I'll be brief.

What I love more than anything about Lawson and those like him is his focus on getting the word out -- finding things, learning things, sharing things. Surely for his own sake, whether material gain or notoriety or just the sense of having contributed, but also, I feel certain, for its own sake. Lawson just wanted to move the conversation forward. He wanted people to know things because knowing was good, wanted to understand the Indians and the land and the wildlife because that was just good, and if you learned things and shared them you never knew what might come of it.

Thus in that spirit I'm enormously proud to share the artwork above, created by my friend Jim Hallenbeck, from his interpretation of an image I shared on the Lawson Trek Instagram feed about a month ago. 

Anyhow. Lawson took a walk in 1700-1701 and wrote a book to spread the news. I took a walk to do the same -- including the news about Lawson himself. I've spread the news hither and yon, and Jim saw this and now is spreading the news in his own way. I love being a link in a chain. Thanks for the great work, Jim.

Last post we talked very seriously about serious topics. Not today. Today, about the very serious topic of the unimaginable floods in South Carolina, I give you Lawson's response to similar floods 315 years ago.

One of the things Lawson appears to have been about was Doing the Science. He took classes at Gresham College in London, where the brand-spanking-new Royal Society met, and everything about his life indicates that he wanted to science. He traveled to Carolina; he undertook his enormous trip; he gathered botanical specimens for one of the greatest collectors of the day, and his specimens remain in the Natural History Museum as part of the founding collection of the British Museum.

Except.

He kind of missed some of the point of this whole science thing. The motto of the Royal Society is "Nullius in Verba," or, roughly, "don't take anybody's word for anything," demonstrating the society's commitment to experimentation and data rather than authority and pronouncement.

Which makes Lawson's interpretation of the "freshes" of the Santee and its resulting flooding somewhat charming. We all saw the rain come down in the last week -- we saw the radar and the photographs and so we understood. Lawson, in 1701, got to the mouth of the Santee River, found it with a significant current and in flood, and didn't know what caused the flooding. Evidently they didn't get 20 inches of rain, or surely he'd have mentioned that. Just the same, lack of evidence didn't stop him from surmising that the Santee flooded -- every year at this time, he was told -- because, well, because it snowed up in the mountains (the sources of the Santee do in fact stretch all the way to the Blue Ridge), so that meant that the snow built up without help of the salty sea to melt it, and then when a warm breeze came in it all melted at once and came rushing down the river.

In January.

It's not Lawson's greatest mansplain ever (he imagines at one point that flowing over marble is what makes Carolina water blue: "The Springs that feed these Rivulets, lick up some Potions of the Stones in the Brooks; which Dissolution gives this Tincture, as appears in all, or most of the Rivers and Brooks of this Country." Carolina Blue jokes to come). Just the same, it's a pretty good mansplain and he deserves credit. Good description of the flood, not so good on its causes. Here, anyhow, are Lawson's own words: "The next Morning very early, we ferry'd over a Creek that runs near the House; and, after an Hour's Travel in the Woods, we came to the River-side, where we stay'd for the Indian, who was our Guide, and was gone round by Water in a small Canoe, to meet us at that Place we rested at. He came after a small Time, and ferry'd us in that little Vessel over Santee River 4 Miles, and 84 Miles in the Woods, which the over-flowing of the Freshes, which then came down, had made a perfect Sea of, there running an incredible Current in the River, which had cast our small Craft, and us, away, had we not had this Sewee Indian with us; who are excellent Artists in managing these small Canoes.

"Santee River, at this Time, (from the usual Depth of Water) was risen perpendicular 36 Foot, always making a Breach from her Banks, about this Season of the Year: The general Opinion of the Cause thereof, is suppos'd to proceed from the overflowing of fresh Water-Lakes that lie near the Head of this River, and others, upon the same Continent: But my Opinion is, that these vast Inundations proceed from the great and repeated Quantities of Snow that falls upon the Mountains, which lie at so great a Distance from the Sea, therefore they have no Help of being dissolv'd by those saline, piercing Particles, as other adjacent Parts near the Ocean receive; and therefore lies and increases to a vast Bulk, until some mild Southerly Breezes coming on a sudden, continue to unlock these frozen Bodies, congeal'd by the North-West Wind, dissipating them in Liquids; and coming down with Impetuosity, fills those Branches that feed these Rivers, and causes this strange Deluge, which oft-times lays under Water the adjacent Parts on both Sides this Current, for several Miles distant from her Banks; tho' theFrench and Indians affir'm'd to me, they never knew such an extraordinary Flood there before."

I have an agenda; you should know this as you begin reading. My goal is to convince you that the guns of the 18th century were so different than the guns of today that while applying constitutional principles to them is essential, applying unadulterated 18th-century law to them is madness.

About Tuesday, Jan. 27, 1701, John Lawson makes the following entry in his "Journal of a Thousand Miles Travel'd": "At Night, we lay by a swift Current, where we saw plenty of Turkies, but pearch'd upon such lofty Oaks, that our Guns would not kill them, tho' we shot very often, and our Guns were very good."

I share this quote for many reasons. First, "we shot very often, and our guns were very good" sounds so much like Hemingway that I think Hemingway himself would be jealous. Second, though, is that once again we are talking about guns, and I think Mr. Lawson has some light to shed.

Lawson, walking through backcountry among wild animals and possibly enemies, would naturally have carried a weapon with him. To understand that weapon I turned to my trusted source, advisor, and friend Dale Loberger. Dale delivered a lecture about old roads that I wrote about, and he joined the Trek to teach how to use period surveying and outdoors tools. Most important, though, when I was just beginning my journey and

madness our population demonstrates about guns, I asked Dale to ​help me understand. These arms that our ancestors famously defended our right to bear: What were they? How did they work? Could the framers have been able to even imagine the level of instant mayhem we currently use them to inflict on one another, and if so could they have taken that into consideration?

