Did the Founding Fathers envision the Bushmaster? Almost...

[derby378]

Time for a little history lesson. Let me introduce you to the Girandoni Air Rifle:



When the Lewis and Clark Expedition set out across the wilderness in 1804, the explorers took with them an experimental rifle design that was years ahead of its time - the Girandoni. Don't let the term "air rifle" fool you. The Girandoni used compressed air, true, but a hell of a lot of it - the air reservoir required 1,500 strokes from a hand pump, but the reservoir could take the pressure, and the gun produced enough muzzle velocity to take down wild game or, if need be, hostile attackers. In addition, the rifle came complete with two features that are favorite targets of gun-control activists today - a semi-automatic mechanism and a gravity-fed tubular magazine that held 20 rounds of ammunition.

With the first Girandoni manufactured in 1779, this tells me that the Founding Fathers who ratified the Second Amendment not only knew about semi-automatic rifles with "high-capacity" magazines - they approved of them.

You can read more about the Girandoni here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_Air_Rifle

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. They also envisioned service in the militia

Universal conscription for anybody owning a state of the art infantry weapon.

But hey, that part is always ignored by radicals.

Switzerland is what they envisioned, current mayhem...not so much. Read Federalist 29 and carefully ALL OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT and remember about DEPENDENT CLAUSES. .

[derby378]

7. The Swiss system has plusses and minuses

Canton police agencies operate under a "may issue" policy for issuing permits to anyone outside of the militia who wishes to own full-auto. However, Swiss law specifically forbids anyone, whether civilian or militia, from operating their weapon in full-auto mode without direct orders from a military commander.

I think the current Swiss military rifle is the SIG SG 550. Everyone in the militia is issued one, and if they retire from militia service, the 550's full-auto mechanism has to be permanently deactivated if the retiree wishes to keep the rifle as an heirloom.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. It's not about how it works

But what they envisioned. This mayhem, not so much.

Jefferson would have a cow over a professional army made up of regulars. (Forget about why).

It gets worst, Washington would have a cow over those entangling alliances.

So, if you are going to talk of what they meant, well son, they envisioned militias and universal conscription to the class of people who were even allowed to own a gun.

I am tired of the NRA crapy talking points and in Heller Scalia made a fateful error of interpretation. Period.

So you want to talk about it. I agree, you got a right to a .223 chambered, state of the art, infantry weapon...that is what it is. So when are you reporting to quarters?

[CreekDog]

32. actually Switzerland has the highest gun death rate in its region

[MrSlayer]

2. Oh, well fuck it then.

Guns for everyone! Yay!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I take dibs on...a suitcase nuke

I take the whole neighborhood with me!!!

[NYC_SKP]

4. Well, clearly, we must confiscate these evil Girandoni's!!! Then all will be good.

Except it's ok for police and the military to have them, because we can trust them....

[CreekDog]

33. you're being ridiculous

[villager]

5. "Allow me to robotically repeat this NRA talking point I've just been paper-trained with!"

And yet, in the end, it's just steaming shit.

[bongbong]

6. Pathological cases weren't what the Founding Fathers were envisioning

So what about this this historical oddity. Leonardo Da Vinci had a design for a tank. According to Delicate Flowers, that would mean that tanks were OK.

Naturally the part the Delicate Flowers leave out is the "well-regulated" part, which means, according to Federalist Paper #29, "trained like an army trains". F.P. #29 also goes on for some length about the chaos that would occur if there was widespread gun ownership and no training.

How prophetic the writer was!

[derby378]

10. Who are these "Delicate Flowers" you speak of?

Are you trying to be cute or something?

[bongbong]

17. Not cute

Delicate Flowers, as originally described by Tom Tomorrow, are gun-lovers who take umbrage at the slightest commentary from anybody who doesn't agree with them that guns are the greatest thing since rainbow-encrusted unicorns.

I use it to mean about the same thing, but also include the extra definition of "people who need guns since they are too scared to walk out of the house without being strapped".

[villager]

24. "Pathological cases" like.. the entire NRA!?

