----- Original Message ----- From: "James Lindgren" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Clayton E. Cramer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Volokh, Eugene" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 10:18 AM Subject: [inbox] Restrictions on non-Christians owning guns in colonial and revolutionary-era America
> > > In my brief and somewhat cursory foray into these statutes, I found some of > the same things that Clayton found in his more extensive research. > > In addition, I recall that clergy were often exempted from militia musters > (eg, Massachusetts), and I seem to recall that Quakers were sometimes > exempted as well. Exempted from militia muster, yes, but clergymen were often still required to own a gun. (Generally, the later in the colonial period, the more exemptions there are for militia duty.) Quaker exemptions were usually at the cost of paying for others to do militia duty in their place, for example, the 1742 Delaware militia statute. > Also, as an indication of the breadth of the class of gun owners and users > in these laws, indentured servants were sometimes required to participate > in the militia, poor people were often required to buy guns and reimburse > the town later, and indentured servants were sometimes required to be armed > with clothes and a good gun on the date of their release from servitude (MD?). > > Jim Lindgren Connecticut's Code of 1650 provided that those who were required to arm themselves, or arm a dependent, but "cannot purchase them by such means as he hath, hee shall bring to the clark so much corne or other merchantable goods" as was necessary to pay for them. The value of the arms was to be appraised by the clerk "and two others of the company, (whereof one to bee chosen by the party, and the other by the clarke,) as shall be judged of a greater value by a fifth parte, then such armes or ammunition is of.." Thus, the man who would not purchase a gun and ammunition would have one provided by the government, but at a price as much as twenty percent above the market price, as an incentive to privately purchase a gun. Another part of the law provided for hiring out any unarmed single men to earn the price of a gun and ammunition. Very similar laws appeared in New York and New Hampshire. A 1673 Virginia law, while less explicit about the process for determining the value of the arms, directed militia officers to purchase guns on the public account for distribution to those who could not afford them, "for them to dispose of the same as there shalbe occasion; and that those to whome distribution shalbe made doe pay for the same at a reasonable rate.." Clayton E. Cramer _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof
