The main difference between a Pepperbox and a Revolver is that the Pepperbox rotates the entire barrel. Depending, of course, on the specific gun, no, a separate cap would not be needed, or would be in place. Manual revolving was needed on the very first versions, and not later. However, I can tell you from office fights with my Nerf Maverick, which, come to think of it, counts as a pepperbox, manual rotation of the chamber does not slow fire down all that much. Just makes me use two hands.
The only reason I’m focusing on it, and not a harmonica gun or duckfoot or other variant is the extreme similarity to the 1850ish invention of the revolver by Mr. Colt. I’m making the point that there is a clear… call it evolutionary tree, here. Ethan Allen, I am surprised to note, was a manufacturer of the early ones, and he’s someone we all know.
This idea that handguns were not considered important or deadly weapons during the revolutionary war is something that’s popped up as a bit of a meme recently… see Gonzomax informing us all that there was no such thing as a handgun pre-1850, and that they are of no use to an army. And I’m a bit annoyed and offended by that. We’re supposed to be eliminating ignorance, not spreading it about.
Even if multi-shot handguns did not exist circa 1776, which they did, the founding fathers would have known they would likely soon appear. The predecessors to them were all about, and they were being actively invested in and researched at that point.
As for spectrum of lethality? Well, they killed people at dueling range. I think that’s pretty much all you need to say. Isn’t that right, Mr. Burr?
Well…I am not saying 18th century handguns were not lethal. Just that more modern designs (at least starting with the revolver) are notably more lethal. If you have to pull the gun down and fiddle with it and then re-acquire the target you are at a distinct disadvantage to someone who can keep the gun aimed at you and just keep pulling the trigger. Not to mention reload times once your shots were spent (another decisive advantage I’d think).
As for what the FF’s knew or didn’t know multi-shot guns are only a part of it. Even if you want to say multi-shot guns were common and evolving and the FF’s could guess someone would make the Colt Revolver someday followed by a Glock eventually still does not tell the whole story.
When the FF’s passed the 2nd Amendment there were ~4 million people in all the US (or about 1.3% of today’s population). There are more than that in Chicago today. The FF’s did not foresee crack heads and the inner city. The Drug Wars. Organized Crime as it is today and so on. The concept of a Columbine type shooting was probably unthinkable to them…it just didn’t happen.
It is a very different world in a LOT of ways and it all needs to be considered.
Did Indian raids on settlers happen then or was that something I saw on TV? Want to compare the number of entire families massacred by the local indigenous tribes to the number of Columbine type school shootings? I would venture a guess that the FF’s were quite aware of mass murder sprees regardless of the implements used. Organized Crime and drug wars are not new concepts either.
Life was cheap and life was hard in those times. To think that the FF’s only knew some sort of “School house Rock” type of life is selling them extremely short.
I do not think the wild-and-woolly-West was what we know from The Lone Ranger till sometime after the FF’s were about their thing although I am not sure when settlers and American Indians started to seriously come to blows. Further, I would not characterize what the Indians were doing as just random murder. They felt they were fighting for their very survival and indeed they were. Makes it no more pleasant on the massacred family of course but it is a different beast than just random, let’s go shoot some people today, thing like Columbine.
While I don’t doubt some form of organized crime has existed throughout history I’ll be damned if I can think of any notable accounts of it till the 1900’s. If nothing else the days of Al Capone and his ilk seemed to usher in a new era of organized crime previously unknown.
And there were crack heads peddling junk on the streets of New York in the late 1700’s (not crack but some drug)?
Quibbling about the above aside it is absolutely a different world today. The population is an order of magnitude past what it was in their time. Weapons are orders of magnitude more powerful. So much is so very different. Trying to apply the FF’s sense of things to today is silly.
You need to study your history. The tribes in what would become the eastern US knew just as well as anybody else how to conduct a massacre. They knew their way around a gun, knife, or tomahawk as well as any.
Although I don’t agree with his terminology, a social studies teaching friend of mine (who is very proud of his Native American ancestors) is wont to loudly hold forth that “Texans like to brag on the Comanche…how mean and tough they were. Well, the eastern Indians were just as savage as the Comanches!” He then goes on to reel off a long string of massacres of families, settlements, militia, and army units that all happened in what most people picture when they hear “colonial America.”
