{"id":116769,"date":"2026-05-14T13:36:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=116769"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:36:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T18:36:55","slug":"116769","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=116769","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"\"Muskets like those from 1776 are mostly exempt from today\u2019s gun laws<\/a><\/p>\n

HALIFAX, N.C. (AP) \u2014 With 165 grains of black powder in the barrel, a .75-caliber Brown Bess flintlock musket like the ones the redcoats carried in 1776 can hurl a lead ball at a velocity of around 1,000 feet (305 meters) per second.<\/p>\n

Imagine what that can do to a human body. Now, imagine that it\u2019s almost completely exempt from gun regulations.<\/p>\n

How can that be? Well, under federal and most state laws, many antique or replica guns aren\u2019t technically considered firearms. In most places, even convicted felons can own them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect the average judge would be surprised to find that out,\u201d says Second Amendment scholar and gun-rights attorney Dave Hardy, himself the proud owner of two Civil War-era long guns.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

During a National Rifle Association event back in 2000, the late actor Charlton Heston famously hoisted a flintlock \u2014 the single-shot weapon that won the Revolution and was still in wide use a half century after Congress debated the Second Amendment \u2014 into the air and said the Democrats would have to take it \u201cfrom my cold, dead hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

He needn\u2019t have worried.<\/p>\n

A blast from the past
\nDuring debate over the Gun Control Act of 1968, Sen. John Goodwin Tower argued that flintlocks and many other antique or replica guns should be exempt from regulation.<\/p>\n

The Texas Republican said it was needed \u201cto relieve an unnecessarily burdensome problem for serious collectors of antique firearms and for historians and museums.\u201d Treating all weapons the same, he argued, would unfairly target collector items \u201cwhich have little, if any, practical use as a firearm in the modern connotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The provision defines an antique as any weapon \u201cwith a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system\u201d manufactured \u201cin or before 1898\u201d \u2014 as long as it hasn\u2019t been modified to fire modern ammunition. This generally means muzzleloaders that use black powder or a black powder substitute, though some early cartridge guns are included.<\/p>\n

You can even own and fire a cannon.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t go off half cocked
\nMost states have adopted that language either verbatim or by direct reference to the federal provision. But, as military historian Patrick Luther says, \u201cit\u2019s a patchwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI live in NY (New York) and bought a civil war musket,\u201d Luther, a Marine veteran with the website milsurpia.com, said in an email. \u201cIt was very similar to buying a regular firearm. Buying the blackpowder for the rifle felt not much different than buying a T-shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least three states \u2014 Hawaii, Ohio and North Dakota \u2014 treat a smoothbore musket the same as an AK-47 or AR-15. Reenactor Jason Monhollen, an officer in the U.S. Army, says that\u2019s \u201ccomparing apples and oranges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems silly to put restriction on something that would be such a terrible weapon if you wanted to, you know, kill people,\u201d says Monhollen, who portrays a private and carries a French Charleville musket in the 2nd North Carolina Regiment. \u201cThere\u2019s just much better things. You can kill more people quickly with a car than you can with a musket.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these weapons are still deadly.<\/p>\n

Not just a toy
\nMaryland changed its law after a convicted sex offender killed his ex-girlfriend with a six-shot, .44-caliber cap and ball revolver purchased on the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may have loaded like an 1851 weapon, but it fired like a 2017 manufactured modern handgun that was capable of lethal force,\u201d Montgomery County State\u2019s Attorney John McCarthy told reporters at the time.<\/p>\n

Shad\u00e9\u2019s Law, passed in 2019, now prohibits people convicted of certain violent crimes from buying or possessing such weapons. But many states allow convicted felons to have these weapons; West Virginia makes an exception for people under an active protective order.<\/p>\n

Some states\u2019 laws are confusing or vague.<\/p>\n

Montana law mentions \u201cantique or replica arms\u201d in a code regulating firearms and ammunition manufactured in the state. But nowhere in the code are those weapons defined.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin uses the federal definition, but the only reference comes in a law regarding \u201clook-alike\u201d firearms.<\/p>\n

And, of course, many local ordinances, like the one in Wake County, North Carolina, prohibit the firing of any \u201cbarreled weapon capable of discharging projectiles.\u201d In many jurisdictions, it\u2019s illegal to brandish even a toy gun at someone.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal law does not exclude antique firearms from location-based restrictions,\u201d Austin Gunderson, counsel for the North Dakota Legislative Council, said in an email.<\/p>\n

Stray bullets
\nSometimes, attempts to strengthen gun laws have had unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

The attorney general of New Jersey, one of the 13 original states, recently had to offer guidance when a new law targeting ghost guns seemed to require all firearms \u2014 including antiques and even air guns \u2014 to have serial numbers.<\/p>\n

When New York toughened its gun laws in 2022, it required background checks for transfers and purchases of antique guns, and barred firearms of any kind from certain \u201csensitive places\u201d like parks and museum sites \u2014 just the kinds of places reenactors appear most.<\/p>\n

An exemption was later carved out for people \u201clawfully engaged in historical reenactments, educational programming involving historical weapons of warfare, or motion picture or theatrical productions.\u201d But that hasn\u2019t stopped out-of-state reenactors from worrying their muskets will be confiscated at the George Washington Bridge, says Justin Costantino, adjutant of the Long Island Companies of the 3rd New York Regiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the New York State Police department wants to charge me with weapons possession while I\u2019m wearing a cocked hat and carrying around a Charleville \u201966,\u201d says Costantino, a graduate student in history, \u201cthen please, don\u2019t call my lawyer. Call the New York Post!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, Costantino hates to hear a mother at a reenactment tell her child, \u201cOh, no. Don\u2019t worry, sweetie. It\u2019s not real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not really loaded, but it is really a weapon,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really gunpowder. And if you stand close to it, you\u2019ll feel the kind of breath of hot air \u2026 They\u2019re still things that we have to take very seriously, and you have to be safe with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Muskets like those from 1776 are mostly exempt from today\u2019s gun laws HALIFAX, N.C. (AP) \u2014 With 165 grains of black powder in the barrel, a .75-caliber Brown Bess flintlock musket like the ones the redcoats carried in 1776 can hurl a lead ball at a velocity of around 1,000 feet (305 meters) per second. … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stupid-o-the-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116771,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116769\/revisions\/116771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}