Hey, Palin-What Did The Declaration Say About Gun Rights?

[jpak]

http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2011/06/10/title-439?blog=214

The GOP's leading Presidential pretender, Gunpowder Puff Sarah Palin, has been flitting about lately, parroting the gun-rights drivel she gets from right-wing media outlets and blog sites. Her latest pronouncement was how Paul Revere's ride from Boston into Middlesex County was really all about asserting the colonist's right to own guns by telling the British troops that his fellow rebel patriots had lots of guns. That, supposedly, was gonna scare the bejeezus out of the highly regimented and heavily armed redcoats according to Ms. Palin -you betcha!

Never mind the inconvenient fact that Revere told the Brits that the colonists were armed only after he had completed his part of the real mission carried out by some forty or so rebels -to warn their comrades that an armed British invasion was underway. Never mind that Revere told the Brits that his comrades were armed at gunpoint, only after he had been captured by the them. Never mind the fact that giving such information about your comrades to the enemy, if done before your mission has been completed, would be tantamount to betrayal -no different from a captured G.I. in Afghanistan today telling the Taliban all about American troop strength and weaponry.

No, those are all just historical facts, and to Palin "facts are stupid things" just like the Gipper said. What's really important to Palin and her Teabagger cohorts is ideology, and that ideology demands that history be revised to make Revere's ride all about gun rights under the Second Amendment, as if the American Revolution stood for nothing else.

Well, despite Ms. Palin's narrow-minded ideological slant, let's take a look at what the American Revolution was really all about, as clearly stated at length in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration, remember, is not the founding document of our democratic government -the Constitution is. But the Declaration gives us a crystal clear insight into the ideals, ideas and purposes of the founders which they then incorporated into the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

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[Logical]

1. I doubt you will get much argument from anyone here that Palin is an idiot. n-t

[gejohnston]

2. To me her speech sounded more like a stream of consciousness ramblings of a dim wit

than any NRA propaganda I have ever read. Where other than Palin has anyone said that he rode through town shooting in the air and ringing bells?
The post says more about Palin's intellect (or the quality of her home schooling) than RKBA.

[Scuba]

3. Yeah, but what about all the GI's who died at Normandy to protect us from Medicare?

[gejohnston]

5. Are you saying that the Brits and Canadians that died on the other three beaches

died for a loss cause? History lesson:

Omaha and Utah beaches were US
Sword and Gold beaches were UK
Juno beach was Canada

[Scuba]

6. The guys at Sword, Gold and Juno beaches died for love of the Queen...

...only the US GI's were farsighted enough to anticipate the threat of national healthcare.

[gejohnston]

14. I learned in school that all three died fighting facism, besides that

Many of those in Canadian uniforms were Americans who were not accepted by the US for various minor medical reasons that were a non issues to Canadian Forces. I respect them the same.

[Bold Lib]

4. Palin aside. The author does not know his history. It is well documented

why Gage ordered the march on Lexington and Concord:


On the evening of April 18, 1775, General Thomas Gage sent approximately 700 British soldiers out to Concord (about 18 miles distant) to seize and destroy military stores and equipment known to be stockpiled in the town. His orders to Lt. Col. Smith, the British officer who was to lead the expedition, were as follows:

Sir:
Having received intelligence, that a quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will march with the Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your command, with the utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provision, Tents, Small Arms, and all military stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants, or hurt private property.

http://www.nps.gov/mima/forteachers/all-about-the-north-bridge.htm

"The shot heard around the world" really was over gun control.

yup

[Scuba]

7. Hardly. It was total insurrection....

...fortunately the brave Colonial Patriots were able to anticipate England would force national healthcare upon them and break free from this tyranny.

Just ask Rick "Frothy" Santorum.

[gejohnston]

9. Wasn't he the guy who shot a watermellon in his back yard trying

to prove Vince Foster was murdered or am I thinking of some other GOP dim wit?
I still wonder if these guys are really that stupid or just good at theater.

[Upton]

10. Nah...that was Dan Burton..

[Hoopla Phil]

11. I noted the "NPS.gov" web address. Are you disputing the National Parks Service

in quoting the orders given by Gage?

