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“One of those women I had thrown under an elephant, the other shot with a matchlock.”

Would we still be living in the world of the horse and cart, the quill pen and the matchlock firearm?

At that time, the word “arms” meant muskets and matchlock rifles, not weapons that enable an emotionally unbalanced person to commit mass murder in seconds.

We are as much bygones as the old flint musket or the matchlock.

The musketeers carried matchlocks, useless in wet weather, and European-made double-barrelled guns, muskets, and pistols, generally of very inferior quality.