Second Amendment anybody? The United States Constitution got your back! You wanna’ a Brown Bess or a Charleville? They was good enough for George Washington – and they’re good enough for you too, buddy boy! AR15s and AK47s are for terrorists. You some kinda’ terrorist?
Most of my readers know I’m in Burlington County. My tortured journey here just kinda’ worked out that way. A few years ago I was cruising through my local Gun Shop on Route 38 (Centaur / J&T Gun Works – see Eric, he’s the best) and I heard a Stevens Savage vintage R311 Riot Gun, a side-by-side twelve guage short barrel recently “retired” from Philadelphia PD, calling my name. Great shape. Wooden furniture. Exactly what John Wayne hefted in “Stagecoach”.
Now I simply had to have this shotgun. Quintessential cool.
When I dug out my cash and ID, however, there was a problem.
My “Firearms Purchaser ID Card” showed my previous address. Unless all the IDs proferred show the same address – no sale. Address cuffs and collars have to match for the State of New Jersey and Uncle Sam to smile on any weapons purchase.
So I downloaded the proper NJ Firearms form advising of my change of address – the only correction to be updated – filled it out, sent it in and waited. And waited. And waited some more.
After three months, I called the NJ State Police Barracks. Their Officer in charge of firearms documents was out, but would call me back. Weeks passed. I called again. Same story. I sent a letter. I sent another letter. I called the State Capitol in Trenton. After speaking to a number of people I finally got through to that rare individual who cared. I also identified myself as “former law enforcement”, even though that is a card I am loath to play. I don’t believe throwing my previous career title around should matter to NJ civil servants paid by tax money to help their fellow citizens. But I’d had enough.
I’d just been Pork Rolled. New Jersey’s unique system of gun control.
An institutionalized gavotte of State and local police slow dragging, misplacing and/or rejecting paperwork, imponderable delays, officer reassignments and facility and/or departmental changes. Of course, everything can be explained. Limited resources, retirements, prioritization of other work assignments – the list is infinite. But you just have to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Wait until the powers that be decide they are ready to look at your file. But is your file in order? That could mean another delay.
Ultimately, eight months after filing my initial change of address form, I received a call to “pick up” my new Firearms Purchaser ID Card from the duty officer at my local State Police Barracks. Hallelujah. I picked up the card – no apologies, explanations or niceties were offered. I went out later that same day and bought the vintage shotgun (it was still available, probably because the price reflected its vintage-ness).
Now if you think the State of NJ probably has more important things to do than help me purchase a weapon, hence the delay – you’re right. But the reality of it all is this: New Jersey considers all gun owners pains in the ass and would rather not deal with us. Only “Official” (and current) law enforcement personnel should have weapons (or access to weapons) and if you push the topic, you’re a fanatic or some kind of wacko. Don’t prattle on about “hunting” – buy your meat in Shop Rite like everybody else. Grow up. Put your manhood back in your pants and move along.
Aye’ – but ere’s the rub, Matey: I am a citizen of the United States of America. Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Endowed with certain unalienable rights, blah, blah, blah…….AND one of them rights is the Second Amendment.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
THE SECOND AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
All righty then! “Shall not be infringed” is pretty damn clear, no?
If you asked George Washington about it, he’d probably whistle through his wooden teeth (actually, his dentures were carved from whale bone) and say “Get this citizen a gun, for ’tis his God-given right! ”
And, just like that, somebody would hand you a British Brown Bess or a French Charleville Infantry Musket. Or maybe a one shot, smooth bore “Pistoleer” (a flintlock pistol). But you’d have a gun when you left the Father of Our Country’s Office. Bet your sweet ass. General George would get the job done.
But -wait just a minute, you say. I don’t want a flintlock-igniting, two hundred plus year old technology firearm that can barely get off three shots a minute and is only accurate to about eighty yards in my sweaty hands……I want an AR15 or an AK47. A “Black” rifle the Military boys use, with a twenty-round box magazine and all the Picatinney Rails, bells and doo-dads. You know, one of those bad-ass guns! And a Glock! That squared-off, plastic-festooned, ugly handgun cops use! I want new stuff! Manly guns!
Well, the way things are going for gun owners these days, I’ll bet good money that Congress is going to flip us all the bird real soon and say: “You want to exercise your Damn Second Amendment Rights? Well, buy the same guns the Founding Fathers used when they wrote the Constitution. The Second Amendment doesn’t apply to ARs or AKs or Glocks – just flintlocks. You get what the Minutemen used at Concord. Enjoy.”