[spin]

8. Exactly right. Lexington and Concord was about gun control...

You beat me to it.

How Lexington and Concord Was About Gun Control

he United States has a very interesting approach to our history with gun control. On the one hand, Massachusetts residents proudly assemble in April to reenact the battles that occurred at the historic sites of Lexington and Concord. Patriot's Day is even set aside as a legal holiday in honor of the battles. State leaders do not ever wish the world to forget who fired the shot heard round the world. Yet, the same state shudders at tying their own history to the debate on gun ownership, the Second Amendment, and the current battles to protect these rights with their celebration of these historic events.

However, there is no denying the purpose of those battles. The seven hundred British soldiers dispatched to Lexington and Concord were not there to collect tax revenues. British leaders ordered the elite British infantry to Concord to confiscate and destroy weapons and ammunition the colonists had been storing. British leaders hoped to quell further rebellion by setting an example. They would seize weapons and round up local leaders for trial in England.

British leaders recognized that gun control was a powerful weapon for population control. Occupation troops sent to quell rebellion and restore order already intimated citizens in Boston. Many feared there was little colonists could do against one of the most powerful armies on the planet. However, the British government saw things differently. As long as residents remained armed, there was a potential threat of citizens uprising against the King's troops. Seizing guns and powder left locals unable to defend themselves and far more likely to relinquish even more of their rights as British citizens.

***snip***

When modern Massachusetts residents participate in celebrating the battles of Lexington and Concord, it is important to remember that the British did not come to stop the residents from having a local militia. They brought no orders ordering the Minutemen to disband. They came for the guns and powder. Without weapons, the Minutemen were not much of a threat to the British government. That is why the second amendment is not about supporting a modern National Guard loyal to the government. The Second Amendment harkens back to citizens who chose to stand and defend their rights as citizens.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4375550

[Surf Fishing Guru]

12. "The shot heard around the world" really was over gun control. TRUE!

And less than a week later Gage demanded anyone wishing to leave Boston must surrender any arms they had (with a promise that they would be returned later LOL).

On one day (April 27, 1775) the citizens of Boston surrendered 1778 long guns and 634 pistols:

"In the journal of the Committee of Safety at Cambridge April 28 is the following entry: "Mr Henderson Inches who left Boston this day attended and informed the committee that the inhabitants of had agreed with the General to have liberty to leave Boston with effects provided that they lodged their arms with the selectmen of town to be by them kept during the present dispute and that to said agreement the inhabitants had on yesterday lodged 1778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets and 38 blunderbusses with selectmen.

But when the owners of the arms after the evacuation sought them they found to be hopelessly damaged and worthless."

http://books.google.com/books?id=0nwsAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA116&dq=siege+of+boston+1778+fire-arms&hl=en&ei=7Y_1TafGDsbDgQe2tLHhCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Reasonable Gun Control" has been around for a while . . .

It was a lie then . . .

And it remains a lie . . .

yup

[friendly_iconoclast]

13. The author *does* know his history- he just elides the inconvenient parts

For example, he spends many words deriding Antonin Scalia's reasoning in Heller about why the Second Amendment is an

individual right unrelated to service in a militia.


What he doesn't point out is that all the justices agreed that the Second Amendment describes an individual right

to keep and bear arms- the dissenters disagreed on what was permissable regulation of said right.


If you have to omit facts in order to make your case, it wasn't that much of a case to begin with.

[DWC]

15. What the Committee of 5 had to say

From the OP link http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2011/06/10/...

"The Declaration was drafted by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston,"

What this Committee of 5 members said about the right to keep and bear arms.

Thomas Jefferson:
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms in his own lands."

John Adams:
To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, counties or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the United States, 1787-1788

Benjamin Franklin:
Never trust a government that doesn't trust its own citizens with guns.

Roger Sherman:
described having guns as “the privilege of every citizen, one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack on his liberty and property, by whomsoever made.”

Robert Livingston:
No quote found

Semper Fi,

[rl6214]

16. Are you a supporter of hers? Why would you care what she thinks?

I certainly don't. I hope she runs as she will certainly lose.