The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900

Before 1900, was there a legal history in America of prohibiting particular types of arms? Yes, but it is very short. The far more common policy for controversial arms, such as Bowie knives or handguns, was forbidding concealed carry, limiting sales to minors, or imposing extra punishment for use in a crime.

My coauthor Joseph Greenlee and I explain it all in our 165 page article, The History of Bans on Types of Arms Before 1900, recently submitted to law reviews. Here is the abstract:

This Article examines all American state, territorial, and colonial laws that prohibited possession or sale of any type of arm. Also covered are English laws before 1776, and the Dutch and Swedish colonies in America.

Among the arms studied are handguns, repeating guns, Bowie knives, daggers, slungshots, blackjacks, brass knuckles, and cannons.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen directs lower courts to review modern gun control laws in part by analogy to historic laws before 1900. This Article provides the resources to do so, and offers its own analysis.

Besides describing prohibitory laws, the Article details other types of regulation, such as forbidding concealed carry, forbidding all carry, restricting sales to minors, licensing dealers, or taxing possession. It is the first comprehensive study of historic American laws about knives, swords, and blunt weapons.

It is also the first comprehensive study of the types of arms for which colonies and states required ownership by militiamen, by some men not in the militia, and by some women.

The arms regulation laws and cases of the 19th century are examined in the context of the century’s tremendous advances in firearms. The century that began with the single-shot muzzle-loading musket ended with modern semiautomatic handguns and magazines.

Synthesizing Supreme Court doctrine with historic statutes and cases, the Article concludes that prohibitions on semiautomatic rifles and magazines lack foundation in American legal history. In contrast, other regulations, such as restricting the purchase of certain arms by minors, have a stronger historic basis.

And here is the introduction:

This Article describes the history of bans on particular types of arms in America, through 1899. It also describes arms bans in England until the time of American independence. Arms encompassed in this article include firearms, knives, swords, blunt weapons, and many others. While arms advanced considerably from medieval England through the nineteenth-century United States, bans on particular types of arms were rare.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen instructed lower courts to decide Second Amendment cases “consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history.” Bruen examined the legal history of restrictions on the right to bear arms through 1899. This Article focuses on one aspect of the legal history of the right to keep arms: prohibitions on particular types of arms.

Part I describes prohibitions on possession of firearms and other arms in England. The launcegay, a type of light lance for horsemen, was banned, as were small handguns, although the handgun ban was widely ignored. A class-based handgun licensing law was apparently little enforced. While most firearms were single-shot, repeating firearms existed for centuries in England, with no special restrictions.

Part II covers America from the colonial period through the Early Republic. No colonial law banned any particular arm. The Dutch colony New Netherland came the closest when it limited the number of flintlocks colonists could bring into the colony, in an effort to quash the trading of flintlocks to Indians. In the British colonies, there were many laws requiring most people, including many women, to possess particular types of arms. The Article is the first to provide a complete, item-by-item list of every mandated arm. Some private individuals owned repeating (multi-shot) firearms and cannons, but such arms were far too expensive for a government to mandate individual possession.

As summarized in Part III, the nineteenth century was the greatest century before or since for firearms technology and affordability. When the century began, an average person could afford a single-shot flintlock musket or rifle. By the end of the century, an average person could afford the same types of firearms that are available today, such as repeaters with semiautomatic action, slide action, lever action, or revolver action. Ammunition had improved even more.

The rest of the article describes nineteenth century laws forbidding particular types of arms. Part IV examines the four prohibitory laws on particular types of firearms: Georgia (most handguns), Tennessee and Arkansas (allowing only “Army & Navy” type handguns, i.e. large revolvers), and Florida (race-based licensing system for Winchesters and other repeating rifles).

Part V turns in depth to the most controversial arm of nineteenth-century America: the Bowie knife. Sales were banned in a few states, and possession was punitively taxed in a few others. The mainstream approach, adopted in most states, was to ban concealed carry, to forbid sales to minors, or to impose extra punishment for criminal misuse. As Part V explains, Bowie knife laws usually applied to other weapons too.

Part VI summarizes the nineteenth century laws about the various other arms. These are other sharp weapons (such as dirks, daggers, and sword canes), flexible impact arms (such as slungshots and blackjacks), rigid impact arms (such as brass knuckles), and cannons. Possession bans were rare, whereas laws on concealed carry, sales to minors, or extra punishment for misuse were more common.

Part VII applies modern Second Amendment doctrine to the legal history presented in the Article. It suggests that some arms prohibitions and regulations may be valid, but bans on modern semiautomatic rifles and magazines are not.

If this Article described only possession bans for adults, it would be very short. Besides outright bans on possession, the Article also describes laws that that forbade sales or manufacture. These are similar to possession bans, at least for future would-be owners. Even with sales or manufacture bans included, this Article would still be very short. For all arms except firearms, the Article describes nonprohibitory regulations. Thus, this Article includes a comprehensive list of all regulations—such as concealed carry bans, limits on sales to minors, or extra punishment for use in a crime—that applied to any of the nonfirearm arms discussed in the Article. This Article is the first to provide a full list of all colonial, state, and territorial restrictions on these arms.

We also list some local restrictions, such as by a county or municipality, but we have not attempted a comprehensive survey of the thousands of local governments.