Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive
Good points.
Another point that could be made, in relation to the ones in this post, regards the actual weapons themselves. People sometimes state that the Second Amendment was written to reflect the arms of the time, muzzle-loading muskets, shotguns, the ubiquitous "Brown Bess" British musket which was used by the British (and some of the opposing colonists as well). True enough. But what ISN'T mentioned is the fact that a lot of the colonists used the Pennsylvania Rifle, which was a far superior weapon to the Brown Bess. The Bess was accurate to maybe 50 yards. After that it was anyone's guess as to where the ball was going. The Pennsylvania Rifle, on the other hand, was accurate to several hundreds of yards beyond that.
The point is that, at the time the Second Amendment was written, the American colonists possessed a weapon that was in many ways SUPERIOR to the best the British armies had.
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I believe that the Pennsylvania rifle had rifling grooves cut into the barrel to induce spin (like a thrown football) for the purpose of increased accuracy and range as opposed to the smoothbore muskets. The British were used to warfare where 2 armies marched toward each other at around 50 yards - so smoothbore muskets were fine at that distance and cheaper to produce and loaded easily.
..........A Pennsylvania rifle was like a sniper rifle today. A soldier in the Colonial army could shoot the Pa. rifle and retreat into dense woods.