Expressed another way: Does a US Citizen have a Second Amendment right to own an AR or AK type weapon? Was the Second Amendment drafted with universal ownership of specialized “Military” weapons in mind?
American farmers and Minutemen used the same weapons technology the British and French Armies did. The average Colonial hunting for venison on any given day was shooting the same gun that was later going to be aimed at him by a Redcoat, Frenchie or Hessian soldier. There was virtually no distinction between “Military” and “Civilian” gun technologies in 1776. When the Founding Fathers drafted the US Constitution in 1789, all “guns” were alike. There was one gun design: the flintlock.
Lets take a deeper look at what the Founding Fathers knew as their go-to firearm, shall we?
The world according to today’s armament afficionatos revolves around two guns: the AR15 (American) vs. the AK47 (Russian). We can argue over the different caliber loads (bullets) each use, but for the most part, ammunition-wise, these bad boys are shootin’ an equivalent load. Oddly enough, in 1776, two guns also ruled the roost: the Brown Bess (British) and the Charleville (French). They were both “Standard Pattern” Flintlock designs shooting similar (.75 Caliber British / .69 Caliber French) size musket balls.
Around 1717 the French realized that their muskets should be standardized – for ease of manufacture at their arsenals, maintenance and repair. They designed the Charleville (French Pattern Musket) and commenced its production at three primary facilities in France. Around the same time (1722) the British came to the same conclusion – that a standardized musket design was the way to go – and designed their own flintlock, calling it the Brown Bess (British Land Pattern Musket). The musket ball calibers were roughly a match.
By todays’ standards, each musket ball was enormous. These guns either blew entire limbs off soldiers or caused such internal organ destruction that death from bleeding or infection was virtually assured.
The Charleville musket was only accurate (in expert hands) to little over 100 yards (100 yards, 50% hits; 200 yards, 30% hits). And that’s in perfect conditions – windage, elevation, etc. – The Brown Bess was no better. These were “up front and personal” weapons, to be aimed and fired from standing positions in open fields.
Once “front line” soldiers fired, they stepped back to reload and the line of soldiers directly behind them came forward to fire their muskets. With practice and focus, troops could coordinate their firelines to maximum grim effect, mowing down enemies en mass, wave after wave – provided the distances were limited.
The Brown Bess’ barrel was about the same length (give or take an inch or so) as the Charleville – 60 inches. Add on the length of the “lock and stock” (ie. the rest of the gun) and these were pretty long firearms. And they were heavy (10 pounds +) considering that soldiers had to schlep all over God’s creation carrying them and a bag of lead balls, black powder and primer powder.
To this add the rest of their “kit”: blanket, food, canteen, bayonet, tomahawk, knife, bullet molds, patch, spare flints, uniform and food pouches. Soldiers of the time period had a poor diet – hence their field marching, fighting and survival expectations were nowhere near what today’s army analysts in the Pentagon would find acceptable.
Both the Brown Bess and the Charleville had “smoothbore” barrels. Military commanders preferred smoothbore weapons because they were easier to reload (ie. ram a powder charge and musket ball down) in the thick of battle.
“Rifled” barrels were more accurate (ie. the grooves laboriously cut into the insides of the barrel tube to make the bullet “spin” made for a longer range, tighter “hit”) but much too expensive for mass production in the arsenals of France and England. Specialized “rifling” equipment and gunsmiths were needed together with cooperative metalurgy. Most of the Revolutionary War era guns were smoothbores.
Of course, there were individual craftsmen in Pennsylvania manufacturing the very height of technological “Rifled” gunsmithing – the “Pennsylvania Long Rifle” (mistakenly referred to as the “Kentucky Long Rifle”). But these creations were limited production, smaller caliber (.40), expensive one-off masterpieces that were dragooned into service as sharpshooter weapons in the hands of the most talented Colonial marksmen.
“Long Rifles” were accurate at longer distances because of their rifled bores and smaller caliber. In fact, British commanding officers commonly walked beside their own horses whilst their adjutant (dressed in the officer’s red tunic) rode his saddle in his place. Colonials shooting Pennsylvania Long Rifles always shot the British guy on the horse first, usually from a comfortable distance just beyond enemy range.
