re: #302 Uncle Obdicut

There’s another factor of guns from that era that I think bears in mind too, which is that they were dangerous to the user. You had to keep them in good working order, and even when you did, the gun simply exploding in your hand was a significant risk. Handling the raw gunpowder, rather than having it secured away in cartridges, was a big risk.

This whole aspect of the “well regulated militia” is almost totally ignored in the discussion.