POWDER TO GUNS
Rex Burress
My study on gun powder and guns was heightened with the showing of “Frontiersman” on the History channel, featuring Daniel Boone and the establishment of Fort Boonesborough in Kentucky in 1775.
The highlight of the show was the 1778 Shawnee attack on the fort, that reenacted the pioneers surviving a 10-day siege, armed only with those crude flintlock guns and outnumbered four to one . To produce one shot, black powder was poured out of a flask into the barrel, and a lead bullet rammed in on top of a cloth patch. To ignite this explosive mixture, powder was sprinkled on a 'flashpan,' and a mechanical hammer, fitted with a piece of flint to strike steel and make a spark, was cocked, and fired when the trigger was pulled. Imagine all of this in the heat of battle, or even when shooting a charging bear! You had one chance.
Of all the things that Daniel Boone did in his lengthy life, he was known as a hunter of the wilderness above all. He was adjusted to making that one shot count with his Kentucky long rifle.
The flint, spark, and powder was ineffective in rain, thus there was great improvement when the percussion cap was invented in 1807. Having a closed, brass casing with shock-sensitive fulminite of mercury, or lead azide inside to initiate the igniting fire, was an improvement before the metallic cartridge appeared in 1850.
After Kentucky, Daniel Boone ventured into Missouri in 1799 when it was Spanish territory, and settled near St. Louis until he died in 1820. His grandson, Alphonso Boone, guided a wagon train to Oregon, but joined the 1849 gold rush, mining on the Feather River at Long's Bar, near Oroville, CA, and died there in 1850 of malaria, now buried in a marked grave on a hillside near that site.
Part of the present-day conflict about 'gun control' is rooted in gun history and the vital role guns played in the occupation of America. Gun owners loved their guns no matter what model since defense and meat-gathering was critical to the pioneer's survival. Guns were pampered and fondly cleaned until the next use, just the same as we Missouri hunters did in the 1940's.
I had a gun kit in my younger days of hunting, used to oil, groom, clean the barrel bore, and polish the Mossberg's walnut stock to keep it in top shape. There are folks back there in the country especially, that don't want restrictions that might interfere with their love of all that has to do with gun lore, history, and their pride of ownership. There is also a reluctance to have a background check as nearly everyone has some little misbehavior on their record that might be embarrassing if brought to light.
One of those guns Dad and I shared was a slide-action .22 Stevens rifle that had been my grandfather's. It was so old and worn, Dad said, the bullet came out sideways! But it seemed to never miss! All of those nine shotguns and rifles are now at my cousin's house in Arkansas, including one engraved Damascus double barrel shotgun, strictly a collector's piece, but to be admired for the hunting service it had rendered to someone in the past. Those were hunting guns not intended to be involved in killing a human being, and likely the Damascus had never been considered for that use. [First made of laminated Woltz steel in Damascus, Syria in 3rd Century and used with black powder until the 1600's. Unsafe with smokeless powder.]
Having an AR 15 with its multiple shots is a far cry from my first .22 single-shot rifle. I was almost as limited as the one-shot flintlock, except I had a clean metal cartridge to slip into the barrel. Exhibits of frontier guns is very popular, and there is a nice collection in the Pioneer Museum in Oroville, CA. Maybe AR 15 guns will be taken out of circulation and end up in displays, but here is the surprise-- there are about 12 million AR 15's now in circulation in America! Manufacturer's have made so many the country is stuck!
Like our modern cameras with all the mechanical wonders that are inoperable without pressing the shutter button, so it is that a gun is powerless unless a human finger pulls the trigger! A brain dictates that action to misuse guns; go after the brains!
“Guns require a finger to pull the trigger.” --Rick Perry
“If you live in the countryside, you understand that hunting isn't just for toffs. It's for the farmers, it's for everyone's enjoyment.” --Honeysuckle Weeks
“Hunting has opened the earth to me and let me sense the rhythms and hierarchies of nature.”
--Charles Fergus (As John James Audubon might have said, too)