David A Simmons
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Videos incoming & Gun History Script
🕑 Added 2024-03-16 18:31:23 +0000 UTCSo, there are videos for more episodes of Band of Brothers, Solo Levleing, League of Gentlemen and Porridge incoming throughout the day. Those will be uploaded in between putting together my video on the history of gun ownership in the US. I'm going to try to upload that process here. Now, the video itself probably won't hit today like I had planned (had to take a day for myself yesterday) but as I'm gathering and recording everything else for it, I figured I'd post the script to it here.
This video is the first in a three part series to look at guns within the US. This one will focus on the history of gun ownership within the US. This is not a comprehensive history at all, nor is the series meant to sway those that watch it towards or against gun ownership. I currently own no guns. I have owned guns. I plan to again because on the view of ownership I see no problems with owning guns. The steps to getting there won't be covered in this video but I do believe that there are some base level things that should be required before guns can be purchased or owned that at the very least, in my opinion, would cut down on some of the high profile highly publicized shootings that happen here. This video is simply looking at the fact that many don't understand how with "all of the school shootings" or "all of the people killed by guns" here in the US, we as a people could be unwilling to give up a right for the benefit of others through the lens of the history of gun ownership here in the US. Now I could have gone the route of looking at both the Spanish colonialization of the US as well as the British and European route but for the purposes of this video with the liberal laws of ownership of European settlers vs the Conquistadors holding all of the fire power, we'll stick with the British side of things.
The US and it's citizens have a unique relationship with guns. While most countries have either banned or severely restricted their citizens access to guns, the US seemingly from the outside allows anyone and everyone to own a gun. While there are restrictions, in the eyes of the global community the US may as well still be the wild wild west where Americans are a trigger happy lot carrying their pieces when and wherever they please. In the eyes of the world we seemingly have have daily mass shootings (which the news media uses to instill fear and division into the populace as a means of distraction since the truth is in a nation with more guns than people there's been a scant 441 mass shootings between 1966 and 2022 with 1569 deaths and while mass shootings have happened with increased frequency, there being 12 between 66 and 75 while there's been 170 between 2013 and 2022, the picture painted isn't quite as dim or grim as the media or politicians like to paint it). Many people here and abroad are horrified with the school shootings that are televised on a yearly basis as examples of gun ownership out of control since much of the world had a stand out event of gun violence that prompted it's citizenry to say "No More" while the people here in the US cling more vigorously to their ability and oddly to many, their RIGHT, to own a gun.
There's a growing number of voices in the US that is joining those abroad that see the right to own a gun either as a relic of a bygone era of muskets and canons or is contained to military service. That we should simply either ban the ownership of guns or very strictly regulate who can buy guns here in the US by requiring a reason you want to own it discounting self defense as a reason, the way many other nations in the world have done. However, the cat being long out of the bag with an approximately 82 million legal gun owners and over 393 million guns in circulation in the US, the process of banning or even restricting would be far different here than in a country such as Australia that is pointed to by talking heads and politicians who pre-Port Arthur and pre 1996 National Firearms Agreement had 3.2 million firearms reportedly owned by it's populace. There are more firearm owners in the US than the amount of firearms the nation of Australia owned privately. The enterprise of restricting the ability to own guns here in the US would look far different than it has abroad regardless of the route taken. So why does America cling to it's guns and their right over life to own guns the way they do?
To answer that we'll first look at the right to own guns contained within the Constitution. The 2nd amendment states "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Many want to point at "A well regulated militia" as a HA, see, it says well regulated militia, so of course it's talking of gun ownership within the confines of military service. And while that would seem to be the case just by taking a portion of amendment into consideration, we have to firstly remember that the writing of this was done when there was disagreement on whether or not the federal government should have the sole responsibility of providing for the defense of the citizens in this country. The Anti-Federalists argued that the proposed constistution would take from the states their ability to defend against federal usurpation while the Federalists argued that the fears of oppression were overblown since the people were already armed and would almost be impossible to subdue via military means. In the writing of the Amendment it's agreed that the federal government should not have the power to infringe the rights of the people to keep and bear arms anymore than the power to abridge their freedoms of speech. Also lost within the military service crowd is the meaning of a militia and historial context of "well regulated." Militia being volunteers that could looked to outside of federal military service since militias were made up of independent groups of men who had been training and were simply absorbed into and released from any military governance when needed as opposed to a set time of serving within a standing army. Well regulated doesn't have anything to do with the government but goes to the fact that something that is well regulated is in working order. So the first bit, A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, read within the contextual language of history and intent would read more along the lines of "A group of volunteers with their armaments in working order, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Dipping into the historical aspect of The Right of The People to Keep and Bear Arms, goes back to the settlement of the US. In the earliest days the guns were used for supplementing meat availability and as a means of defense of the fragile colonies while trade and other alliances could be attempted. While a sort of alliance had been struck between the Powhatan confederacy and colonialsts in 1609, in 1622 the tribes along Chesapeake Bay on March 22 1622, killed 375 colonists in a single day leading many of the inhabitants to burn the settlements to the ground as they fled from the tribes. This changed the view of tribal and colonial relations amongst English policy makers and investors of the colony abroad. This led to a retaliatory war with a shipment of arms and obsolete armor being sent to the Chesapeake Bay colony from the Tower of London the following year. Many settlements following the massacre and resulting war with the Powhatan tribes passed decrees or put laws on the book requiring every able bodied man to own arms.
