Anti-gun activists have much in common with the original Luddites. They blame new technologies and users of those technologies for their own plight, and aren’t above using violence to achieve their goals. Luddites did their own killing, whereas “anti-gunners” — more “anti personal guns for ordinary people” in truth — try to use the ATF and other government agencies as their cat’s paw.
The rallying cry of the anti-gun bigots is usually “for reasonable gun control!” They claim that old, simple guns are just fine, it’s the new and extra deadly weapons and ammunition that are the evil incarnate. Even if we assume they aren’t lying about their intentions, let’s look at the history of the devices they are trying to eradicate from common use:
Long range rifles – in civilian use by 1515 for hunting and competition, in common military use by the late 1700s
High capacity handguns – 20-shot pinfire revolvers common from 1830s to 1850s.
Semi-auto pistols with capacity over 10 rounds – 1905 (Savage)
Machine guns – 1882 (Maxim)
Submachine guns – 1915 (Villar Perosa)
Semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles with magazines over ten rounds (1887) – Mondragon
Hollow point ammunition for handguns – 1897 (Webley mk.III)
Automatic revolvers – 1901 (Webley-Fosbery)
Machine pistols – 1932 (Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer, though Steye M1912 also cited as such)
This is only a partial list of the types which the anti-gun people find so objectionable. They have been able to retard the development of small arms and damage the ability of peaceful people to obtain them for self-defense, but to what end? Brigands of all descriptions, from government troops to freelance thugs, are seldom deterred by law from acquiring arms, while the non-violent people are handicapped in defending their lives and families.
We can only hope that Brady creatures and their government enablers would meet the same end as the Luddites, a dismissive entry in history books and a complete political irrelevance.
