March 5, 1919. Frightening and accurate predictions, Overreactions,

From the British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, on this day in 1919.  Scary, eh?

From the Cumberland Sentinel, a Tennessee newspaper:

The Sentinel reprinted an article from the New York Telegram about Alexander P. Watson, a Dickinson Law School graduate, being arrested for carrying a concealed gun he took as a souvenir from a German officer during World War I. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Watson was in Europe doing relief work for the YMCA when he was shot in the arm by the officer who was pretending to be wounded. Within 48 hours of returning stateside, Watson was taken into custody after he took the gun to a YMCA headquarters in New York City to put on display as a war souvenir.

We wrote earlier about the history of carrying concealed weapons in the United States, which is misunderstood, but the event relayed above is extraordinary and shows how early in the country's history New York state had taken a very restrictive view on something that was fairly unregulated elsewhere.  Indeed, at this point in history we'd note that the ownership of handguns in the United Kingdom was unregulated.

I'm not exactly sure what Watson's actual violation was, perhaps simply carrying the weapon concealed.  Hopefully he didn't suffer any long term consequences and was able to return to practicing law in Tennessee.  The souvenir handgun was likely a P08, although not necessarily so.

Artillery model, i.e., the long barreled model, of the P08.  Hope these guys didn't pack this around in New York City later.