The AR-15 (what the media has dubbed an “assault weapon”) is merely the latest example of private citizens using and helping to develop a firearm type that had been used by the military. Every major firearm type used by the U.S. military has also been owned and used by civilians. This goes for lever-action Winchesters, bolt-action Springfields, pump-action shotguns from Browning and the AR-15. Those who say that “weapons of war have no place in civilian hands” are either unaware of American history, are misled or are dishonest.
American gun companies have always worked to invent and perfect gun designs that were then used by the military, law enforcement and civilians. Gun companies were in fact a big part of the American industrial revolution.
In 1836 Samuel Colt perfected and patented a revolving handgun by bringing together features from previous guns and fashioning them into a mechanically reliable revolver. Colt even thought of developing an assembly line to manufacture his product. School textbooks often call Henry Ford’s use of an assembly line nearly a century later (in the late 1920s) a major innovation, as Ford used an assembly line to make the Ford Model T. But a gun maker a century before had this idea. Colt wrote in a letter in 1836 that the “first workman would receive two or three of the most important parts and would affix these and pass them on to the next who add a part and pass the growing article on to another who would do the same, and so on until the complete arm is put together.”[1]
Today’s modern sporting rifles are simply the latest example of America’s gun companies making new firearms for citizens and for the government.
This is widely misunderstood, as it is rarely covered accurately by the media or taught by educators.
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...Ben
