Happy Trails to the Winchester Level-Action Rifle
Bullets vs. Bull manure, part one
Happy trails to an American Classic
I’m going to take some fire for this one, I know. But I don’t care. I have to pay my respects to a true American icon that will draw its last breath on March 31, 2006
The Winchester lever-action rifle.
At the end of this month, the U.S. Repeating Arms Company (ironically owned by a Belgian conglomerate since the 1980s) will shut down and shutter up the New Haven, Connecticut manufacturing plant that has been the sole site of production for the Winchester lever-action repeater since its unveiling in 1866.
Over the course of the last 140 years, over 10 million of these guns have been produced in various calibers and configurations. Known far and wide (and quite rightly) as “the gun that won the west,” Winchester lever-actions were the arm of choice for civilian military scouts like Buffalo Bill, outlaws like Billy the Kid, lawmen like the Earp Brothers, sharpshooters like Annie Oakley, hunters, trappers, settlers, and Indians
But ironically, never soldiers – at least not officially.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the U.S. war department thought that Winchesters were TOO good for rank and file soldiers. They felt that the gun’s rapid-fire 15 shot capability would encourage troops to waste ammunition. Instead, they opted to keep issuing antiquated single-shot rifles, many of which were nothing more than converted civil-war muskets. This is one reason why they U.S. regulars got handed their hats under Custer’s command – the Cheyenne and Sioux braves had Winchester and Henry repeaters!
Nothing could stop the Winchester’s rise to prominence, however, once the great push westward began immediately following the War of Northern Aggression. The weapon was as indispensable to the welfare and health of the westbound family as any form of medicine – even more so. It was simultaneously provider and protector. And it was also America’s first health insurance policy.
That’s right, a gun was the greatest health tonic of them all in late 19th century America. Think about it: If you weren’t equipped to defend yourself against all manner of man or beast as you strived for success in the unsettled west, you’d never live long enough to die of any kind of sickness or injury
And now, this lifesaver, equalizer, and unmistakable symbol of the American ethos itself lay dying.
To it, I say lovingly: Happy Trails.
But if you think the idea of firearms as tools essential to a healthy life dies with this American icon, think again. I’ll explain why in the next Daily Dose
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Forcing docs to stick to the “shots” they know
Halleluiah! Some good news for a change on the “your right-to-guns” front
According to a recent article in The Virginian Pilot, a bill is now before the Senate in that great historic state (one of the most gun-friendly in the union, I might add) that would bar pediatricians from asking a child during routine checkups – or his or her parents, for that matter – about the presence of firearms in the home, on pain of loss of license!
Long-time readers of mine will recall my Daily Dose (5/14/2002) and newsletter articles sounding the alarm several years ago about the increasingly common practice of illiterate pediatricians and medical organizations being required to inquire about children’s proximity to firearms in the home under the auspices of protecting their health.
Their real agenda, however, is greater gun control – or outright confiscation of firearms.
What’s really ironic is this: If rank and file doctors knew anything at all about the true statistics showing the effects of legally-owned guns, they’d INSIST that most every home have one, and every parent carry one (more on this in next Daily Dose)!
But at least in Virginia, it may soon be a crime for kid’s docs to snoop around where they have no business (in the family gun cabinet) – or any knowledge. Hopes for the bill’s passage are high. According to the Pilot piece, it cruised through the state’s House by a vote of 88 to 11
I’ll keep you posted on whether it passes or not.
Mourning lever-guns – and preaching “forever guns!”
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
