Gun Factories

Do you think that Eli Whitney really got into musket manufactury and mass production in the North as revenge for the South stealing his revolutionary (but simple enough to copy) invention of the Cotton Gin?  Because he knew that the Gin's expansion of Slavery would lead to the North having to give the South and ass-whooping over it in the near future?

The implication in this seems to steal a bit of a march with that leap.  Sure it did sort of work out like that in hindsight, but I am doubting it was Whitney's conscious design.  I would be pleased to be pointed to supporting evidence.

But the article has a decent overview of the effort of the early US military-industrial complex of 200 years ago.  A co-op that is an important stepping stone on the US firearms industry of today.  And it delves into the fledgling civilian market with Colt and Remington, too.  A decent little primer, this.  Despite it being Politico.

They go a long way to sum it up in the concluding paragraph.

"Decades later, in the early 1900s, early “gun control” advocates would try to impose more regulation on the industry, and still do today. But gun production and sale, for decades, had developed as a commercial enterprise. As the political aftermath of Aurora, and Newtown, and Charleston has shown us, it has been a challenging bell to unring. "

See, it's the filthy lucre from the giganto gun industry, is implied.  Not noting how small that industry really is.