Dispelling Another Gun Control Myth:
Repeating Firearms Predate the Second Amendment
This is a copy of a recent e-mail on whether the Founders of our country could have envisioned the types of modern firearms of today. It dispels the myth that the Founders had "no idea" that such weaponry could be created in the future.
Both the ideas and the technology already existed!
Many times I have heard the following:
"The founding fathers, when writing the Second Amendment, could never have foreseen the machine gun"
I wonder if Jefferson had this British design in his Patent collection?
Also available here:
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/i/Puckle%20Gun.jpg
The Puckle gun was a British flintlock machinegun invented by James Puckle in 1718. It took a nine-round revolving
block, was mounted on a tripod and was designed to be portable and especially to prevent an enemy boarding a ship.
An unusual feature was that it fired square bullets.
http://dld.mk.dmu.ac.uk/Heritage/htm/tour/revolverinfo.htm
This article is also available by clicking on this sentence.
James Puckle (c. 1667-1724) was a notary-public and also an author, his best-known work - reprinted as recently
as 1900 - being The Club, a moral dialogue between a father and son. His 'portable gun or machine called a defence'
- designed to fire round bullets against Christians and square ones against Turks - is one of his only two known
ventures in the field of military technology (the other being a sword concerning which no details are recorded).
In 1717 it was rejected for government use after trials at Woolwhich, but, despite this, he obtained a patent on
15 May 1718, and then made strenuous efforts to market the gun, raising a company for this purpose in 1721. In
March, 1722 the Daily Courant carried an advertisement for 'Several sizes in Brass and Iron of Mr. Puckle's Machine
or Gun, called a Defence....at the Workshop thereof, in White-Cross-Alley, Middle Moorfields'. At the end of the
same month the London Journal reported that at a demonstration of one of the guns 'one Man discharged it 63 times
in seven Minutes, though all the while Raining; and that it throws off either one large or sixteen Musquet Balls
at every discharge with very great Force'
1 November
James Puckle of London, England, demonstrated his new invention, the "Puckle Gun," a tripod-mounted,
single-barreled flintlock gun fitted with a multishot revolving cylinder. This weapon fired nine shots per minute
at a time when the standard soldier's musket could be loaded and fired but three times per minute. Puckle demonstrated
two versions of the basic design. One weapon, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round
bullets, while the second variant, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets, which were
believed to cause more severe and painful wounds than spherical projectiles. The "Puckle Gun" failed
to attract investors and never achieved mass production or sales to the British armed forces. One newspaper of
the period observed following the business venture's failure that "those are only wounded who hold shares
therein." (1718)
http://rwbach.huachuca.amedd.army.mil/novtriv.html
This Third link appears to not work. But it is "cached" at Google. If a better link is found, please let me know.
[His invention, and other machine guns, are discussed in: David B. Kopel, Clayton E. Cramer, and Scott G. Hattrup, A Tale of Three Cities: The Right to Bear Arms in State Supreme Courts, Temple Law Review 68 (1995): 1177. http://www.2ndlawlib.org/journals/kch-3cit.html
Since this posting, I have been reminded of the multi-barreled pistols called "duck foots" and "mutiny guns," as well as the old Battery Guns. Anyone with images or good on-line articles are welcome to send them in. Thanks.