xxxxxx 30
Double-barrel breech-loader xxxxxxxxxx 50
Choke-bore breech-loader xxxxxxxxxxxx 60
Repeating rifle xxxxxxxxxxxx 60
Repeating rifle, with silencer xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 70
"Pump" shot-gun (6 shots) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 90
Automatic or "autoloading" shot-guns, 5 shots xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 100

_The Output of 1911_.--At a recent hearing before a committee of the
House of Representatives at Washington, a representative of the
gun-making industry reported that in the year 1911 ten American
manufacturing concerns turned out the following:

391,875 shot-guns,
666,643 rifles, and
580,042 revolvers.

There are 66 factories producing firearms and ammunition, employing
$39,377,000 of invested capital and 15,000 employees.

The sole and dominant thought of many gunmakers is to make the very
deadliest guns that human skill can invent, sell them as fast as
possible, and declare dividends on their stock. The Remington,
Winchester, Marlin, Stevens and Union Companies are engaged in a mad
race to see who can turn out the deadliest guns, and the most of them.
On the market to-day there are five pump-guns, that fire six shots each,
in about _six seconds_, without removal from the shoulder, by the quick
sliding of a sleeve under the barrel, that ejects the empty shell and
inserts a loaded one. There are two automatics that fire five shots each
in _five seconds or less_, by five pulls on the trigger! _The
autoloading gun is reloaded and cocked again wholly by its own recoil_.
Now, if these are not machine guns, what are they?

In view of the great scarcity of feathered game, and the number of
deadly machine guns already on the market, the production of the last
and deadliest automatic gun (by the Winchester Arms Company), _already
in great demand_, is a crime against wild life, no less.

Every human action is a matter of taste and individual honor.

It is natural for the duck-butchers of Currituck to love the automatic
shot-guns as they do, because they kill the most ducks per flock. With
two of them in his boat, holding _ten shots_, one expert duck-killer
can,--and sometimes _actually does_, so it is said,--get every duck out
of a flock, up to seven or eight.

It is natural for an awkward and blundering wing-shot to love the
deadliest gun, in order that he may make as good a bag as an