Print

CHAPTER TWO Origins of American Gun Culture The roots of American gun culture began even prior to the United States becoming a country, when it was just a scattered group of settlements and colonies. Whether seeking a better place in the world or just seeking excitement and a challenge, the explorers and settlers from Europe and elsewhere brought the customs and norms of their mother countries with them, and these customs frequently included a high regard for firearms. Foundational Events: The English Experience1 The English colonists in particular brought with them an affection for firearms. Reliant on firearms to put food on the table and to defend against both animal and human threats, they had consequently devel- oped a long tradition of battling the Crown for the right to own and use weapons, long guns, and pistols. In her analysis of the English origins of the right to keep and bear arms, noted constitutional scholar Joyce Lee Malcolm observed that although the English Bill of Rights of 1689 for- mally established this right for Englishmen, English citizens had a tradi- tion of possessing and bearing weapons much earlier than this, dating back as far as King Alfred in the ninth century, when Saxon law gave every man the right to keep and bear arms.2 In later centuries, when the Crown pragmatically desired to avoid the expense of financing and main- taining a professional army that both commoners and aristocrats would have regarded with dark suspicion, the country’s long reliance on citi- zens’ militias to help keep the peace and defend the kingdom reinforced