The Associated Press — the same outfit that serves as the unofficial style guide for every newsroom in America — just published a piece floating the idea that muskets should be subject to gun control regulations. Muskets. The weapons that were cutting-edge military technology when the Founding Fathers sat down and wrote "shall not be infringed."
You can't parody these people. They've gone so far left they've lapped the timeline and ended up back in 1776.
The AP's breathless caption on the piece read: "A musket from 1776 can fire a lead ball at a velocity of around 1,000 feet per second. Imagine what that can do to a human body. Yet under federal and most state laws, it's exempt from gun regulations." That's real. That is an actual sentence a professional journalist typed, presumably with a straight face, and an editor approved for publication.
Here's the thing the AP conveniently glossed over. Federal law — specifically 18 USC 921(16) — defines antique firearms and exempts them from regulation for a very good reason. As firearms historian Ashley Hlebinsky explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation, this wasn't some oversight. It was deliberate.
"When you look at the Congressional Record from 1968, Senator John Tower's rationale, which involved committee hearing testimonies from gun collectors and other historical organizations, spent a lot of care and effort into identifying that cut-off date," Hlebinsky said. "He clearly lays out not wanting to burden historians, collectors, gun owners, and museums."
Senator Tower and Congress set the cutoff at 1898. That means any firearm manufactured before 1898 is classified as an antique. This wasn't a loophole. It was a deliberate, bipartisan decision made after extensive testimony from historians, collectors, and museums. The ATF enforces this classification to this day.
But sure, the AP thinks we need to revisit that because a single-shot muzzle-loader that takes 30 seconds to reload is apparently a public safety crisis in 2026.
Let's do the math the AP refused to do. A musket fires one round. Then you spend half a minute pouring powder, ramming a ball, and priming the pan. Meanwhile, the AP is treating this like it's an AR-15 with a bump stock. These are the same people who lecture us about "misinformation."
The Gateway Pundit's Mike LaChance — who has been covering media and politics since 2012 — flagged the story as it went viral across conservative media. And viral it went. Because when the left's flagship wire service starts arguing that George Washington's personal sidearm needs a background check, the jokes write themselves.
What's next? A waiting period for bayonets? A red flag law for flintlock pistols? Maybe a universal background check before you can buy a replica at Colonial Williamsburg?
This is what happens when you let people who have never touched a firearm write the rules about firearms. They don't know the difference between a musket and a mortar, but they're very confident that both need to be regulated.
The Second Amendment was written by men holding muskets. The AP just made the best possible argument for why "shall not be infringed" means exactly what it says.
