Repeat Inventors (a wordplay to indicate repeat firing, not repeat inventions)

choi

Mark Yost, Repeat Inventors; Many early American armorers began as tinkerers, some focused on handguns, others on rifles—but they all shared the same goal. Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2022, at page A17
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gun ... ventors-11652911965
https://mokslas-studijos-ekonomi ... se-false-false.html
(book review on John Bainbridge Jr, Gun Barons; The weapons that transformed America and the men who invented them. St Martin's, 2022)

(a) "in the film, "Sudden Impact" * * * When one of the crooks asks, 'Who's we, sucker?' [Harry] Callahan responds, in classic Dirty Harry fashion: 'Smith, and Wesson, and me.' * * * Mr Bainbridge explains: 'Standard guns at the time required a shooter to pour gunpowder down the barrel, follow that with a lead ball, and then place a priming cap on a metal nipple near the other end of the barrel for each shot. When struck by a hammer, the primer would send burning fulminate into the powder, which would ignite and then propel the ball out the muzzle.' "

(i) Sudden Impact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Impact
(ii) English dictionary:
* sucker (n): "American informal   a thing or person not specified by name"
https://www.lexico.com/definition/sucker
"5c: —used as a generalized term of reference   <see if you can get that sucker working again>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sucker

(b) "John Bainbridge Jr chronicles the rise of America's greatest gunmakers -- among them Colt, Remington, Winchester and, yes, Smith and Wesson. * * * Then there was the Volition Repeater, invented in 1847 by Walter Hunt, the creator of the household safety pin. Hunt's rifle, in theory, could be loaded with up to a dozen cartridges underneath its long barrel. * * * [Bainbridge:] "Among those who benefited from Walter Hunt's genius were Oliver Winchester, Horace Smith, and Daniel Baird Wesson.
(i) Remington Arms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_Arms
(1816-2020; founder Eliphalet Remington II)
(A) The oldest gun maker in US, Remington moved its headquarters from Ilion, New York (1816-2014)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilion,_New_York
to Huntsville, Alabama (2014-2020). In 2020, all of its assets were sold off to satisfy (court) judgment against it for Sandy Hook, connecticut massacre, where a lone gunman used Remington guns.
(B) The English surname Remington is from name of a place called "Rimington in Yorkshire, so called from the old name of the stream on which it stands (Old English Riming boundary stream) + Old English tun enclosure, settlement)

Eliphalet Remington II ancestors hailed from Yorkshire.
(ii) Walter Hunt (inventor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hunt_(inventor)
(1796 – 1859' American)
This Wiki page mentions little about his gun invention.
(iii) Oliver Winchester
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Winchester
(1810 (Boston) – 1880)
flourished in Connecticut.
(iv) Horace Smith (inventor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Smith_(inventor)
("He and his business partner Daniel B Wesson formed two companies named 'Smith & Wesson,' the first of which was eventually reorganized into the Winchester Repeating Arms Company [1866-1931; based in New Haven, Conn] and the latter of which became the modern Smith & Wesson [1856- ; based in Springfield (on eastern bank of the Connecticut River), Mass]"/ Horace Smith was born in Cheshire, Mass)


(c) "Mr Bainbridge takes us to Texas Hill Country * * * In telling the story of the Spencer repeating rifle, Mr. Bainbridge takes us back to June 1863 and the Battle of Hoover's Gap in Tennessee."
(i) Texas Hill Country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Hill_Country
(Edwards Plateau; is notable for its karst topography)
(ii)
(A) Battle of Hoover's Gap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hoover%27s_Gap
(Confederates guarded Liberty, Hoover's, and Bellbuckle Gaps through the Highland Rim" which surround Nashville, Tenn")
There is no need to read the rest of this Wiki page, which is not well written. You can easily learn about this battle in (c)(ii)(B) below.

Both Liberty Gap and Bellbuckle Gap are located within Bell Buckle, Tennessee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Buckle,_Tennessee   
(a town in Bedford County)

Hoover's Gap is located in Christiana, Tennessee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiana,_Tennessee
(an unincorporated community in Rutherford County)

Currently there are Liberty Gap Road, Hoover Gap Road, and Bellbuckle Gap Road there. However, a gap is a point in map, whereas a road is a line passing through the namesake gap. So Google maps is not helpful.   

The following are topography maps for the three gaps (which are close to one another. Note the county boundaries in each topographical map):
• Liberty Gap Topo Map in Bedford County TN
https://www.topozone.com/tennessee/bedford-tn/gap/liberty-gap/
(below the map: "Approx. Elevation: 971 feet (296 meters)" )
• Hoovers Gap Topo Map in Rutherford County TN
https://www.topozone.com/tenness ... locale/hoovers-gap/
(below the map: "Approx. Elevation: 768 feet (234 meters)" )
, which you have to zoom out once to see county boundaries.
(B) Greg Tucker, Warfare changed forever in Hoovers Gap. Rutherford County, Tennessee Historical Society, undated
http://rutherfordtnhistory.org/w ... ver-in-hoovers-gap/

(d) "Would that that were true."
(i) The second that is the subject of the sentence.
(ii) would that
https://www.collinsdictionary.co ... /english/would-that