[bongbong]

25. Word usage

I was using pathological for one of its less known definitions, that of an oddity or an exception.

But, you're kinda right, Delicate Flowers and their Boss, the NRA, are pathological.

[AldoLeopold]

8. Yah, I'm one of those people who doesn't care what the Founding Fathers thought

Cause they made a shit-ton of mistakes and quite frankly lived 250 years ago. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say they'd be the first to say they were out of their depth in 21st century America.

See I want to shut all this debate up permanently and repeal the damn amendment entirely. This way, we don't have to hear non-sequitur arguments like this anymore. No squirming around this or that. Just a permanent ban - simply, clean and done.

And wow, there's a shocker - OP is from Dallas. I can crap on Texans because I was one for 15 years I'm sorry to say. Seems, though, that you can take the Texan out of the Republican, but not the Republican out of the Texan. I hope for my sake that's not true.

[derby378]

11. Well, I can at least admire your straightforward approach...

...even though I affirm it has precisely zero chance of becoming a reality.

[AldoLeopold]

19. We'll just see about that

[link:|

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Actually I do, because it is nowhere close

To where the OP posted.

They meant universal conscription into the local militia...that was the social contract. Why the clauses are in the order they are. They envisioned universal conscription of those who owned a state of the art infantry weapon.

These people want the right, the last clause, without the responsibility.

I at times hate to know that history, but now we must rescue those words from the fanatics and speak truly of what they meant. Gets worst, there was no police back then. Guess who was the constabulary for the county? That local militia...so by that logic, looking things in context, either join the guard, or the police department.

Further, by that logic civilians should be licensed with good background checks.

So yes, you should care about what they actually meant.

[X_Digger]

27. Psst, derby's also a state democratic organizer. You really put your foot in it up to your knee. n/t

[AldoLeopold]

28. I don't care if he's the Pope of Greenwich Village

He's wrong. If you think I give a flip about positions on this board you're drinking your own Kool Aid. I'm not part of your party system - I'm just a member of the party.

[X_Digger]

38. I just got tickled at you calling him a republican. *snort*

I'd say he's done more to get Democrats elected than you ever have. Calling *him* a republican?

[AldoLeopold]

40. Well he's obviously doing a crappy job in Texas

[X_Digger]

41. Have you checked the numbers? Texas is turning purple..

.. and may be blue by 2016, definitely by 2020 based on demographics alone. Electoral politics are in for a crazy shift when Texas is reliably blue again.

[AldoLeopold]

29. By the way

Do you belong to the NRA?

[hobbit709]

42. It takes real skill to put foot in mouth while head up ass.

[frank380]

9. How about that.

That actually is pretty close.

[derby378]

12. Welcome to DU!

[phleshdef]

13. I really don't care what they envisioned. But I highly doubt, if they saw the kind of easy carnage..

...that can be produced from today's gun technology, they would be fully in support of restrictions, at least the ones that had half a brain and an ounce of morals.

[BainsBane]

14. They envisioned slavery too

Are you also a fan of that?

[WinkyDink]

15. Ya know what? WTH cares? THIS IS NOW, HERE. (P.S. I can vote now, too.)

[cali]

16. And? What is your point?

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. That's a frankly absurd assertion

the first of these may have been manufactured in 1779 but they were in limited production in Europe and not common; the "right to bear arms" as envisioned in the Second Amendment would have been limited to such weapons as were used by the militia (smoothbore muskets and Kentucky rifles). And in any case it matters not one whit what the mythical and apparently godlike "founding fathers" may or may not have approved of, because the America of the late 18th century was a significantly different country, socially and otherwise; the entire US population was 3 million, frontier settlements were under real threat of attack from hostile natives, and there was no standing army or national guard (hence the "citizen militia", which also included regular drills and training).

The Founding Fathers also approved of slavery, denying suffrage to women, denying citizenship to Native Americans, and denying democratic representation to the majority of Americans. So what they approved of or not isn't really a very good argument and hasn't got a lot of relevance to modern society, more than two centuries later, which has evolved in many ways then unimaginable.

