The Pistol in Practice
| Date | 01 October 1931 |
| Author | Hugh B. C. Pollard |
| Published date | 01 October 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400405 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Pistol
in
Practice
BY
HUGH
B.
C.
POLLARD
HEN pistols are used by people who know how to use
w
them there are only two classes
:
the quick and the dead.
The police officer may in the course of his duties be called
on to use firearms, and it has also been suggested that the use
of
pistols is increasing among the criminal classes.
It
may be
true that recent years have shown an increasing tendency of
this nature in comparison with earlier years of this century,
but it should not be overlooked that the association of firearms
with crime has a history in Great Britain which goes back to
the days of Elizabeth’s disbanded troops who infested the roads
as
footpads with
‘
chacing staves,’ that
is
twelve-foot iron-shod
poles
‘
and almost all with pistols
’
(Lansdowne
MS.
No.
63).
The highwaymen industry endured well into the nineteenth
century, and led to the formation of horse patrols and the
genesis of the police forces. The collapse
of
this form of
criminal enterprise was however less due to police activity than
the supersession of the farmer’s bag
of
guineas by the more
convenient cheque book. The security of life and property
now enjoyed
is
a far more recent development than is generally
realized. Pistols for house defence were kept as commonplace
essentials in most country houses until a period between the
seventies and the eighties
of
the last century, and the armed
and desperate character was always a possibility. The heavy
hammer-headed hunting crop you see on the wall of old farm-
houses
is
not yet old enough to be
a
curiosity.
It
barely ante-
dates the days
of
our parents, but it is a reminder that peril
from footpads on the road and violent attacks on isolated
dwellings are not very remote.
There
is
also a good historical tradition
of
legal disarma-
ment
in
many countries. In Great Britain Scotland was dis-
522
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