Reply #54: The GunGuys said the handguns hadn't been invented... [View All]

[spin]

when the bill of rights was ratified.

Absolutely fucking hilarious!

For those who suffer from a lack of firearm knowledge:

While some people believe that handguns did not exist when the Patriots were fighting for their right to arms, handguns were actually hundreds of years old by then. Handguns had grown common enough in the early sixteenth century that legislation was proposed as early as 1518 (by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian) to address them; and by the latter part of the 1500s, handguns were standard cavalry weapons. When the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, state militia laws requiring most men to supply their own firearms required officers to supply their own pistols.

The Revolutionary War handguns were mostly very large .50-caliber single-shot pistols, often built by the same gunsmiths who made the Pennsylvania Rifles. Colonel Samuel Colt's multiple-shot revolver lay decades in the future — although there were predecessors available, such as "pepperbox," which used revolving barrels, each containing its own bullet.
http://davekopel.org/NRO/2000/Guns-of-Our-Freedom.htm