Marksmanship Has Shaped The History Of Humankind

In 1903, the concentration to provide shooting sports among America’s youth began. It has grown today to have more than 1 million participants each year. More than 6,000 people compete annually in the

A man's hunting skills and inclinations are fostered early in childhood, often beginning when he is only a toddler. Toy bows and arrows are given to small children at a young age. Stationary

Black lives matter protests have been seen all over America many have turned violet causing death or injuries. The latest one is was in Utah where a 50-year-old man Patrick Harmon was shot dead by a Utah police officer after he was trying to run away from the officer. The district attorney called the shooting justified, officers were scared for their lives even though Patrick Hermon was running in the opposite direction. On Wednesday after the district attorney made his decision saying the shooting was justified a video of Patrick Harmon was released. In the video, you can clearly hear officer Clinton Fox yelling “ I’ll blanking shot you” right before Clinton Fox fires three bullets in Patrick Harmons back. Black lives matter organizer

The first time I shot a firearm, my uncle had taken me on a trip past the outskirts of town and before being able to question the reasoning for this location. He was briefing me on proper safety etiquette; and shortly thereafter, I was taking my first shots toward an old washing machine. I reflect on that feeling of pure happiness, intertwined with astonishment while emptying that initial magazine and seeing the holes I had created. I’ll never forget the feeling of power the firearm had forced upon me while simultaneously demanding respect and awareness for the weapon. Showing

It’s 31 degrees, the wind is blowing, cold, wet snow is falling, and 75 yards away, a trophy sized, 950 lb. Grizzly Bear just wandered out of the woods. With my .375 Ruger Hawkeye in hand, I lined up the shot resting the front bead in the notch of the rear sight. Taking long, even breaths I slowing exhaled and simultaneously squeezed the trigger. A loud BANG rang out, and 75 yards away lay my latest trophy, which signaled the end to another spectacular hunt. This was possible due to the ability to propel a chunk of metal out of a barrel at supersonic speed and accurately hit a target many yards down range. Our technology and capabilities are what separate us from our hunting counterparts of the past. Thousands of

Boom! The little boy kills his first deer while hunting with his dad, they’re both ecstatic, the dad experiencing all the skills he has taught his son over the years finally pay off, and killing his first deer with the same gun he used thirty years ago. The first firearm was made 653 years ago in 1364, to fire the gun, you had to hold a burning wick to a touch hole to ignite the powder, causing an explosion which sends the projectile out of the barrel. Since then, guns have evolved tremendously, in Germany, 1885, the first semi automatic handgun was made, allowing the user to fire shot after shot without reloading, until the magazine is empty. This gun was made for police officers around the world, allowing them to have an advantage over

Bows, swords, spears, catapults, and eventually guns, were all invented because of a necessity. In the words of Plato “All things are created because of necessity who is the mother of invention.” As we move on and advance in technology and mechanics, our necessity for new and better things increases, and therefore our rate of invention increases. Most inventive ideas are small, and overall insignificant. But sometimes inventions will take bounds into the future, and will change the world. “It is easy to forget what a cultural sensation technology can produce, and perhaps no instance was greater than that of the Gatling gun.” (Keller) The Gatling gun was an invention that changed the way we think, the way we strategize, and the way we live.

The long range infantry weapon of the 1700’s was the musket. The musket is stronger than the bow and arrow. The kinetic energy and momentum of an 18mm musket ball shooting from a Brown Bess musket are 1460 joules and 9.36 kg*m/s. The kinetic energy and momentum of an arrow being shot from a bow are 16.5 joules and 1.15 kg*m/s. The musket ball clearly has a much stronger momentum and kinetic energy than the arrow, which means it has more stopping power. Firearms of the 1700’s also have much greater maximum range than bows and arrows. If a Brown Bess was fired at a forty five degree angle in a frictionless environment, the musket ball would travel 9783 meters. If a bow fired it’s arrow at forty-five degrees in a frictionless environment, it would travel only one hundred and nineteen meters. The musket has more than eighty-two times the maximum range of the bow and arrow. Some might say that bows and arrows are stronger than muskets, but that is not entirely true. Most people refer to muskets and rifles of the eighteen and nineteenth century only as smooth-bore barrel muskets. Muskets barrels later became rifled in the nineteenth century and are much more accurate than their smooth-bore relatives. Not only are muskets more lethal than bows and arrows, but cannons and artillery are more lethal than medieval catapults.

