[J]urisdictions will be forced to allow some form of handgun carry, either open or concealed. Outright bans on concealed carry cited in cases from the mid-1800’s come from a time when it was assumed that only brigands carried handguns concealed, and it was an unquestioned right of the people to carry arms openly wherever they went. States and localities will not be able to delete the right to bear arms from the right to keep and bear arms.
David Rittgers
March 10, 2010
Gun Control After McDonald
[Logically, I think this is inevitable. But logically we would not have had to deal with NFA ’34, or GCA ’68 or 20,000 other insults and infringements either.
I still think this is a likely outcome but it is far from certain and it will take a minimum of two years if not five or ten to implement in all 50 states.–Joe]
Also I’m curious how logical those initial laws were, given the huge number of small handguns that were around at the time. All of the first Browning Pistols were the size of today’s subcompact and pocket guns, and H&R and S&W among others made some very small revolvers in .32 and .22 calibers. Of course you have derringers and caplock handguns that date back centuries. Can anybody make a claim that these very old patterns were designed for ANYTHING but concealed carry, or that they were not in “Common Use” as is the magic words on the Heller Ruling?
Just a little nit; caplock handguns didn’t appear until the 1830s or thereabouts. Not sure that qualifies as “centuries”, being less than two, but maybe we can define ~1.8 as “centuries”. Sorry for changing the subject.
Yes; concealable pistols have always been very popular. More so than the famous Peacemakers and earlier percussion Army type revolvers we see so often in the movies. Early sales figures from Colt’s in the 1850s & ’60s show that the pocket versions far outsold the larger handguns. I think you’ll find that this trend had continued to the present day for handguns in general.
When did semi-automatics first start to appear?
late 1800s. Fully-automatics came first.
were you asking for any particular reason, Ubu?