1700's - a gun violent century?

[EOTechRulesAll]

mnrivrat- When Cain was condemned to wander the world, he said "do not send me about, they will kill me..." he was greatly afraid that "anybody I meet shall surely kill me" etc- paraphrases- but the point is... With that sort of statement, he was clearly making references to other people.

So who were the other people?

Anyway, that was just a bit of unrelated stuff, but the point is that I wanted to make it clear that there were more than four people in the world at the time.

 

[Limeyfellow]

The 18th and 19th Centuries I am sure it went up. My great great grandmother was born in 1850 and lived till 1947. The remarks that she made that I heard my grandfather mention was that in those days people were generally "better" people.

I'm not so sure about that. Generally most cities and towns banned the carrying of arms in the limits as a danger to society. Didn't stop the violence however mixed in with a large dose of deadly diseases, abominable living conditions full of massive pollution, exploitation and plenty of hardships.

If anything things have gotten a little better, due to the fact living conditions are so much more comfortable for everybody nowadays and moral standards have increased.

The rose tinted glasses of the past make us remember things as far nicer and more pleasant than they actually were.

 

[Wheeler44]

The rose tinted glasses of the past make us remember things as far nicer and more pleasant than they actually were.

you can say that again. Anybody remember a little oem that goes like this.....Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her Father forty whacks,when she saw what the had done she gave her mother forty one.

 

[yhtomit]

K-Romulus wrote:

Clayton Cramer and Joe Olson(?) are getting a law review article published soon that discusses the prevalence of handgun-facilitated crimes in colonial America. That should "quiet down" that hysterical line of thinking mentioned in the OP. I'll see if I can find a link . . .

Please do! I'd like to read that article ...

timothy

 

[ArmedBear]

The Founding Fathers had one HECK of a better understanding of the darker aspects of Human Nature than do today's Liberals.

So does an iguana.

 

[dmazur]

Since then of course, our world has transformed into one of overwhelmingly rich color and 3 full dimensions. By its very nature it seems far more violent to us since we experience infinitely more sensory stimulus than our ancestors could ever comprehend.

Yes. The Vietnam War (yeah, I know...it wasn't a war) was supposedly the first with more or less constant TV coverage. Analysts determined much of the public became hardened to this "overstimulation". So, while the war had it horrors, they were commonplace.

The "embedded journalists" and satellite coverage of the most recent "wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq ratcheted this up a notch or two.

George Orwell pretty much predicted this in "1984"...

 

[torpid]

Eek.
You seemed to have taken me seriously.

 

[Cosmoline]

This is an interesting account:

For some reason he left the army and became a part of the Scotch-Irish settlement in Western Virginia. He also had a part in Lord Dunmore's Indian war in 1774. This incident of the Indian war is related: on one occasion about four miles from the fort they were compelled to retreat in disorder, every man for himself. Wm McFarland was pursued by two large Indians. He ran as far as he could, and then stopping behind a large tree, he held his hat out to one side. One of the Indians shot through the hat. He dropped the hat, and both Indians left their guns and ran away.

http://www.amer-net.com/mcfarland/d7.htm#P2

So yeah I'd say it was pretty dicey. It's an account of some interest to yours truly, since a few years later Robert McFarland was born. If the bullets had got into William, then no Robert. If no Robert, then no Isaac (who himself dodged bullets on the Columbia). If no Isaac then no Mary. If no Mary then no Marietta. If no Marietta then no Bertha. If no Bertha then no Veva. And Veva was my grandma! A fiery redhead who drove fast and took no guff.

We have since made peace with the natives. My sister in law is Haida.