[AldoLeopold]

21. Post this sucker

OP it man. Well done.

[liberal_at_heart]

31. well said!

[Bonhomme Richard]

23. OK I'll allow the Girandoni assault rifles with the reservoir.

And after it was pumped 1500 times anyone would be to fucking tired to use it, or at the least, have to go take a nap.

[upaloopa]

26. Who gives a fuck? Tell me your feelings about 20 kids murdered yesterday because some people

want to push their gun fetish on the rest of us.

[derby378]

34. Since the second half of that request has nothing to do with the first half...

Yeah, I cried. I was angry, grief-stricken, praying to God to grant the survivors a certain solace. Happy now?

[upaloopa]

37. No because I don't beleive you. You're a wise ass just like the rest of the gunner posters here.

Your time in the sun is growing shorter. Nobody cares about what you think anymore.

On edit: Have you been listening to the news today? Everyone is talking about how to bring back some sence to this gun issue. Gun control. That's why you think you have to teach us something about guns and the founders. You're trying desparately to keep the status quo and it ain't going to work.

[derby378]

39. Keep telling yourself that...

History and reason are on my side. You can scream righteous indignation until you are blue in the face, but in the end, we shall overcome.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. With the rest of us being armed to the teeth

So we can have weekly shootouts? Oh wait...

[Lizzie Poppet]

43. "They're all alike..."

Gosh, where have I heard that sort of thing before...?

[liberal_at_heart]

30. weapons like these were created for fighting in wars

They had to defend a fledgling nation against Britain. I would hardly think they expected rifles like those to be used for civilian purposes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. Actually the state of the art infantry riffle

Was the Kentucky Long Riffle, or the Bown Bess. That's when the constitution was written. The Brits kept theirs in the armory, ours were in the hands of the militia. You owned one, you were conscripted.

I reminded the OP of that.

In the modern day, he wants his state of the art, .223 chambered bushmaster...fine, original intent...(since gun bunnies love to argue that), when is he reporting for duty with the local guard unit.

The one he posted, extremely limited in production, non practical for multiple reasons, and deemed experimental.

[baldguy]

36. Because the Founders were right about everything & expected their descendants to be mindless zombies.

So let's bring back slavery.

[TorchTheWitch]

45. why is what these founding fathers thought have any relevance?

They also thought slavery was appropriate and women as chattel appropriate. I'm certain they did approve of such a weapon for use in the military and dangerous expeditions into the wilderness full of hostile Native Americans and large predators. I really highly doubt that they would have approved of mentally unstable civilians in today's society being able to use such weapons to massacre over a dozen young children and teachers in a school and to murder their mother. They didn't live in such a violent culture or could even envision what society would be like over 200 years in the future. Had they the magic ability to see into the future would they have believed the same as they did then? No one knows and they probably wouldn't seeing how society, culture and the country itself is not in the same universe as it was back then.

They made the Constitution a living document for the exact purpose that they knew in time society, culture and the country itself would change in ways they knew they couldn't envision and designed the Constitution to be changed accordingly as future generations saw fit. The founding fathers trusted that future generations would change the Constitution as those future generations saw fit, and using their thoughts at that time which was an entirely different world than the world we have today as an excuse to continue doing something that is no longer appropriate in current society because it was something the founding fathers believe way back in their utterly different society, culture and country is a breach of that trust.

In today's society one does not have a need to own a semi-automatic rifle capable of firing so many rounds so quickly outside of military and some law enforcement. No one needs such a weapon for self or home protection. For those people that find it fun to shoot such a weapon at targets then let such weapons be owned by gun range clubs for use by civilians that find that sort of thing to do entertaining at the gun range only.

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. We can put you down for requiring firearms to be held vertically to reload, then?

the shooter could reload a ball from the magazine by holding the rifle vertically while lying on his back and operating the ball delivery mechanism

Yes, I'd regard that as an improvement on the semi-automatic mechanisms that allow the massacres like Friday's. That's hte best suggestion to come yet from the pro-gunners.