[Pharmboy]

I post this in case any gun-grabber that you folks may run into cites the ridiculous Bellesiles "book."

My favorite quote: Doubtless many other arms were concealed.

[tubebender]

Nice find...BUIMP

[Lazamataz]

He wasn't "wrong".

He lied.

There's a big difference.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

GOOD CATCH BUMPS

[patton]

Aren't the two VA laws convincing enough? One required all heads-of-households to own enough weapons to equip the family, the other required everybody to bring them to church, for practice. See the original Emerson decision for exact cites.

The author of this propaganda piece is a flat-out liar.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Bang

[Plutarch]

You don't have to look far to find evidence of widespread gun ownership in Colonial America.

From David Hackett Fischer's Paul Revere's Ride:

"Most towns expected individual militiamen to supply their own weapons, and acted to arm those who were unable to arm themselves. Newton's town meeting made special provision to arm its paupers at public expense.... Not many societies in the 18th Century would have dared to distribute weapons to their proletariat."

Paul Revere's Ride at Amazon (a great book!): (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195098315/qid=1026522082/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/102-4683113-6552106)

[TomGuy]

...on order of General Gage, the people of Boston turned in 2,674 small arms

So, we can infur from this that General Gage was one of the first pre-Brady, liberal, PC, gun-grabber. It looks like it started around April 1775 and continues today. Doubtless many other arms were concealed, as they would be today if the government tried to confiscate small arms.

[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".

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Bellesiles' sin was not that he was wrong or that he slanted or skewed his data, or held the worong opinions, but that he lied. He invented facts to suit his opinions. Any honest scholar must dismiss his book as a fabrication, regardless of opinion about Amendment II.

He took money to do research and wrote fiction. He should give the money back, resign any scholarly posts and begin working for the Brady organization or the Democratic National Committee where the facts don't get in the way of a good story.

[Ohioan]

You state Bellesiles Was Wrong About Guns in Colonial America.

While that is unquestionably true, your headline suggests that his research was erroneous. Frankly, while I do not like to impugn motives, where there is any doubt, I do not really believe that anyone could be that wrong by error. His work is not an attempt to find truth. It is an effort at propaganda. In that, I think he accomplished exactly what he set out to accomplish. He confused America's sense of her own history.

Any serious scholar would know that most people do not pass on personal tools through their probate estates. They simply give them away while they are still living, either by actual transfer, or by informing their immediate kin, who is to get what household effects. If he does not know that, he could have learned that by talking to anyone familiar with the subject. Thus the part of his argument, which cited such a study was nothing but an effort to confuse reality with the Left's agenda today. That makes him a propagandist, one who--like those at Pravda during the Cold War, or those who worked for Herr Goebbels during the last World War--wants to destroy American freedom.

Of course, Pravda and Goebbels owed no allegiance to the United States. Their efforts, then, are far less despicable than are his.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site