General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: NRA President: The AR-15, Which Can Fire 700 Rounds Per Minute, Is The ‘Musket Of Today’ [View all]Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)One of the things which characterized American rifles was the ability to make them far cheaper than the smiths attached to royalist/European ruling classes. Trade in firs and game was big well before the Revolution. And was generally not accomplished with smooth-bore muskets. And of course there was the gun-running in the various Indian conflicts. This source shows how wide-spread firearm ownership was in colonial times, and that in the main colonists had personal access and control over these arms (the period covered was well before the Revolution). Probably most of these were smooth bores as they were designed for self-defense and some close-in hunting.
http://www.saf.org/journal/16/colonialfirearmregulation.pdf
In this source, a review of American Rifle: A Biography, Rose contends that by the early l700s, Americans were increasingly armed with rifles, beginning a unique history of how this weapon made a significant contribution to the Revolutionary War, and supplanting the old Brown Bess, et al, shortly thereafter. Rose, btw, wrote the best-seller Washington's Spies. I have read American Rifle, and its scholarship is of a high order. It emphasizes the spread of rifle smithing throughout Pennsylvania well before the Revolution, and the distribution of rifles (sometimes illegally) to Indians, depending on alliances and the hunting trade.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Rifle-Biography-Alexander-Rose/dp/0553384384