Neither a gun enthusiast nor a right-wing ideologue, Richard Dyke used political connections and lobster giveaways to build Bushmaster, the company that popularized assault-style rifles.

When the public asks, “How did we get here?” after each mass shooting, the answer goes beyond National Rifle Association lobbyists and Second Amendment zealots. It lies in large measure with the strategies of firearms executives like [Richard E.] Dyke. Long before his competitors, the mercurial showman saw the profits in a product that tapped into Americans’ primal fears, and he pulled the mundane levers of American business and politics to get what he wanted.

Dyke brought the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which had been considered taboo to market to civilians, into general circulation, and helped keep it there. A folksy turnaround artist who spun all manner of companies into gold, he bought a failing gun maker for $241,000 and built it over more than a quarter-century into a $76 million business producing 9,000 guns a month. Bushmaster, which operated out of a facility just 30 miles from the Lewiston massacre, was the nation’s leading seller of AR-15s for nearly a decade. It also made Dyke rich. He owned at least four homes, a $315,000 Rolls Royce and a helicopter, in which he enjoyed landing on the lawn of his alma mater, Husson University.

  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    1 year ago

    Johnson’s Dictionary, which was the most prominent English language dictionary at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, defines “regulate” as follows:

    To RE’GULATE. v.a. [regula, Lat.]

    1. To adjust by rule or method.

    2. To direct.

    Which, in turn, derives from the Latin regulo by way of the past participle regulatus, which significantly predates English and also means to direct or rule. Don’t know where this nonsense about not meaning that at the time comes from, “regulated” has meant “subject to rule or direction” as long as it’s been a word in English.

    I would certainly love to see more well-regulated militias, the National Guard serves that purpose. I’m all for local facilities to stockpile arms and provide training for those well-regulated militias.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        1 year ago

        I did in fact read it last time, however your response indicates that you did not read mine, so please take this opportunity to reread my comment. There is a link there that you clearly did not read last time, so please take this opportunity to do so.

        Since it seems likely that you will not, I will simplify for your benefit:

        Johnson’s Dictionary was the main English dictionary when the founders wrote the Constitution.

        Dictionaries list the accepted definitions of words at the time those dictionaries were written.

        Johnson’s Dictionary defines regulate as I have (which makes obvious sense since I copied and pasted my definition from it).

        Therefore, the definition I provided was the accepted definition at the time the founders wrote the Constitution (also for thousands of years beforehand since it derives from a minimally altered Latin root).

        Q.E.D.

        My comment was not about the modern definition, but about how the word was defined in the mid 18th century (which you would know if you looked at the link I provided).

        I understand that there is a great deal of gun lobby propaganda which has tried to revise history and pretend that (certain) words had drastically different definitions in the past in order to maximize their market. I understand that propaganda can look very convincing, especially when a great deal of money comes into the equation and even politicians and judges are compromised.

        Please use your brain to evaluate claims, even when they’re disseminated by CNN.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      The same people who want to use the 1700s definition of ‘well regulated’ will scream if you use the 1700s definition of a firearm.

      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        1 year ago

        …um. You do realize that website is a digitization of a physical dictionary which was in fact around in the revolutionary days? If you clicked the link you would be taken to a page which includes a picture of the entry out of the physical book which was in print in revolutionary days.