down the tube. A wad of paper or other similar material was pressed and tamped down on top of the powder. The tamping process was accomplished by a long wood stick called a ram rod. On top of the first wad, the shot charge or solid lead ball was rammed home and was held in place by a second wad. The basics of the mechanism of firing was that in the breech end of the gun (just above the trigger) the barrel had been bored with a tiny hole which connected the base of the barrel with a little metal exterior ledge called the "pan" or "frizzen" where a small amount of additional powder was placed. The strike of a small piece of flint or chert held by a hammer against the frizzen would created a spark, and ignite the powder in the pan. That ignition passing in a flash through the little hole called a "flash hole" in the side of the barrel would ignite the main charge, and fire the projectile through the barrel.

There were many problems with muzzle loaders. These primitive weapons were all single-shot affairs. Reloading could take as much as a minute or more even when an expert was firing and reloading. (Though it is claimed that some musketeers could fire as many as three rounds a minute.). As a result, a shooter usually got only one chance to fire his or her weapon, at some given target. If he or she missed the first opportunity, the chance for a second shot was very remote, and the game or intended target was likely gone. But that was only one of many problems. The least of which was that a person never knew if the gun was loaded. All muzzle loaders had to be assumed to be loaded until proved otherwise, since one could not peer down into the business end of the barrel, that would be foolhardy, and useless as well, since nothing could be seen down there anyway. One way to make the determination regarding its load, might be to test the depth of the barrel with the ram rod. Some shooters would scribe a mark on the wood of the ram rod to indicate an empty barrel and another mark for a charged barrel. But not all shooters were so responsible and careful. Not being able to easily ascertain if the gun was charged or not could lead to further serious problem--placing a second charge on top of an earlier unfired one or double charging. Double charging a piece could cause a catastrophic explosion which would likely burst the barrel close to the breech-end and seriously wound the shooter. Another major difficulty was keeping the loose powder in the pan in place and keeping it dry. Carrying the loaded piece roughly or carelessly might cause the powder in the pan to fall or dribble out, or it might get wet and not fire in wet or damp weather. Another problem is that a fired weapons scatters sparks all around it. When the musket is fired, a spray of sparks disperses at the muzzle and from the flash hole. These embers could easily ignite the charge of another musket near by. When in a battle, and firing and reloading in rapid succession, sparks might remain lodged in the barrel as the shooter attempts to reload. These remnant sparks could ignite the powder being poured in and the ignition could run up the barrel and into the powder-horn held by the shooter...blowing it up and seriously injuring the soldier. Due to these mechanical shortcomings and problems accidents, unexpected firings, and misfires were very common.

Thus when the Second Amendment was proposed and ratified, this was the type of unsophisticated military hardware and technology the Founders had knowledge of and were encouraging the citizenry to become proficient with. The possibility of mass murder with an 18th century blunderbuss, musket, or flintlock rifle was very unlikely. The proposers of the Second Amendment certainly could not have imagined weapons such as the AR 15, Kalashnikov, or Bush Master assault rifles, with thirty more rounds per clip. Nor could they have imagined a citizenry who would try to use the Second Amendment to stockpile, carry, and use such military hardware in modern, congested settings. I imagine that if they had such ideas, even as pipe dreams, they might have been very much more precise in their terminology.

The Second Amendment clearly is a document of its time and its reference to "arms" that citizens could carry are the armaments of those days....the primitive arms of more than two hundred years ago, not those of the present day. So I suggest that those of us who wish to belabor the fact that the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, let us remember what arms our Founders were referring to. That honored document has nothing to say about modern arms like modern assault weapons.

So let us make no restrictions on those who would bear the arms our Founders actually conceived of. If you would wish to hunt or protect your home with a flintlock musket or a horse pistol of those days go right ahead.

But modern rapid fire, automatic fire, and assault weapons are another matter all together.

What's next anti-aircraft artillery?

Get the picture?

rjk