King George III regularly railed against this Colonial “Pick Off Redcoat Officers” policy, pronouncing it barbaric and ungentlemanly. It truly irritated his royal bowel. Why didn’t these Colonials fight in a more genteel fashion? How unbecoming.
The quality of the gunpowder used at this time (Black Powder) was problematic. In some Colonial locations, urine was still collected and boiled down to capture “salte peter” – potassium nitrate – to mix with sulphur and charcoal to create the crude explosive they used. E.I. duPont’s Delaware factories later supplied all the Black Powder the Continental Army could use, but initially many shooters in outlying areas had to rough it and make their own.
In most early Colonial settlements everyone had a “Piss Pot”, the contents of which was regularly “collected” for the “common good”, ie. brewing nitrates. One who was truly destitute had “nary pot to piss in nor window to throw it out of”.
Black Powder – especially the homemade kind – was dirty and fouled the bores (barrels) of flintlock muskets, making frequent cleaning necessary. Cleaning took time, especially for soldiers on campaign. The grooves in “Rifled” barrels were notoriously susceptible to fouling from bad powder charges.
Rifles took longer to load, clean and maintain; they were too finicky for most soldiers to deal with. The more forgiving but less accurate smoothbore was considered the best armament for a minimally trained army grunt, hence the Charleville and Brown Bess were universally embraced.
So enduring was smoothbore musket technology that most of the weapons used at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 in Texas were Charleville and Brown Bess designs – or domestic copies thereof. For over one hundred years the smoothbore musket ruled roost of Military and domestic use. To kill a deer for the family table, slaughter Indians on numerous fronts or Military soldiers attacking you from Britain, Spain, Mexico or France – the Charleville and Brown Bess were the Big Twin Brothers Kahuna.
Brown Bess and Charleville guns were handed down through generations as family heirlooms and hung over the fireplaces of cabins throughout the young United States and its frontiers, In fact, the guns were even retro-fitted with nipples and new hammers when percussion cap technology replaced flintlock and flash pan ignition.
Probably no firearm in history found broader useage in as many theaters of war or domestic applications as the “British Land Pattern” Brown Bess or Charleville “French Pattern” designs. “Pistoleer” – handgun – versions (also British and French “Pattern” standarizations) were issued to Officers everywhere and configured to use the same musket ball caliber as long guns to save money on ammunition. Very practical. Pistoleer detonation “kick” was so robust they were called “Horse Pistols” – as in getting kicked by a horse.
Of course, with the evolution of machine tools, gunsmithing and metalurgy, “rifling” of barrels grew more common and became the standard for long gun production in the USA – witness the magnificent Hawken Plains Guns of the mid-1800s that almost made the buffalo extinct. Gunpowder became more dependable as the chemistry of its components was studied and refined. Science and technology marched forward to where we are today. Where is that?
Multi-shot magazine, black painted, lead-spraying killing machines – rifles that cause politicians to shit their collective britches and cry Mommy.
Interestingly, AR15s and AK47s are the most prevalent, most recognizable, most prolific firearm available today – just like the Brown Bess and Charleville pattern smooth bore muskets were at the time of George Washington. AR15s and AK47s are the modern equivalents of what the Minutemen used to fight the British at Lexington and Concord. They are the present-day version of what defeated British General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. They are our rendition of what Daniel Boone and Colonel Travis fought the Mexicans with at The Alamo.
They shoot more bullets, are extremely accurate and can deal death quicker and more efficiently than a smoothbore musket – but, at the end of the day, AR15s and AK47s are todays’ height of rifle technology. Our rifle technology.
So what does all this have to do with “Gun Control” and getting Pork Rolled in New Jersey?
In the United States – through historical happenstance or (as many would believe) because of Divine Providence – citizens have a written guarantee that they can own a gun. Or two guns. Or as many as they want.
Wailing and beating ones’ chest cannot change the fact that there is a solemn proclamation in our founding document – the Constitution of the United States – that citizens have a right to bear arms. And that Congress shall make no law to infringe said right to bear arms. It is not suggested to Congress – or delicately requested – that it refrain from making such a law. Congress is admonished that it shall not do so. That’s pretty clear. Kick in the groin clear.
We can argue shoulda’, woulda’ and coulda’ all day long – but we have to address that most irksome question a lawyer can ever ask: What does the document say?
