The first "Assualt" Rifle...

[Wry Catcher]

I keep hearing how the Founders never envisioned the modern semi-automatic and automatic rifles and guns.

I wave the Bullshit flag on that.

This is the Puckle. It could fire 63 rounds in 7 minutes and it was invented in 1718.

That's right. 1718.

Joseph Belton invented a gun that could fire 16 - 20 shots in 5 seconds in 1777 and tried to sell it to the Continental Congress, who refused the order because they cost too much.

The sheer, steel-clad beauty of the Puckle notwithstanding, what does a gun invented in 1718 have to do with up-to-the-minute political action? Did some lowlife just threaten to use one or something?

what does a gun invented in 1718 have to do with up-to-the-minute political action?

well the framers didnt pen


A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed Except for the Puckle or the
Girardoni

One might suppose the framers never considered a single individual intent on the mass murder of innocents could afford such a weapon or carry it into a theater or one room school house either.

The founders weren't prescient, thus what was no longer is, and much of what is was beyond the imagination of all but a Leonardo da Vinci - not many of them then or now.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Bump ^^^

 

[RWHeathenGamer]

So what if they couldn't have foreseen automatic firearms? They also couldn't have foreseen ideologies like communism, feminism, racial egalitarianism, fascism for example, should first amendment protections not protect unforeseen political ideologies that certain people find offensive?

That's a stupid argument that doesn't hold up.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I wouldn't object to the second amendment if we still lived in the time of the muzzle loading flintlock , which is the weapon G. Washington, & T. Jefferson referred to at the time the Constitution was written. This Gun, I can't see as a threat, either. Imagine trying to hide this monster under your trench coat before you went in to shoot up a bunch of kids at the local preschool.

Actually, one could easily carry eight or ten cavalry pistols under a long coat...supposedly, Edward Teach often had fourteen. Many cavalrymen carried anywhere from four to a dozen.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I watched a show on the History Channel last night that stated that the KENTUCKY LONG RIFLE was the first TRUE "assault rifle" that the Continental Army used.

Yes and no. In that era of infantry combat by massed volleys, most regulars did NOT use rifles...they used smoothbore muskets. While not very accurate, they were MUCH faster to reload than a rifle...and rate of fire was everything. It was not until the advent of the Minie bullet in the 19th century that most infantry got rifles.

 

[Jarlaxle]

I watched a show on the History Channel last night that stated that the KENTUCKY LONG RIFLE was the first TRUE "assault rifle" that the Continental Army used.

Well the history channel hasn't really been good with the whole 'history' part in years. They are pretty much a punchline in a South Park episode these days. The first designated assault rifle was the STG44.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s66hHoaTkCA]STG44 - YouTube[/ame]

Thirty years late! The first "assault rifle" (that is: a RIFLE capable of full-automatic fire) was and is John Browning's BAR!