This paper will explore the history of guns, myths and realities of gun violence. Gun violence is a hot topic in America today and some may believe that America was built on gun violence. This country was colonized by the use of violence with guns. We’ve had wars since the invasion of this country. The violence has been around also with the well-known 1775 speech from Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death” (Jr.). Give me death is a very strong statement that to me means this is of a violent nature. Since then violence with guns would only escalate from taking land to taking lives whether it be homicides, suicides or threats of violence against one another. With the violent history of gun violence in America and so many different opinions, who or what is responsible for the destruction on self and society and what are the some of the ways to discourage these behaviors.

According to many scholars America has a “gun culture”, an ardent love affair of firearms. Michael L. Bellesiles is a historian at Emory University, in his book “Arming America”, he states: “America’s gun culture is an invented tradition” (Bellesiles). This “invented culture” has several sources. The historian Richard Hofstadter identifies the origin of the American gun in the history of the nation, and he asserts: “Early settlers who expanded the frontier westward needed firearms to shoot wild game and farmers used guns to shoot vermin and predatory animals” (Hofstadter). In such an environment, the firearm became a necessity of life. By the time of the American Revolution, in gaining independence from Britain, the citizens had to arm

Another toy today that could use rocks to kill something or someone was the slingshot, or also known as a catapult, shanghai, or katty. The idea of the slingshot is believed to have originally come from a weapon called a sling. The origin of the sling is unknown, but people believe that it was invented during the Upper Paleolithic era, it was used to fight in wars and for hunting. The sling was almost like a yo-yo, where you would have a heavy object, usually a rock, on one end of a cord; the person using the cord would hold the other end and whip around the weapon to hit someone with the rock.

Ever since the creation of the bow and arrow armies have implemented the use of ranged weapons as a staple of battles and wars. The ability to kill enemy soldiers without suffering losses to your own troops was battle changing and was used to great effect during battles in the Medieval ages.

In high school I was famonal at the sport of archery. I did not start out famoninal. I spent many hours after school in the barn shooting. Practicing with homemade target nailed to bales of hay.When I practiced I had to use the fundamentals. My stance had to be perfect. The way my body is positioned can affect how the arrow flies. If my arm is slightly off it can affect the arrow down range my inches. I also have to fine tune the sights basses on the distance of the target. Fine tuning the sights allows the ark of the arrow to be accurate. So the arrow reaches the desired target. Over time practice became easier, because I grew muscle memory. To meet the demands of the varying distances I had to exercise. Shooting alone could not build the

The “Knights of Prince Arthur’s Round Table” was a society of arches by Henry VIII, and archery was encouraged greatly during the reign of Elizabeth. Archers then would aim at the “clout”, which was a nail or pin of the target. Shakespeare references archery in Romeo and Juliet, and Mercutio relates how Romeo is “shot through the ear with a love song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow bow-boy’s butt shaft” (Shakespeare, 91). Mob football, an ancestor of American football, was a sport where 25 people per team had to navigate the football to the other side of the field and into the goal. This version of football was known as extremely violent and had very few rules.

In order to properly elucidate the degree of significance that firearms have on the cultural identity of the United States, it is necessary to briefly analyze the history of this country. The U.S. has only been in existence for less than 250 years; its other leading counterparts in Western Civilization, by contrast, have endured for over a millennium. Therefore, during the relatively brief history of this country, it is necessary to determine the role that guns have played in it. That history can be stratified in three principle parts: its inception during the Colonial War, its expansion to encompass the majority of the North American continent that was fully realized prior to the closure of the 19th century, and its current period in which it has expanded as a global power. All of these developments were exceedingly belligerent in nature and powered by the use of firearms. It is due to America's lengthy relationship with guns as the chief means in which the country was founded and expanded upon that ordinary citizens cherish the right to brandish firearms today, therefore accounting for its full ingrained culture of firearms.