The Pioneering Spirit (Fairbanks: lawyer, home, dangerous)

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

It declined after the War of 1812.

Sounds nice, eh? But it clearly is not a valid scenerio! If what you say is true, then virtually every troop movement of an army would have resulted in approximately the same kind of accident rate. But the fact is that armies are trained (not all of them that well either), and they did not have the same problem.

That's why histories are full of statements like this:

"William SHOTWELL became the first trail emigrant to die of an
accidental gun shot; such accidents became frequent among the
inexperienced and heavily armed travelers on the Oregon Trail."
Oregon Trail 1841 - 1843

You are merely making up "facts" off the top of your head and are not reading history or looking at historical documents.

No, a significant portion of the units fighting in the Civil War were local militias from states serving for the federal government during the war. Hence some of the rather bizarre ideas of some of them: some armed with bowie knives, some had some strange uniforms (zouaves for example), etc. Local, state militias who went to fight for the federal government...there were some problems however and the system declined after the war (and perhaps even during the war in some ways). Units despite serving for the federal government still associated strongly with their states, units with such distinctive colorful uniforms were targeted by the enemy more, militia units from certain states were targeted more (VT for example, because of pre-war abolitionist activity), etc.

Troops were mostly on foot and marched with their guns resting on their shoulders pointing upwards (roughly). Not surprising there were fewer issues with accidental shootings with their rifles/muskets, if they fired by accident marching they likely didn't hurt anyone. In battle there likely were issues with accidental shootings, but in most cases, it probably wasn't known that they weren't enemy caused casualties. During the Civil War there were issues with people carrying personal handguns (half-co-cked obviously) and accidental shootings as a result (some units forbade carrying them loaded except in battle).

I have a lot of experience with guns, including muzzleloading antiques and replicas. But I'm sure that if you took myself and several other people with experience, and have us ride off in horse drawn wagons across the continent, not using paved roads, etc., odds are high there could be an accidental discharge, potnetially injuring or killing someone. These weapons just aren't that safe if carried as they were in the 1800's.

[Woof]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

.....That's why histories are full of statements like this:

"William SHOTWELL became the first trail emigrant to die of an
accidental gun shot; such accidents became frequent among the
inexperienced and heavily armed travelers on the Oregon Trail."
Oregon Trail 1841 - 1843

You are merely making up "facts" off the top of your head and are not reading history or looking at historical documents.

I just went to read that long and fairly detailed page, and counted only one other accidental gun death .... but many deaths by other kinds of accidents, some murders, a suicide or two, and many deaths by illness.

I saw no evidence whatsoever - aside from the editorial comment - that the pioneers were buffoons who were careless with their guns.

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by DannyL

Ok, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say NO!
Alaska has been whored out since the Russians bumped into it by mistake.
Alaska produces practiacally nothing except oil and hopefully NG in the future. Everything is shipped in, barged in, or flown in. It seems that "give me my PFD and dividend check and life is good and I'm just like those I see on TV". Personally, I think that sucks.
New residents move here expecting everything to be the same as in Kansas, from shopping to groceries to internet service to cell phone service.
Hell, the SE is easy to live in, and I meet newbies who can't handle it.

You forgot the export of coal, gold, zinc, boron, copper, furs, fishing, timber and a whole host of other things that have been taken out of the State over the last three hundred years. In return, we get tourist by the boatloads... I think we lose...

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

there were some problems however and the system declined after the war (and perhaps even during the war in some ways).

You are fabricating history to suit your agenda.

The fact is that the militia was a colossal failure during the War of 1812, and afterwards Monroe moved more towards a larger standing federal army rather than the traditional reliance on state militias. By the time of the Civil War, most state militias were useless. Some in the South had been used as police, few if any of them were training as a military force.

Take a look at Wikipedia's article, and read the section about militia history between the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

Militia (United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Here are a couple of excerpts including the cites for them.

During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the
States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.

"The demoralizing influences even of our own militia drills has
long been notorious to a proverb. It has been a source of
general corruptions to the community, and formed habits of
idleness, dissipation and profligacy. ... musterfields have
generally been scenes or occasions of gambling, licentiousness,
and almost every vice. ... An eye-witness of a New England
training, so late as 1845, says, "beastly drunkenness, and other
immoralities, were enough to make good men shudder at the very
name of a muster."[24]

Joseph Story laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into
serious decline:

"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the
importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable,
it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is
a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and
a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of
all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly
armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There
is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to
disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine
all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill
of Rights.[25]"

...

