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The Water Cooler
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oklahoma Law Maker introduces 4 new Gun Bills
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<blockquote data-quote="caojyn" data-source="post: 2934028" data-attributes="member: 5425"><p>A careful reading of the statute, however, reveals that its purpose was not a general ban on loaded guns in Boston, but leaving unloaded guns unattended in buildings. The preamble to the law explains: "Whereas the depositing of loaded arms in the houses of the town of Boston, is dangerous to the lives of those who are disposed to exert themselves when a fire happens to break out in the said town...."<a href="http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety%20Regulation%20in%20Early%20America.html#sdfootnote8sym" target="_blank">8</a> The text does not prohibit <em>carrying</em> loaded firearms within the city of Boston--only taking them into a building--and one could infer from the preamble, the law only prohibited <em>depositing</em> loaded firearms in buildings. As the preamble makes clear, this law was for the protection of those fighting fires, not to prevent criminal misuse of guns, and certainly not to prevent citizens from defending themselves on the streets. Unloading a flintlock firearm (except by firing it) was a considerably more tedious task than with a metallic cartridge weapon. It is easy to see why the city felt that it was appropriate to require guns not be kept loaded and unattended, especially because Boston had little crime at the time--and I suspect few, if any, home invasions.</p><p></p><p>That Boston's government felt the need for such a law, however, suggests that gun ownership was common enough, and having loaded firearms in one's home or business was common enough, that the city felt a need to pass such a measure. Fires were more common in eighteenth century buildings than today (because all cooking was done over fireplaces), but it seems unlikely that more than 1% of homes burned in any given year. If guns were rare (as some have claimed) and only 10% of homes had a gun, and only 10% of those homes had a <em>loaded</em> gun, the intersection between houses on fire and houses with loaded guns in them would have been very small indeed--an infinitesimal 0.01% chance of a burning house setting off a gun.</p><p></p><p>It seems likely, based on counts of guns surrendered to General Gage in Boston in 1775, that more than half the households in town had at least one gun in them at the start of the Revolution--and perhaps even more so, after the Revolutionary War was over, and many veterans of the Continental Army were allowed to bring their service muskets home. It is also unsurprising that many homes had <em>loaded</em>guns as well. A man (and in that era, it would generally have been a man, not a woman) who went hunting out of town might well have returned with an undischarged gun, or a gun that he had reloaded, but not fired again. He could not legally fire a gun in Boston to clear it.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps the more important point of this law--and a reminder of how much one's assumptions color how you read such a law--is the assumption that the law made: it considered the possession of firearms, cannon, mortars, and grenades in private homes to be not only lawful, but common enough that Boston needed to pass a law requiring them to be unloaded when not in use. This law does not sound like a strong argument against an individual right to keep and bear arms. It sounds like a pretty ringing endorsement of the idea that while there were appropriate safety regulations for keeping deadly weapons in your home, no one questioned the right of individuals to own and keep even military weapons in their own homes.</p><p><a href="http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety%20Regulation%20in%20Early%20America.html" target="_blank">http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety Regulation in Early America.html</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="caojyn, post: 2934028, member: 5425"] A careful reading of the statute, however, reveals that its purpose was not a general ban on loaded guns in Boston, but leaving unloaded guns unattended in buildings. The preamble to the law explains: "Whereas the depositing of loaded arms in the houses of the town of Boston, is dangerous to the lives of those who are disposed to exert themselves when a fire happens to break out in the said town...."[URL='http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety%20Regulation%20in%20Early%20America.html#sdfootnote8sym']8[/URL] The text does not prohibit [I]carrying[/I] loaded firearms within the city of Boston--only taking them into a building--and one could infer from the preamble, the law only prohibited [I]depositing[/I] loaded firearms in buildings. As the preamble makes clear, this law was for the protection of those fighting fires, not to prevent criminal misuse of guns, and certainly not to prevent citizens from defending themselves on the streets. Unloading a flintlock firearm (except by firing it) was a considerably more tedious task than with a metallic cartridge weapon. It is easy to see why the city felt that it was appropriate to require guns not be kept loaded and unattended, especially because Boston had little crime at the time--and I suspect few, if any, home invasions. That Boston's government felt the need for such a law, however, suggests that gun ownership was common enough, and having loaded firearms in one's home or business was common enough, that the city felt a need to pass such a measure. Fires were more common in eighteenth century buildings than today (because all cooking was done over fireplaces), but it seems unlikely that more than 1% of homes burned in any given year. If guns were rare (as some have claimed) and only 10% of homes had a gun, and only 10% of those homes had a [I]loaded[/I] gun, the intersection between houses on fire and houses with loaded guns in them would have been very small indeed--an infinitesimal 0.01% chance of a burning house setting off a gun. It seems likely, based on counts of guns surrendered to General Gage in Boston in 1775, that more than half the households in town had at least one gun in them at the start of the Revolution--and perhaps even more so, after the Revolutionary War was over, and many veterans of the Continental Army were allowed to bring their service muskets home. It is also unsurprising that many homes had [I]loaded[/I]guns as well. A man (and in that era, it would generally have been a man, not a woman) who went hunting out of town might well have returned with an undischarged gun, or a gun that he had reloaded, but not fired again. He could not legally fire a gun in Boston to clear it. Perhaps the more important point of this law--and a reminder of how much one's assumptions color how you read such a law--is the assumption that the law made: it considered the possession of firearms, cannon, mortars, and grenades in private homes to be not only lawful, but common enough that Boston needed to pass a law requiring them to be unloaded when not in use. This law does not sound like a strong argument against an individual right to keep and bear arms. It sounds like a pretty ringing endorsement of the idea that while there were appropriate safety regulations for keeping deadly weapons in your home, no one questioned the right of individuals to own and keep even military weapons in their own homes. [URL='http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety%20Regulation%20in%20Early%20America.html']http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/Safety Regulation in Early America.html[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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