🚀 go-pugleaf

I must say Andrew, that is a different take on the subject.  Since
colonial america, with the exception of a few relatively large cities,
was full of large predators, I think it most difficult that the
homesteader on the frontier fought off marauding bear with a large
stick.  but be that as it may, i see the point about the luxury item
of yesteryear becoming the common item of today.


On Fri, 03 Nov 2000 17:36:27 -0500, andrew.perry@lcc.gatech.edu (Andy
Perry) wrote:

>Forgive the late post.  I just stumbled on this thread.
>
>In article <k2k3vscs79pkrq6g51c4jq1rsllsp03p69@4ax.com>, jim patterson
><jrp32@NoSpamBellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 21 Oct 2000 12:06:51 -0400, gigi weinrich
>> <gigi.weinrich@bks.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> >The Georgia Tech Bookstore and The Georgia Tech History Club,
>> >Prometheus, present Michael Bellesiles, Emory professor and author of
>> >the newly released, Arming America, on Friday, November 3rd, at 2:00pm
>> >in The Student Center Theatre.  Mr. Bellesiles will lecture at 2pm with
>> >a booksigning to follow.
>> >Bellesisles makes it clear that in Colonial America the average citizen
>> >had virtually no access to or training in the use of firearms.  How and
>> >when did Americans develop their obsession with guns?  The accepted
>> >answers are "mythology", says Bellesiles
>> >For further info, call 404 894-1642, or email
>> >gigi.weinrich@bks.gatech.edu
>> 
>> No doubt he does present it as 'mythology'.  See final tagline.
>> 
>> No doubt he will assuredly tell you that jim brady never had any
>> machine guns either.
>> 
>> You will seldom lose manifest human rights all at once.   You will
>> lose them by increments, and each new restriction will seem to be just
>> a small thing until there is nothing further to lose.
>> 
>> ...and the wrong people will always have a gun.
>> 
>> "O brave new world that has such people in it"
>
>I didn't get to the lecture, but I heard Bellesiles interviewed on NPR a
>couple of weeks ago.  The interesting thing about him (and the thing
>that's mystified him so much about the response to his book) is that he's
>not at all anti-gun.  He's merely pointing out that the particular notions
>we have about America having always been a gun culture from the very
>beginning are factually inaccurate.  He traces the growth of gun culture,
>as a gun enthusiast, in order to talk about where and how that culture
>really developed.
>
>The fact that so many pro-gun advocates assume that any attempt to do an
>accurate history of American gun culture MUST be an attack on them is
>interesting to say the least.  Bellesiles' analogy: if someone wrote a
>book about how automobiles started out as prohibitively expensive luxury
>items and then gradually became affordable by the masses, eventually
>leading to a "car culture," no one would accuse the author of being
>"anti-car."