The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large
bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced
civilians with arms having little discipline and less
understanding of the importance of discipline.

[24] Beckwith, George Cone: The Peace Manual: Or, War and Its
Remedies. American Peace Society, 1847.
[25] Story, Joseph: , page 265. A Familiar Exposition of the
Constitution of the United States. T. H. Webb & co., 1842.
[28] Catton, Bruce (2004). The Civil War, Page 39. Mariner
Books. ISBN 0618001875

[Woof]

Heh .... here's an interesting Wikipedia article about a scholar who fabricated evidence concerning the amount of gun ownership in the early days of our country:

Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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"Arming America, The Origins of a National Gun Culture" is a controversial book written by former Emory University professor of history Dr. Michael A. Bellesiles and released in September of 2000 by Alfred A. Knopf. The book was an expansion of an article written by Bellesiles in 1996, and published in the Journal of American History, which was awarded "Best Article of the Year" by the Organization of American Historians (OAH). The central theme of the book is that guns were uncommon during peacetime in early America; that they were of little use and that the more widespread use and ownership of guns dates from the time of the Civil War and is the result of advances in manufacturing with the consequent reduction in price and improvement in quality and utility. From that narrative emerges the controversial theme and the subject of most of the debate, which is that the common belief that America's modern "gun culture" has its roots in America's colonial and frontier era is a myth, with little basis in historical fact.
Although initial concerns over the book were raised by advocates of gun ownership such as Clayton Cramer, much of the scholarly criticism of the book and the most widely cited evidence was developed by James Lindgren (Northwestern University), Randolph Roth (Ohio State University), Eric Monkkonen (UCLA), and Gloria Main (University of Colorado). The book has sparked a wide and long running controversy concerning the history of firearm ownership in the United States. Columbia University awarded Prof. Bellesiles the prestigious Bancroft Prize in April 2001, although it was later rescinded by Columbia on December 7, 2002 for “scholarly misconduct”.
Shortly after the book’s release, a number of questions arose when some critics began finding what they said were an extraordinary number of errors. Some scholars outside universities attacked Professor Bellesiles' honesty, accusing him of fraud for an altered statutory quotation. Emory University conducted both an internal inquiry and a review by an external Investigative Committee. The committee found serious flaws in both the quality and veracity of Bellesiles' work, and he announced that he was resigning his tenured professorship. Although Dr. Bellesiles disputed the Committee's findings in his statement, claiming he was the victim of an “intellectual lynching”, he immediately announced his resignation effective a few months later. Knopf ended publication of the book in January 2003, rejecting Bellesiles's revisions and corrections as inadequate. Soft Skull Press published a revised version of Arming America in October, 2003.

full article at Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[warptman]

What does all this have to do with Alaska?

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by warptman

What does all this have to do with Alaska?

Well Alaska is the "Last Frontier" so it fits...

[warptman]

Rance originally posted it as pioneering here in Alaska, now its gone to the pilgrims and the civil war. Why not bring it to the history thread?

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

You are fabricating history to suit your agenda.

Floyd,

Our founding fathers of the United States toted guns around for year before then and they did so for years before the Oregon Trail and other places were explored.

The mass accident shootings of the travelers is a fantasy that gun control freaks want to portray for whatever agenda they figure it may push, I assume to show how dangerous guns are in "Average" people's hands.

Guns for those that went on the trips west used guns like a shovel or a hammer, it was a tool, and they harvested almost 100% of the meat on the trip with guns, they may have been naive, but they weren't' stupid.

I am sure there were accidental shooting, but it was rare, they were just as aware of not pointing the barrel of a gun at what you didn't want to shoot then as now.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by warptman

Rance originally posted it as pioneering here in Alaska, now its gone to the pilgrims and the civil war. Why not bring it to the history thread?

It started out being about all over the place...Oregon Trail, Alaska, etc. Floyd's convinced though that guns were the leading cause of death with the pioneers. lol Being slightly off topic occasionally isn't that bad. Don't make me get the animal rights people from CA in here too...