[marktwain]

Semi-auto rifles have been common for over a hundred years.

Mass Shootings have been rare for 80 of those years.

[Travis McGee]

Never mind semi-autos, consdider the blunderbuss. This was the "assault weapon" of the muzzle-loading era. The funnel mouth allowed more rapid reloading of a quantity of lead balls or other shrapnel by pouring them into the open mouth.

Considering the state of medical care in the pre-penicillin era, it was even more deadly than a modern semi-auto. Nearly every muzzle-loader wound to the torso was fatal, and half of wounds to the limbs became fatal due to infection.

A maniac in the colonial era could have wiped out a church with two blunderbusses, but this never happened. What changed was not the weaponry so much as the modern mind, jammed with ultra-violent images from movies, TV and especially first-person-shooter video games from childhood on.

[Travis McGee]

Good two minute video on the blunderbuss in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCs2RIyeUwc

[Gen.Blather]

The phenomenon of mass shootings goes along with the collapse of the education system, the government sponsored destruction of Christianity, and the rise of Alinski Leftism. It is not coincidence that the number of police killings went up under Obviously-the-police-acted-stupidly Obama. He and other Leftist politicians have essentially advocated and approved of violence. Their use of the bully pulpits and their well financed “resistance” movements are clearly designed to trigger their followers to greater levels of violence. The greater level of violence is supposed to make the electorate force the government to be more forceful and to concentrate more power in the government so they can “protect” us from the very thing the Left created.

[KSCITYBOY]

btt

[yarddog]

According to Inspector Colin Greenwood, Victorian England averaged less than five armed robberies a year.

Prior to 1919 there were no gun controls at all in Britain other than one. You had to purchase a stamp at the post office to buy a handgun. The stamp was issued as routine, just like a postage stamp.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about more crimes than were actually committed.

I have seen photos of Scottish Soldiers home on leave. They brought their Lee Enfields home with them.

[Eagles6]

Excellent article.

Liked the history of the Model 8.

[smokingfrog]

How many of these people committing mass shootings would have been in the loony bin 50 or 60 years ago? Drugs, both legal and illegal are also a big factor in some of the crazy behavior we see today as well, I think.

I like to call them self-loading guns, since semi-auto seems to have become such a negative connotation these days.

[PROCON]

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[randomhero97]

Great article.

Totally forgot about the model 8.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

What changed?

Before the 1970s, liberals had not slaughtered 50 million babies. Once you perpetrate such evil, any mass killing is easy.

Before the 1970s, communism was repellant to most Americans who cherished America and its ideals. Communism says the end justifies the means and killed 100 million people in the 20th century. Once you subscribe to such a system, any mass killing is easy.

When “Thou shalt not kill” is removed from schools and the public square, any mass killing is easy.

What do all three of these pathologies have in common?

[indthkr]

Evolution of 100-year-old technology

American moral de-evolution.

[Jim Noble]

Well, it’s clear that it’s not the guns, or rather, the guns are not the cause.

I was over on the grounds of the State mental hospital the other day. The existing hospital has 168 beds (but only about 30 available for new commitments). The other buildings, which in 1960 offered 6000 beds (SIX THOUSAND) have been nicely renovated for bureaucrats’ offices. Not, mind you, bureaucrats dealing with the mentally ill, but regular ones dealing with taxation, regulation, the “environment”, etc.

Six thousand beds in 1960. Thirty, more or less, now. And there are a LOT more crazy people now than in 1960.

And the analogy with Amendments I and III-X is not apt, because crazy people speaking, assembling, getting due process, etc isn’t the same as crazy people acting out with semi-auto rifles.

We don’t need more gun control, but we do need more crazy control.

[Ancesthntr]

You have 2 phenomenon that are responsible for most of the increased violence in our society:

1) G-d has been removed from the classroom and the public square, resulting in a general decline of morals throughout society. The normal moral restraint on killing isn’t there for a lot of people.

2) The nuthouses have been largely emptied out since the early 1970s. While I feel genuine sympathy for these people, putting them in the real world - with all of its pressures - and medicating them - many times with substances that create MORE problems than they solve - has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster.

Combine the general decline of morality with more nuts on the loose, and more mass murders is a tragic, but predictable, result.

[MileHi]

I’d like to try a Model 8. I think I’ve only seen one.

[Revolutionary]

There is a great chart of mass shootings with the inflection point being when God was removed from the schools.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I have a 5 shot 1903 Springfield bolt action military rifle. It is designed so you can pull the bolt out and replace it with a semi or full auto conversion. It also has a thingy on the front end to stick on a spear point, and a club on the back end.
Enough to give the MSM the heebie-jeebies.

[pabianice]

“Looper.”