Dave Barry Quotes

She advocated armed self-defense for Blacks.

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.

At the time, English ordinary citizens were not allowed to have firearms, but exception was made for the colonists. “Stands” were y-shaped sticks that the gun would rest on as the weight was about 20 pounds.

Even allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration, it is clear that there were many Americans who were personally armed in this period.

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.

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.

The Southern Rebels who insisted on their right to have guns during Reconstruction, viciously denied that same right to the newly freed slaves. Sickles tried to remedy this, but the KKK and other terrorists intimidated most of the Blacks into not using the right that they had. Later, they would do that with the right to vote.

This is a very clear statement of a theory offered by some gun advocates. Opponents observe that if this were true, the parts of the country that had the highest gun ownership would have the lowest gun deaths and crime in general, but that is not true. Obversely, when some jurisdictions like Florida have made guns easier to obtain, the crime rate has not increased as some gun opponents would predict.