Correction: His Majesty’s representatives in the colony attempted to collect the King’s munitions at Lexington. They found almost nothing and paid a very high price for their efforts.
In reality, the legal claim to the cache has to be classified as disputed. The Mass colony had formed their own congress, which had ordered the recruitment, organization, and provisioning of militias loyal to Mass and not to the Crown.
Interesting side note: General Gage, the commander of British forces in Boston, was also the Governor of Massachusetts. He was philosophically supportive of the independence movement and a big fan of British Liberalism. BUT…he felt compelled to duty to Britain. He sincerely tried to play the role of peacekeeper – unsuccessfully. Pretty soon, the Crown replaced him with a newly dispatched General from England; a quintessentially English sort of move.
Yes, but they were British supplied arms at Concord, correct? Point being that King George wasn’t trying to take away personal firearms. It took Beto to make that threat.
I like your note on General Gage. I always felt a little sympathetic to him, I think he was in a no-win situation. There were many notable military officers who refused to sail to North America and fight colonials. Even General Howe was sympathetic. Some historians have criticized him for his unwillingness to crush the Continental Army when he had the chance, but based on some of the things I wrote, I question whether Howe ever really wanted to crush the rebels.
It would be difficult to say with authority what the point of origin for rifles, cannons, powder, and ball were beyond the high likelihood that they were either of British or French origin. Current ownership would have been even more subject to interpretation. Private ownership of the weapons of warfare was the norm in the 18th Century, but so was the concept of a military obligation for the landed gentry (nobles). The entire concept of ownership was rather fluid, and commissioned officers were held responsible for their stewardship and fairness in service to the Crown. This was especially true for militia officers, who served the Crown’s Governors of the various colonies. And those arsenals typically were stored in these men’s personal barns on their family farms (and such). I’m sure King George thought that everything belonged to him to do with as he pleased. But that sort of gets to the heart of the dispute. Doesn’t it?
Just how in Sam Hill do you think the Dred Scott decision nullifies what I said? SCOTUS has the final say on every Constitutional question. The also have the final say on any other case that reaches them, whether it has anything to do with firearms or not. They have the final say on any law.
Dred Scott was in a different time. The US was in the process of splitting in two. The northern states were free to ignore the decision because of the chance of the Executive attempting to force them could have started a war. There was no Department of Justice to enforce SCOTUS opinions.
I would be grateful if you could provide me with an example of a state or local government ignoring a SCOTUS decision since 1880 and not being held to account for it. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Several southern states attempted to ignore the decision, to their regret. In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to stop the integration of Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army—without its black soldiers, who rejoined the division a month later—to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000-member Arkansas National Guard, taking it out of Faubus’s control.
Then, in 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace attempted to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama. In this case, President Kennedy nationalized the Alabama National Guard and integrated the university.
It is the Executive’s job to ensure that SCOTUS decisions are enforced.
“We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box”
~ Representative Larry McDonald (GA-D), the 2nd President of the John Birch Society. But he was nowhere near the first historical figure to say this. (Frederick Douglass, Stephen Decatur Miller, William F. Butler, Prof. Brian C. Kalt, Prof. Akhil Amar, et al)
Wikipedia is not authoritative. That isn’t the same thing as credible. Overall, Wikipedia is a pretty good place to start, but many of the citations are crap/deceptive. It certainly is NOT scholarly and it is compiled and edited mostly by volunteers with no vetting or credentials required. Given that their content is developed and curated this way, Wikipedia is impressively accurate. But that does not mean there is not considerable bias and a fair amount of deception. Then again, academics and journalists are probably even worse nowadays. Propaganda killed journalism and academia.
P.S. By marriage I met a nephew of mine from the UK. He has been a ward of the state his entire life. He has severe developmental disabilities. He’s in his 30’s. He is a volunteer senior content editor in about 6 topic categories for Wikipedia. He told me that “a whole bunch” of the Wikipedia page moderators are “people just like him.” But I don’t believe that just because he said it was true, either. I did see him spend a few days working on Wikipedia content editing and “fact checking” while he was visiting his father several years ago. His dad is my BinL, married to my craziest sister.
This is the type of thing people with exactly zero knowledge of any sort of military tactics say. Do people who say this think AR15 owners are just going to stand in front of an armored vehicle and waste their ammo like Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan?
It’s like the people who say “why buy a firearm, you can’t shoot COVID!”
Are you assuming all of the people with Strykers are on the other side? Aren’t they forcing a Stand down of all US military to assess their loyalty? What does that say about the Secretary of defense and his assumptions? Or are we to believe like a California congressman that they will simply nuke the rebels?
I’m not sure you know what a Stryker is. Here is a reference Stryker - Wikipedia.
My point being that there is no private individual or unorganized militia armed with AR 15s that can win against Federal or State military forces. Same goes for county and local SWAT teams.
If you think any unorganized militia armed with AR 15s can take on the US military (including the National Guard) and win, I have to wonder what you’ve been smoking.
I think your reference to “… a California congressman that they will simply nuke the rebels.” Is unadulterated BS. Provide a reliable reference or stop spreading this hog slop. If you can provide such a reference (no Fox, OAN, InfoWars, YouTube, etc.) I will humbly apologize and add that fact to my database.
