Men, accustomed to firearms since childhood, used them any way they saw fit, almost any time they pleased

From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 33.

The arms they bore were “as various as their costumes,” mainly muskets and fowling pieces (in effect, shotguns), and the more ancient the gun, it seemed, the greater the owner’s pride in it. The most common and by far the most important was the flintlock musket, a single-shot, smooth-bore, muzzle-loading weapon that threw a lead ball weighing about an ounce and which could inflict terrible damage. The average musket measured 5 feet and weighed about 10 pounds. Though not especially accurate, it could be primed, loaded, fired, and rapidly reloaded and fired again. A good musket man could get off three to four rounds per minute, or a shot every fifteen seconds.

The trouble now was that so many of the men, accustomed to firearms since childhood, used them any way they saw fit, almost any time they pleased—to start fires, for example, or blast away at wild geese.