BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 1 month ago
David B. Kopel:
As the amicus brief explains, a key reason that a decade-long political dispute between Great Britain and American colonies turned into a war was the British government’s attempt to suppress arms commerce. Royal governors illegally seized merchants’ gunpowder and firearms. King George III embargoed the import of arms and ammunition into America. Americans vehemently objected, describing the prohibition of arms commerce as an effort to enslave the Americans, by leaving them no means of resistance to tyranny.
Americans did everything possible to defeat the British suppression of arms commerce. Benjamin Franklin masterminded arms and gunpowder imports from other countries. All forms of domestic production were strongly encouraged.
Then on April 18, 1775, King George renewed the embargo. On that same day, Royal governor Thomas Gage dispatched Redcoat soldiers to seize a large cache of gunpowder in Concord, Massachusetts. Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott rode to raise the alarm. Forewarned, Americans were forearmed. At Concord Bridge, they fired the shot heard round the world. Swarms of armed Americans harried the Redcoats all the way back to Boston, nearly wiped them out, and besieged the city. The War of Independence had begun. Rather than let a government effectuate a prohibition on arms commerce, Americans started a war against the most powerful military in the world.
The above story is told concisely in the amicus brief, and in more detail in my article, How the British Gun Control Program Precipitated the American Revolution, 38 Charleston Law Review 283 (2012).
Go get ’em David. Kick them in the ass. Always remind everyone who will listen that gun control started the war against King George and his band of controllers in the states.
The only reason it hasn’t precipitated yet another war of independence is the longsuffering nature of the American people. That will eventually wear thin and break. When it does there will be hell to pay.
