“An especially dangerous kind of firearms have come to be used, which are called wheelock, with which a homicide can easily be committed. His Excellency, knowing that these are devilish arms, prohibits their being carried without explicit authorization, under penalty of having a hand publicly cut off.”
–City Ordinance, Ferrara, Italy, 1523
This is one of the first gun control laws ever penned. Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (yep, they still had those then) passed similar edicts a few years previously, and the first gun-grabbing legislation took hold in Austria and the Netherlands.
Of course, this was a rough time, what with that pesky Protestant Reformation and Sulemain taking Hungary (and almost, Austria). Apparently, the idea of a weapon that could be concealed (think of something roughly 25% larger than a Colt SAA) with the intent of causing malfeasance was of great concern to those in power back then.
And those were guns that could only be fired once every 30 seconds or so.
I got the ordinance above from a very good History Channel series called The Story of the Gun, but so far I’ve only been able to find one attribution on the internet, and that one’s not sourced. If anyone can find documentation quoting the earlier edicts or a source for the Ferrara Ordinance, I’d be quite grateful. I can’t promise much in return (aside from internet notoriety), but if you’re ever in the Marietta area, I’d be glad to treat you to lunch.
2 thoughts on “Gun control, Renaissance style.”
I found a citation for it on this page:
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?page=4&t=150010
and here’s the info the writer gives:
Jack Kelly, “Gunpowder” pages 76-77
Hope this helps.
“By making guns easily concealable, the wheellock sparked social concerns that continue today. The first recorded firearms accident took place in Germany in 1515 when a man shot a prostitute in the chin while playing with a wheelock pistol – he had to pay her a pension for life. The use of wheellocks by highwaymen disturbed civil authorities and led to many edicts banning manufacture or possession of the weapons. In 1523 an ordinance in Ferrara outlawed wheellock weapons, ‘an especially dangerous kind of firearms… with which a homicide can easily be committed.’ Societies were begining to sense a danger from the wider availability of gunpowder weapons, especially ones that an assassin could hide under a cloak. English authorities imposed an embargo on selling, firing, or making a pistol within two miles of Queen Elizabeth I.”
Some other really interesting stuff on that thread as well. Thanks for the link!