Virginia Quotes

The Factory had been established by the State of Virginia in 1775 to make guns. America filled with armed Americans in the Colonial era was a myth. Early America was not a gun culture. Guns were expensive, needed maintenance, took too long to reload, and were not as effective for most purposes as other weapons like hatchets and knives. American Colonial war was mostly hand to hand combat with relatively little shooting. Less than one fourth of the men joining Washington’s army owned guns. Gun factories could not survive for want of customers and gunsmiths went into other occupations. See {613052}. With the rebellion, it was critical to manufacture guns to arm the soldiers who had not their own. But the efforts like this were relatively feeble. The factory director who made not a single gun in over a year was then promoted to Commissary General of Munitions in the Continental Army. He was married to George Washington’s sister. He did however finance much of the munitions he procured with his own personal funds so made up in wealth and patriotism what he lacked in manufacturing skill.

This quotation illustrates the fact that there was, contrary to popular myth, no gun culture in Colonial America. Few Americans could afford guns which cost 2 to 3 months wages of a skilled worker. And there were few guns available as there was not a single gun manufacturer in Colonial America. Gunsmiths would come over from England and find that business was terrible as most Americans did not own guns and they were not part of the culture other than the fact that they were status symbols as they were so costly. The gunsmiths would find that they could do better economically by farming and left their trade. Meanwhile, the legislature, like most in America at the time was concerned that if there were trouble with the Indians there would not be enough guns for defense. The guns then were in frequent need of repairs and there were too few gunsmiths. Thus the law. It didn’t work and so in 1662 they tried tax exemptions for gunsmiths which also didn’t work and they went back to fines.

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.

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.

There had been a major drive to tighten gun control and register guns in Canada, regulate how guns are stored and how they are transported. The percentage of gun-related deaths went down in the subsequent years. By American standards however they were already far lower before any of the gun control legislation was enacted.

This is historically a very important quotation. It shows that gun control was existant in Colonial America. The violation of the gun laws were so serious that the Connecticut Council itself heard and tried the case and it was not even handled by the constable. On the same day, they also fined Bartholomew Barnardt for allowing his son to shoot a militia musket in his possession. Today, most states would not be allowed much gun control as politically there is a belief that in Colonial America gun use and ownership was almost universal. That assertion appears to be untrue. See {613056} and {613057}.

This is yet another quotation demonstrating that the image of early America as a gun culture where most men were armed, skilled with those arms, and ready to come to the defense of the country. It turns out that none of the three corresponded to any historical reality for most Americans.

This quotation is particularly interesting because it belies the image of America as a society where almost everyone was familiar with guns and firearms—that we had a gun culture. In reality most Americans from Colonial times on, could not afford guns and many that could afford them preferred other weapons for defense due to the lack of reliability of firearms. Guns were always a status symbol however. This quotation shows that most American soldiers did not know how to properly care for guns even in fundamental ways and could not be trusted to care for them much less repair them—a far cry from the image of the American rifleman alone in the first with his trusty weapon with which he was familiar and skilled.

The National Rifle Association was Founded by men who were distressed that young men from the cities were so unskilled with firearms when the served in the Civil War that they thought that there should be an organization devoted to teaching the skilled use of firearms in case of another war. Frederick, the President, was himself a skilled marksman having won several of the shooting events in the Olympics. The officers and the organization in the early days and received free ammunition from the Federal Government with which to train and certify young men in shooting accuracy. The organization, alarmed at the high rage of gun accidents causing death and serious injury added gun safety to their program and this was followed by teaching and certifying Hunting Safety as well. Their vision was that marksmanship and safety through their courses and programs would be implemented by schools, camps, scouts, clubs and other intermediary organizations which were certified by the NRA.

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}.

Even though the research was done by the U. S. CDC (Communicable Disease Center), the finest public health research center in the world, it was still attacked by the National Rifle Association and many of their supporters in Congress. The response was so intense that in the appropriations for the CDC there was an amendment that required that Federal Money not be spent for “Gun Safety Research”. So Federal Health Agencies were actually barred by Congress from doing any research as to how guns can be used, stored and manufactured more safely.

Although written by a science fiction writer, this is one of the best quotations arguing for widespread gun ownership.

In 1988 and 1989 there was a rash of gun murders in Washington DC Most of the illegal guns confiscated in Washington had been procured legally in nearby Virginia:

Like many other ideologues, the Senator was a better politician than he was a historian. He had a tendency to not be very accurate in his facts. In this particular gaff, which was castigated by critics, he was wrong about both facts he gave. First, not only was it not the case that there were few gun crimes “back then”. See {640086} and {640085} . Second his implication that everyone carried guns, and the guns were responsible for the “low” gun crime rate, was also false. Gun crime was so prevalent that most towns and cities in the West had gun control ordinances prohibiting carrying guns in the city limits. The famous Gunfight at the OK Corral which the Senator cited was in Tombstone, AZ in 1881. At that time, it was illegal to carry a gun in Tombstone. See {640063} for the gun control ordinance. As a matter of fact, the OK Corral gunfight was fought because Sheriff Wyatt Earp was disarming some cowboys who brought their guns to town. Glen Kessler, The Washington Post fact checker gave this quotation “3 Pinocchios”.

Selling illegal guns was a misdemeanor—not a more serious felony.