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Old June 21, 2005, 07:55 AM   #89
4V50 Gary
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Join Date: November 2, 1998
Location: Colorado
Posts: 21,824
Early gonne control

I was reading a book entitled, "Gunpower" by Jack Kelly. Here's an interesting excerpt from pages 76-77:

"By making guns easily concealable, the wheellock sparked social concerns that continue today. The first recorded firearms accident took place in Germany in 1515 when a man shot a prostitute in the chin while playing with a wheelock pistol - he had to pay her a pension for life. The use of wheellocks by highwaymen disturbed civil authorities and led to many edicts banning manufacture or possession of the weapons. In 1523 an ordinance in Ferrara outlawed wheellock weapons, 'an especially dangerous kind of firearms... with which a homicide can easily be committed.' Societies were begining to sense a danger from the wider availability of gunpowder weapons, especially ones that an assassin could hide under a cloak. English authorities imposed an embargo on selling, firing, or making a pistol within two miles of Queen Elizabeth I."


And that's the way it was.
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