The Constitution of the United States was written by men who understood language. They were educated, urbane, worldly souls who had a clear grasp of the meaning and nuance of words. If they wrote “shall not” they meant it as an absolute bar to action. If they wrote “infringe” they meant any act that would mettle, contravene, encroach, invade, offend, transgress, trespass or in any wise breach that right they were enshrining in the Amendment.
Words matter. The meaning of words may change over years – but a document as seminal as the Constitution is made up of words that had a particular meaning and useage in 1789 when it was crafted. If someone wrote in 1789 that Alexander Hamilton had a “gay” time at Fraunces’ Tavern in New York City, we cannot conclude he was frolicking at an LGBTQ event there. “Gay” did not have an LGBTQ meaning in common parlance then. It just meant he really enjoyed himself at the party. Maybe got loaded. You know – insulted Aaron Burr a few times and staggered home feeling good about himself and hoping for a duel.
Like it or not, an American citizen’s unfettered right to a firearm is cut into concrete. The bedrock of our laws – the United States Constitution – says so. To say anything else is to lie about the document and bend its words into travesty. Perhaps the Framers should have said something like: “Congress shall be as accomodating as possible when it comes to allowing people to use firearms but may require regulation and licensing of said firearms for the common good…” But they didn’t. The words the Framers selected – after exhaustive deliberation – brook no (or at least very little) debate.
So let’s cut the Bullshit, shall we? There’s no way we are going to reconcile in any intellectually honest way the “shall not infringe” language in the Second Amendment with a campaign to undermine or even license people buying guns. The lawyer in me says it’s impossible. It’s patently, laughably dishonest. And let’s not get all snowflakey and start whining that the Constitution is a living document – meant to evolve as we evolve…..
Spare me. We’re evolving? Excuse me while I puke.
How about we just tell everyone: you get what George Washington had….. you can have Brown Bess or a Charleville smooth bore musket. Or a “Pistoleer”. Why? Because those are the “arms” the Constitution Framers knew. Throw in a tomahawk and a knife for good measure. These are the “arms” they defeated King George III with and wanted everybody to have in case another war was necessary.
And then we can tell eveybody that their First Amendment right to free speech only applies to something they wrote in a newspaper (an actual paper newspaper – if any are left), NOT a virtual representation thereof on the Internet or any commentary on Drudge. AND, nothing on Facebook or Twitter can be First Amendment “protected speech” because – well, social media didn’t exist in 1789 when the Constitution enshrined your right to open your mouth.
Oh, I know!!! You say…..Let’s ask our Supreme Court for some of their Supreme Wisdom! Gee, that’s a great idea. Surely the Supreme Court of the United States wouldn’t redefine the Constitution’s words to suit a purely political purpose – would they? Let’s not find out. I think the better idea is to stay as far away from Washington, D.C. as we can.
In conclusion –
The United States Constitution says what it says.
A moron can read it and come away with a pretty fair idea of where he or she stands. Tinkering with the Constitution’s words or engaging in endless disengenuous debates about how our rights are now based on some dictionary of today and dainty sensibilities is flat out insulting – and dangerous.
A bit of Jersey wisdom addresses most Constitutional and (especially) Second Amendment language interpretation controversies best: “Don’t pee down my neck and tell me it’s raining…”
Now, what is going to be, an AR15 or AK47? My advice is neither.
What’s the point? You can’t hunt with it (check where you live, but in NJ forget it). Where are you even going to shoot it? On your Estate? Right. These guns are expensive and impractical. Just because you may have the “right” to buy something doesn’t mean you should.
Get a shotgun. Shotguns are legal to hunt with in New Jersey. And for home defense? Fuggedaboudit. Anybody that just lays eyes on a shotgun runs like Hell. You don’t even have to load it. Work a pump shotgun slide dry – make like you’re racking a 12 guage shell into its barrel – and that “Ka-Chunk!” sound alone will ignite the holy Hershey squirts in whomever is creeping about.
Every criminal knows what a shotgun can do to him. A side-by-side 12 guage can cut a man in half. Think about it. A home defense weapon you don’t even have to load – just rack it. The ultimate ace up your sleeve for those of us who don’t want to shoot anybody under any circumstances.
And finally, let me assure you, no disrespect is intended to pork roll in this article. Authentic (Taylor) New Jersey Pork Roll is really good – especially on rye bread. With eggs over easy. And home fries. And ketchup. And coffee. Really strong coffee. Wow. What a way to start the day.
Now….George….about that cherry tree…
Copyright 2021, Jon Croft.
