Requirement of firearms possession

[Volokh, Eugene]

        If the requirement of firearms possession was "mythical", it was a
pretty realistic seeming myth, realistic enough to fool people who printed
the federal statute books!  The federal Militia Act of 1792, 2nd Cong. sess.
I, ch. 33, provides that:

        Sec. 1.  Be it enacted . . .  That each and every free able-bodied
white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or
shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years
(except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be
enrolled in the militia . . . .  That every citizen so enrolled and
notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good
musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a
knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four
cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to
contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle,
knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his
rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder. . . .

        Sec. 2.  [Exempting the Vice President, federal judicial and
executive officers, congressmen and congressional officers, custom-house
officers and clerks, post-officers and postal stage drivers, ferrymen on
post roads, export inspectors, pilots, merchant mariners, and people
exempted under the laws of their states.]

        Now I agree that this law was probably highly underenforced -- but
it would surprise me if it were enacted in an environment where private gun
ownership was extremely rare.  In any event, the requirement itself is no
myth.

Paul Finkelman writes:

> Two points; First, on Sandy's posting below, I do not want to speak for
> Michael
> Bellesiles, except to say that it is my understand that his research on
> gun
> ownership and regulation not begun with any political motivation; and in
> fact began
> accidentally.  What he has concluded after that research began, and where
> he places
> that in modern political discourse, is a different issue.
>
> On John's point, most males apparently did not own a musket or rifle of
> any kind,
> they were VERY expensive and not pleantiful, and my guess is that the
> "requirement"
> is in part mythical and was rarely enforced or implemented, however it was
> written.
>
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