What those guns were and how they worked was clear to Loberger, and he explained it to me. "I suspect that what Lawson most likely had was called a fowler," he told me. "A civilian shotgun of the day, single-barrel of course, but smooth bore." It would have shot buckshot or solid ball or both. Dale can load and shoot his fowler four times a minute in competition; a rifle, with smaller pan and breach, would take even longer to load, up to 45 seconds, but because of the rifling that imparted spin to the ball through the patch loaded around it, it offered a much more accurate shot, especially at a distance; the fowler wasn't accurate at a distance. So anyhow, if you think of an eighteenth-century gun, think 15 seconds between shots, with those seconds spent shaking a ball or shot out of a bag, measuring black powder and pouring it into the barrel; putting in a wad and ramming that down; putting in a ball (or a load of shot) and doing the same; then priming the pan, then shooting.

"The technology is not big," Dale said of the flintlocks of the period. "It's a rock hitting a piece of steel, causing black powder to ignite." The guns of the eighteenth century required considerable interaction. You couldn't just pick one up and shoot someone, let alone shoot a room full of people.As you know, sometimes the powder in the pan burned up but failed to ignite the powder and you got a flash in the pan; if while you were in the half-cocked position of your loading process your trigger tripped, you went off half-cocked; and in the late 18th century when mass production of firearms began, stores of barrels, locks (the trigger part), and wooden stocks filled warehouses, and then a craftsman could easily assemble a rifle, lock, stock, and barrel.

So anyhow that's your gun-related phraseology lesson, but more important, obviously, is that when it came time for the United States Constitution, and the framers enshrined the people's right to hold onto guns so they would be prepared to participate in that famous well-regulated militia, that's the kind of gun they'd have been thinking about. The type of gun that might have been able to allow you to harm one person if you barged into a learning environment all prepared and crazy, but would probably have enabled plenty of people to stop you before you got to your second shot.

That is, think less technology than tool -- like an ax, or a shovel; not like a computer or an airplane. It was a pretty simple thing, and you had to do a lot to make it work.

In fact, much earlier in his journal Lawson described one of his guides: "Our Indian having this Day kill'd good Store of Provision with his Gun, he always shot with a single Ball, missing but two Shoots in above forty; they being curious Artifts in managing a Gun, to make it carry either Ball, or Shot, true. When they have bought a Piece, and find it to shoot any Ways crooked, they take the Barrel out of the Stock, cutting a Notch in a Tree, wherein they set it streight, sometimes shooting away above 100 Loads of Ammunition, before they bring the Gun to shoot according to their Mind."

I bring that up, again, because I want you to think: this was the kind of tool a gun was. This thing with moving parts that would get rusty if you didn't clean them and that could shoot a few times a minute if you were very fast and well prepared and close to your target. A think you needed to wrestle into condition for it to work the way you wanted it to.

And again, my point: the thinking of eighteenth-century minds about eighteenth-century tools gives us a magnificent place to start. But slavishly applying only that thought to twenty-first-century weapons of mass destruction makes no sense. It makes no sense at all.

Dale himself -- "I'm very pro-gun myself," he says, and I know it to be true, in the most responsible way possible -- brings up the "well-regulated militia" point that's been receiving a good bit of attention in recent days -- here, and here, and here. "During the revolution, when men weremustered to the army, they were required to bring a gun with them. The assumption was, we're gonna need people who know how to use weapons. Men need to have them and they need to have familiarity with how to use them. That made perfect sense." Which it did -- until the military started providing its own weapons and storing them. Suddenly the well-regulated militia was supplying its own arms, so the people didn't ... well, as Dale says, "Some of what I've told you does go against my case and the case for why people want to have guns." 

Dale also goes into significant detail about how people living on the frontier -- "and you're worried more about bears or Indians, that would be a good reason to have a gun."  Most colonists were farmers, though, and "there's no significant need for a gun if you're a farmer." Going hunting was a waste of a day, and you'd spend that day much better tending your crops. You weren't worried about wildlife or hostile natives, so a gun would not have been important to you. This is Dale telling me this. He further noted that a gun would have been all but useless as a weapon of mass murder back then. If you wanted to commit such a crime then -- and people did -- you'd use "an edge weapon," like a knife, or maybe a club, like the person in the link. 

Now Dale does believe strongly in the importance of keeping weapons, above all for the Jeffersonian "blood of patriots and tyrants" capacity they give the people to stand up to a government leaning towards totalitarianism. It's very hard to argue against that fear, and it's very, very hard to worry about the views of people like Dale -- responsible, thoughtful people willing to discuss their points of view like civilized people even when those perspectives differ. Dale understood my purpose in this piece and cooperated because he believes in the importance of understanding. I would fight hard for the right of people like Dale to keep and bear arms, and I suspect, bowing to that need for a well-regulated militia, Dale would support most calls for training, background checking, and the kind of gun control laws and programs that have rendered other countries far safer than ours.  I'm not sure about that -- and I'll give him space to clarify if he likes -- but the point isn't really the second amendment.

​The point is the tool. When Dale and I camped together he made breakfast using only his knife as a tool, and he taught me to use many other tools, like those for surveying. Above all else I think of Dale as someone who understands tools and uses them appropriately.

Lawson, himself a surveyor as well as the user of a fowling piece, knew the difference between a tool and a weapon of mass destruction. I believe the framers would have too. For the last decade or so the Supreme Court has been unable to tell the difference. I think Lawson would roll his eyes.

Lawson understood that a gun could be very good when it could shoot game. I believe he'd have known that a gun could be very bad when it could squeeze off hundreds of rounds per minute and was unregulated to the point of absurdity.
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