Guns: Modern firepower would stun founding fathers

In 1791 when the Second Amendment was ratified, it took 60 seconds to load and fire a rifled weapon.

One reason for the massive loss of life on Civil War battlefields 70 years later was due to the fact that by then it only took 20 seconds to fire one round from a rifled musket (as long as you remembered the nine steps it took to load one round).

Would not the signers of the Constitution be horrified that a rifle today can fire hundreds of rounds in 60 seconds?

And would they not say: “We should have written in some regulations concerning these rifles of mass destruction.”

This story was originally published August 13, 2019 at 4:07 PM.