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To: H-NET/OIEAHC Electronic Association in Early American Studies <H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 Delivered-to: H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU Original-recipient: rfc822;john.saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu I find I must comment on Mr. Cramer's catalogue of legal cases. It is interesting to note that the entire list post-dates the industrialization of gun production. John H. Hall perfected the process in 1822 and by 1836 Samuel Colt and others had begun mass production in the private sector. If I'm not mistakened, isn't it Professor Bellisle's contention that it was this change in the economic infrastructure that influenced the rise of a "gun culture" in the United States? In that case, wouldn't the cases sited by Mr. Cramer be evidence precisely of what Professor Bellisle was attempting to prove? If any of these cases dated to before 1820 (Hall signed his contract to mass produce guns in 1819, indicating that he thought it could be done even at that early date -- no doubt because of his earlier association with Eli Whitney's failed attempt), I'd be a whole lot more convinced about their significance to the drafters' thinking. But certainly after the mid-1830s, the entire universe of guns and gunmaking had undergone revolution, fundamentally modifying even the most basic assumptions about who might or might not be armed and why. c: Christopher L. Miller University of Texas--Pan American http://www.panam.edu/faculty/cmiller/
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