Yet More Evidence That Bellesiles Was Wrong About Guns in Colonial America

Freeman's George Washington, Vol. III ^ | April 24, 1775 | John Rowe

[dsutah]

You've got some good points; it's true we have technology the colonials didn't have. However, if internet connections got broken, or somehow got taken out, upon attack, and not everyone has a video camera, that trusty gun sitting there may be all someone has left! It could come down to that, after all! Hopefully, it would never come to that.

But I can imagine many a colonial man or woman hoped that too. They did the most innovative things they could do short of armed resistance, but they tried to be trained and ready, if it should come down to that.

[Bedford Forrest]

If everyone had prime fillet like that waiting at home, going off to war would require a substantial justification. Holy Mackerel, Andy!!! The question is, why ever did she choose to waste her superfine DNA on a Slimey Limey????

[Crowcreek]

Lying -- not 'wrong' or 'mistaken'. He invented a totally false scenario using references which were fabricated -- to support his politics.

He should be ridiculed by the academic community, and ridden out of town on a rail.

[Robert A Cook PE]

May I ask (rather than point out, since I'm not at all sure) about the people's "movement" from country to city you reference?

See, two generations "before" the revolution - even that near Bpston - it was ONLY Boston, the Commons (where cattle were grazed even in the late 1770's! - and wilderness....there was little movement from county to city because there was very, very little settled "country" around Boston.

The region between Boston and Lexington/Concord was densely forested with only scattered farms and isolated villages. Guns would have been needed (-2, -1 generations before teh Tea Party even) for self-defense first against Indians, then against crooks and thieves for anybody traveling on those roads.

...---...

Don't forget that the first arguemnts (before Boston's attack on the colonial arms stored at Lexington!) were teh British confiscation of arms and powder at Williamsburg VA.

The writers of the 2nd Amendment LIVED for years with direct evidence of how the ruling government repeatedly tried to take their weapons.

[dsutah]

Good observation. I've read the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", and the story behind it. I'ts an interesting story. Paul Revere got captured, but was able to talk his way out of it, by suggesting that there were armed people, a lot of them, all around the village; that would fire on them. The Brits were uneasy then, because there was only a small number of them, and let him go.

I liked your comparison with the lanterns, the internet of that time. Also, there were notes, written in code, weren't there? (I would think so) They had the equivalent of screen names, the 'nom de plume' (sp?) There were couriers on horseback, etc... But I would imagine that they would have loved having the technology we have now.

We also forget that there was more advanced technology in Warsaw, Poland (Warsaw Ghetto uprising). That may have helped the Jewish citizens somewhat. They had telephones, and telegraph, they also had radios and motor vehicles. But when it came to defense of their community, and their own survival, those arms they were able to hide sure came in handy! It didn't keep the Nazis away long, but it bought them a little time.

[Bob]

The writers of the 2nd Amendment LIVED for years with direct evidence of how the ruling government repeatedly tried to take their weapons.

Unfortunately, it seems that some things just never change.

[Bedford Forrest]

You have failed to consider the size of this country. Were a tyrant to attempt to pacify even one small state, such as WVA, he would have his hands full. WVA and Kentucky, even more difficult. Let us consider the tyrant's prospects were his object the pacification of WVA, Kentucky and the sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia. Understand that none of the elite units [USMC/Special Forces/UDT folks] at the tyrant's [nominal] disposal is reliable. After all, those outfits are composed of Real Americans. Do you begin to understand that all of the F-15's and main battle tanks are irrelevant?? And I haven't even mentioned Texas, South Carolina and other such. BLOAT, baby and uh, buy yourself a good shortwave radio.

[calawah98]

In the middle 1960. an German Doctor that immigrated to the United States, bought a 5 acre tract of land next to me and my family. He had been thro the 2nd world war, and he told us, the average German population did not want war. He said NEVER NEVER let them take your guns away. That is what happened in Germany, and the rest is history.

[Travis McGee]

Although I am highly pro-gun, I believe that internet connections and hand-held video cameras are more efective in our preservation of freedoms and war against the government. Up to the time that a govt shuts down the internet (see China) in the name of "the war on terrorism" or ceases to give a damn about your video camera because the TV networks will not dare to run what you have shot on film.

