Edwin Meese Quotes
Guns go boom. Explosives go boom. That seems to be the reason that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms regulates both.
Edwin Meese, U. S. Attorney General (Republican), American Bar Association Forum of Former Attorneys General, C-SPAN, November 25, 1999
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation is often provided by historians studying the gun culture of America. Even conservatives like Ames did not see a gun or an armed citizenry as important to America’s survival or well being. Contrary to popular belief, even the State Militias’ whose rights to bear arms was written into the Second Amendment did not bother to do so. In 1803 only three state militias had rifle companies. Firearms of the time were expensive, difficult to maintain, and hard to use. Unless one needed them for defense, it was too much of a bother. Even in the aftermath of the War of 1812 only 30% of Massachusetts adult men owned guns; by 1839, the rate was below 10%. It was on the frontier where guns were popular and necessary. See {613080}.
He was unhappy about the fact that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were still routinely carrying guns on duty. In England and Canada there has been a tradition of police officers on their beats being unarmed. When more force is needed special armed police are dispatched.
10 years later the Supreme Court ruled that such a prohibition would be unconstitutional.
Gunsmiths were few in early America and a skilled gunsmith could only make about 3 per month. As a result guns in early America were a luxury and few Americans orned them. This is contrary to the myth that the early Americans were all gun owners and sharpshooters.
Edwin Meese III is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration (1967–1974), the Reagan presidential transition team (1980–81) and the Reagan White House (1981–1985), eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th United States Attorney General (1985–1988), a position from which he resigned following the Wedtech scandal.
