By BLoving
A recent TTAG post touched on the growing movement in Italy to recognize the people’s fundamental human right of self-defense. It was mentioned that gun owner control laws on the continent began in the years between WWI and WWII, but the European elite’s fear of weapons in the hands of the peasantry goes back farther than that.
Gun owner laws are hardly a new idea. Shortly after the development of the first functioning handheld guns, monarchs and lords were passing laws and edicts restricting their ownership and use to all but the privileged classes. As early as 1508, King Henry VII of England decreed that crossbows could be possessed only by royal permit. Credit for the first concealed handgun law goes to the Emperor Maximilian I – in 1517 he banned the wheellock pistol throughout the Holy Roman Empire, the first firearm that could be easily hidden under a cloak or coat as it did not require a burning match to fire it.
In 1515, Henry VIII decreed “in An Acte Avoidyng and Shoting Crossbowes Gonnes” that only wealthy landowners could possess firearms, thus ensuring that only those subjects beholden to the crown could own such dangerous weapons.
While he did repeal Henry VII’s 1508 law regarding crossbows, he later reinstated it in 1537 to include handguns, “with the proviso, that those persons who were permitted to carry hand-guns must have none that exceeded two and a half feet in length, including the stock.” We can suppose that a shorter gun might have been seen as unsuitable for the military and was thus royally okay for a mere subject to own; ye olde “civilian gun versus military assault weapon” argument?
Some years later in 1542, Henry VIII again favored his rich pals by issuing the first hunting licenses to those whose property was valued at 100 pounds or more. That made the first legal recognition of the use of guns by criminals and the people’s right to feel safe. “(N)owe of late the saide evill disposed persons have used and yet doe daylie use to ride and go on the Kings high Wayes and elsewhere having with them Crossbowes and little handguns ready furnished with Quarrel, Gunpowder, fyer and touché, to the great peril and fear of the Kings most loving subjects.” Those poor, most loving subjects…. do it for the children!
Henry’s daughter Elizabeth I got in on the gun owner control mess too. Some ten years after the assassination of William I, Prince of Orange (as mentioned in a previous post), she was terrified of the idea of a Roman Catholic sympathizer doing her in and prohibited the possession of a wheellock pistol near any royal palace in 1594. The definition of “near” was unclear.
While English Common Law had long held the right of people to defend themselves and their homes as sacrosanct, the particulars regarding the means by which they could accomplish that has long been a subject of contention for the ruling classes. Indeed, the fleeting and fickle nature of what types, style, size and number of weapons should be permitted to the peasantry by the elites is why our Founding Fathers had the wisdom and foresight to prohibit our fledgling government from having any say in the matter. Or so the theory goes.
Interesting overview. I see the Brits are only following a rich tradition of bastard behavior. For 500 years😖😩😡
No it’s not,king george sent his troops to Concord and Lexington.
I remember reading that the French could carry without a permit a .22, .25 or .32acp pistol up to the time of WW2. Just think how far the terrorists in Paris that went around shooting people a couple of years ago would have gotten if that law were still in place.
A .32 (largest legal permit-less carry) against steel-core 7.62 in full-auto?
I guess I’m missing something, here, the gun is not there to shoot another gun. It’s more like “a .32 against an armed dipshit.” His firearm loses 99% of it’s muzzle energy if you put a .32″ hole in his forehead.
You first shot had better be a good one against Mr. AK man, because he can easily kill you from far further away…
Geoff,
He can do that whether his target is armed or not. A .32 and harsh language is infinately more effective at confronting the assailant who intends to kill someone than harsh language alone.
Geoff, nearly all terrorist actions, even with Aks, are done at pistol range distances.
Dingdingdingdingding!
Winner!
OK, OK! Uncle! Uncle!
*whimpering away, tail between legs…*
It was a thing of beauty. 😉
Better than nothing…especially during the guys reload…
Just shows that tyrants have always feared the common citizenry.
This whole arms control idea predates – almost everything. Before the “they only had muskets” argument, or muskets themselves, dudes were trying to keep other dudes from gearing up.
I Samuel 13:19-22
Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears.” So all Israel went down to the Philistines, each to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, and his hoe. The charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to fix the hoes. So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan.
I suspect weapon restrictions by royal decree goes back a bit farther than the early 1500’s if you consider that China was producing hand held firearms in industrial quantity as early as 1152 for their armies. Look it up. Don’t be so focused on European history – there were other civilizations. 🙂
Weapons control has never been about stopping crime or making the streets safer. Never.
Weapons control is always people control. Always.
And that, my friends, is why I always insist on referring to them as gun OWNER control laws.
It’s because weapons are inanimate objects…people have to use them for anything to actually happen…
a concept seemingly lost on most lib/dems when it comes to guns
Going back even further…gunpowder was invented in China…
what was their take on peasants owning weaponry?
Before guns the peasantry was prohibited from owning swords, knives and long bows.
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