The days of carrying out successful armed resistance with guerrilla tactics and small arms against a government as technologically sophisticated as ours is long over.

You are correct that bands of guerrillas roaming the forests under FLIR equipped UAVs and gunships are over, but so what? No government has EVER tried to subdue a nation with millions of scoped deer rifles capable of killing a man at 500 yards. There is no power on earth capable of putting a 500 yard security perimeter around thousands of govt executives, and they know it. The "million deer rifle army" cannot be subdued, not when the "army" slips out one at a time to shoot one tyrants lacky at a time.

Yet of course they are still necessary for home defense. Of course, but as we have seen in the UK and Australia, govt bosses don't give a crap about the personal safety of the peasants and will readily disarm them when they can. It is the fear of the 500 yard rifleman in the USA which will prevent them from ever effecting a dictatorship here.

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[Travis McGee]

bttt

[wardaddy]

I have read a little of history and experienced a little of history. It seems to me that weapons are the only answer to serious conflict between nations themselves or between nations and their inhabitants. Weapons (fired or not) decide how the negotiations will go.

At least that's how I'm living and instructing my progeny. I'll leave Ghandi to Hollywood.

This aspect of the 2nd amendment doesn't even take into account self defense which is a whole rational argument in it's own right.

We hold tyranny at bay here (usually) because we are armed and because we have a tradition of compromise and relative reason....(usually, with ONE giant exception). I like to believe the latter exists in large part due to the former.

[DuncanWaring]

And, of course, don't forget the British officer(Burgoyne? Baum?) who referred to the Americans after the Battle of Bennington as "a people numerous and armed".

[PatrioticAmerican]

I actually bought and read the idiot's book. The book was full of typical liberal ignorance and stupidity. He would use such as logic as saying the sun was bright and, therefore, everything bright came from the sun. Another favorite of the idiot is that if something isn't known or cannot be proven, then the popular belief, general to his circle of fellow idiots, must be proper and correct.

This is the type of logical reasoning that is tought in colleges, today. I can't remember all the people I have met who thought they were a genious, and, yet, had the same level of ignorance and stupidity this idiot displays in his book.

For his book, he did no research. He only stated his bias against firearms, using half-truths and incomplete data to force his case.

[Travis McGee]

I'm just constantly amazed by the liberals' failure to note any connection between civilian disarmament and civilians being loaded onto trucks and trains at government gun point.

I wonder if my million deer rifle army deterrant strategy will ever be tested by a foolish government.

[Travis McGee]

And for his precooked lies he won major prizes by an eager PC intellectual establishment.

[chuckles]

Gage=government
government=king and tyrany
Did anyone notice but me that it was the enemy of the people that was taking up the guns? It wasn't for crime control, it was for people control.
The first shots in the independance war of Texas was the cannon at Goliad firing upon the Mexicans that came to confiscate it. It has always been so, and will always remain so. Praise God, that our forefathers knew and realized the importance of this fact.
Kings will never allow weapons for the rabble.

[Pelham]

David Hackett Fischer's book on Paul Revere is the best book on his ride and the ensuing battle. There were many riders that night besides Revere, he's just the most famous- and deservedly so. Revere knew everyone of any importance to the Revolution, and always managed to turn up whenever something important was happening. Sort of like a real life Forrest Gump.

Regarding private gun ownership at the time of the Revolution, WJ Wood's Battles of the Revolutionary War 1775-1781 is a good reference, and Wood cites his primary sources. An example were the patriot forces who destroyed a British army at King's Mountain; they were "overmountain men" of the Daniel Boone sort, armed with their own Kentucky long rifles, tomahawks, long knives, etc. People on the frontier were always being attacked by Indian war parties, to claim they weren't armed is the special pleading of an idiot.

[Ajnin]

Understand that none of the elite units [USMC/Special Forces/UDT folks] at the tyrant's [nominal] disposal is reliable. After all, those outfits are composed of Real Americans.

There's also a sizeable JBT 5th column:)

[Pharmboy]

Here's what many Patriots showed up with for duty:

A French 1763 musket.