It doesn’t matter whether you consider such massacres a moral equivalent of the second Columbine massacre or not. The point is that the Founding Fathers were more than passingly familiar with the concept of mass killings.
So, in the FF’s time it made sense to have a gun in the populace’s hands because there were essentially enemy soldiers running around killing them in the more sparsely populated areas. Ok, I get that, makes sense.
In our time there are no enemy soldiers running about the countryside massacring families. We have a standing military the FF’s did not have. We have a far more pervasive police force and communication abilities and transport abilities to cover the citizens.
Sorry to keep this argument up, but it does directly apply to the OP. There was a standing Colonial Army at the time of the ratification of the Constitution. The US is still mostly sparsely populated and through both court cases and sad examples, law enforcement is under no duty real or imagined to protect citizens or prevent crimes.
I just don’t see the differences that you are claiming. They seem to be variations on a theme at best.
Heh…well, in 1789 (just four days after the Bill of Rights is proposed to Congress) the US Army is established totaling 1000 men. Not much of a standing army you ask me.
And as many have pointed out the whole deal with the 2nd Amendment and militias was because the FF’s did NOT trust a standing army. Recall that the Continental Army tried to install Washington as Monarch at the end of the Revolution (which Washington fortunately declined).
So how are my claims variations on a theme? The FF’s did not like standing armies. Now we have the biggest (or most expensive anyway) standing military in the world.
We do NOT have roaming bands of American Indians terrorizing rural areas or roaming bands of anyone terrorizing rural areas today. If we did you can bet the police and/or national guard would flood the area. While they may not explicitly be there to protect citizens or prevent crimes I guarantee you the Governors/mayors would be ALL over getting national guards/police in the area to stop just that and protect the locals. Indeed the very existence of a police force is crime prevention in itself…fear of getting caught is a major factor in not breaking the law (bet you would speed more if you knew there was no one to catch you).
At the end of the day the citizens feel the police are there to protect them (along with the military). When the police fail badly at this they get their lumps (as recently happened where a woman called 911 and police took 48 minutes to respond and found her dead). Mayors lose elections over stuff like that and they WILL get on the case of the police force to do “more”.
I’ll reiterate again this is a very different world than 1790 America. What made sense then does not necessarily make sense today and arguments supporting the 2nd today because it was a good idea 200 years ago are silly. Feel free to make the case that it is a good idea today too if you like. I just find this appeal to the past for justification somewhat lacking.
Whatever.
Continue to use a racist term if you want. Since we’re talking about weapons law, if knives come up you can refer to people “carving Harlem sunsets” on each other too.
But since you want to disagree with my cite, suppose you tell me the real, innocent origins of the term.
I’m sure I could find “cite” that reliable that shows “Nitty Gritty” or “Niggardly” are racist, that doesn’t mean they are.
Unless you can back the claim up its meaningless. The reference you cited had been explicitly removed from Wikipedia due to its unsubstantiated nature.
If you think it’s not racist, keep using it. Your choice.
I find Don Kates’ scholarship more believable than your quick googling.
The term “junk gun” conveys the idea better and is undeniably not a racist term.
I’d disagree, that has more to do with it’s quality than its ability to be easily concealed which is the primary distinguishing characteristics of a SNS (which was my original point, that easily concealed repeating handguns are the technology innovation that has most effected the validity of the 2nd Amendment in modern times)
Additionally, if that really was the origin of the phrase do you why do the NRA fail to mention it in their extensive diatribe against the supposed racism of gun contol laws which spefically mentions Saturday Night Specials ?
The term would be utterly meaningless if not for its racist origins. Clearly, though, you’re not going to admit that because admitting you were using a racist term_even out of ignorance_is something you don’t want to do.
People are the same though are they not? We certainly aren’t any LESS violent are we? Power still corrupts and all that. Any reasons that you want to justify the 2nd in the 18th century can easily be applied in today’s world regardless of how different they may be.
I disagree. I think the FF’s WERE on about militias when writing that. They did not include the militia language as rhetorical fluff and it jibes with their aversion to a standing army. Now that we have the most powerful standing army on earth I am not so sure the militia thing makes sense which undercuts the reasoning of the 2nd Amendment.