Collected Quotes
This quotation is particularly interesting because it belies the image of America as a society where almost everyone was familiar with guns and firearms—that we had a gun culture. In reality most Americans from Colonial times on, could not afford guns and many that could afford them preferred other weapons for defense due to the lack of reliability of firearms. Guns were always a status symbol however. This quotation shows that most American soldiers did not know how to properly care for guns even in fundamental ways and could not be trusted to care for them much less repair them—a far cry from the image of the American rifleman alone in the first with his trusty weapon with which he was familiar and skilled.
The Mishnah was the first written codification of ancient Jewish laws and interpretations. The Books of Moses--the first 5 Books of the Old Testament was the fundamental law--God's law. The Mishnah was a combintion of administative and policy manuals and judicial precedents.
Unfortunately there has never been agreement as to which books and writings were of use to society and which were not.
