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From: walton@ametek.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: The Second Amendment
Message-ID: <12245539486.68.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 20:37:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12245539486.68.MCGREW
Posted: Thu Oct  9 20:37:26 1986
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   Thank you for your lucid survey of contemporary scholarship with
regard to the Second Amendment.  I have one question: Is it accurate
for me to believe that ownership of arms at the time of ratification
was self-limiting, in the sense that reliable rifles were sufficiently
expensive that only a small fraction of the populace could afford
them?  I refer, of course, to the white property-owning males who were
the only ones allowed to vote under the original Constitution.  If
this is true, than clearly the circumstances under which the Second
Amendment were adopted were quite different than now, when weapons of
frightnening destructive capability are available to persons with
relatively modest means.


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