Abilene Chronicle Quotes
The Marshal has posted up printed notices, informing all persons that the ordinance against carrying firearms or other weapons in Abilene will be enforced. That's right. There's no bravery in carrying revolvers in a civilized community.
Abilene Chronicle, c. 1867, Quoted on PBS The West, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
10 years later the Supreme Court ruled that such a prohibition would be unconstitutional.
This was the critical Supreme Court decision which finally decided the long debated issue or whether the right to bear arms was an individual right or a collective militia right. Scalia’s majority opinion ruled it an individual right, but it allowed for exceptions where there might be unusual individual risk. It also upheld the right of the government to control where guns are carried and to regulate the commercial sale of firearms which some of the pro gun extremists had insisted the government had no right of regulaltion.
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.
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}.
The Abilene Reflector-Chronicle is a daily newspaper in Abilene, Kansas with a circulation of about 3,000. The newspaper also maintains an online presence. It is a union of the Abilene Daily Chronicle (founded 1933) and the Abilene Daily Reflector (founded 1888).