Taking a look at early America there were laws throughout the settlements and early colonies such as the one in Virginia that stated a person was to produce arms during the sabbath with their pieces, swords, powder and shot with the fine of not bringing something in working order being 3 shillings. New Jersey law ordered the provision of arms and militiamen if they didn't already own a gun and imposed a fine if the militiaman was deficient in the upkeep of their fire arms. Most townships and often colonies had similar laws as well as fines on the books for the able bodied men within their jurisdictions. Often times the towns and cities had their own supply in addition to what was provided by the individual at times of muster that would be passed out to those who didn't own a gun to help with the defense of the town or colony as needed. There were also regulations against who could firearms. Indutured slaves, African Slaves and in the case of Maryland, Catholics were prohibited from owning guns.
As the colonies became more settled often the store houses sold the guns, powder and ammunition with the funds going to the treasury to help with the maintenance and running of the town responsibilities. As they became more settled the laws for men to own guns also fell by the wayside in many cases. However there's a reason for that. During the war for against the French and the natives and then again against the British, arms were purchased from private citizens and those providing their own that were of the right make were compensated for providing the arms necessary for fighting.
In the years leading up to the colonies fight for independence, the citizens having explored the western edges of the frontier, fighting against the natives, fighting a war against the French with an alliance of tribes at their back, by the time they took up arms against the British, most households already owned guns. Looking at estate records in available at the time, in Rhode Island, Maryland and Virginia, guns were only eclipsed by beds and clothing in declarations of owned goods. For men, across 8 different sets of estate records, 73% of males owned guns. 38% of women listed guns in their estates. There are more listings for guns than there is for cash, Bibles, or swords. Coupledwith militia reports for muster, which included the amount of men who showed up armed, show a largely armed male populace.
One thing that must be noted, even with all of the personal guns owned prior to the war for Independence against the British crown, often times, the militia officers remarked on the amount of people who showed up with weapons unsuited for usage in war. Even Washington complained that the militiamen brought useless guns to his camp. In 1779 he lamented the arrival of unarmed militia men writing there were good guns sitting on the mantles of almost 40,000 Massachusetts Militiamen. Which necessitated outside of the sale of arms, powder and shot to private citizens for purposes of the treasury, a stock of public guns was maintained by many towns and even colonies or states themselves afterwards, properly suited for the defense of its citizens.
After the war with England, whether due to distrust in payment for using their own weapons or the ones they brought being deemed unsuitable, the numbers of armed members from various militia shows fewer members bringing weapons to muster than before the war and the men were more often provided with arms during training. Many states during this time stopped counting private arms and started counting instead the public militia provided arms so a full accounting of ownership before and after the War of 1812 is harder to ascertain. While that could mean that fewer people were armed, anecdotes from that time paint a different picture. When a detachment of 2 regiments of Essex County, New Jersey mustered into service in 1797, only 57% brought guns. Even though 97% of the men who had attended muster six weeks earlier had come with guns. When an insurrection against Whig authorities in Maryland happened in 1777, Whig leader William Lux reacted to the reports that the insurgents were well armed, complaining to the governor "the people who can not find one gun to go out in the militia can arm themselves completely on a mob." Officers often noted after the guidelines of the Militia Act of 1792, many of the guns owned by militia men were unsuitable for service. The commander of the Rhode Island's 4th Brigade of militia noted that of 650 guns in the hands of his men, 97 were out of repair, and 245 were of the wrong working order. This was such an issue that in the call for militia into state service in the lead up to the War for 1812, it was under orders that they come unarmed since guns would be provided from state arsenals.
Returning to the 2nd amendment we see the reason for the inclusion of a well regulated militia. However, with personal ownersip we also see the reasoning for the inclusion of the last half of the 2nd amendment. The Right of the People to keep and bear Arms, Shall not be infringed. Reading through the personal writings and letters around the time of and after the passage of the constitution, sheds a bit more light on the mindset of the constituional framers. In a letter to John Cartwright Thomas Jefferson stated "The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people, that they may exercise it by themselves, that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed". In the first Virgiinia Constitutional draft, he wrote "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms". Tench Coxe in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, in June 18, 1789 wrote, "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must occassionably be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." So there are historical contexts for 2 different points of view. While the right to keep and bear arms my have initially been in conjunction with the civic duty of militia service, the necessity of providing appropriate arms to the militia members itself would've at the minimum necessitated a government hold on the keeping and producing of firearms when necessary since the normal joe bloe didn't seem to have arms that were useful in the service of protecting the State or it's citizens. However the right of the people to keep and bear arms, not being infringed being added means that milita service wasn't the only intent of the framers of the constitution.
We do see a decided shift in way guns are viewed after the Civil War. Much of it due to novels that romanticized frontier life and the mythical Wild Wild West with high noon showdowns, and in parts of the country, due to the retaliatory efforts of a post Lincoln government to punish the South for the Civil War. Guns went from being seen as a necessary tool to a right of passage from some. For others it was a means to inflict fear and terror on unjust occupiers and carpet baggers. For one part of the people of the nation, the fantasy of owning the new six shooter or repeating rifle to bring to justice some scallywag outlaw as a result of literature they were reading led to many buying guns. For others, guns were bought and used to either defend themselves against portion of soldiers of the former confedercy, or they were former soldiers in the confederacy unhappy with losing their homes to northerners or former slaves buying former plantation property and earning a living while they themselves struggled under the new laws and economy of their home states.
At the turn of the century during the late 1800s into the early 1900s we see a surge in gun buying with advertisements of the necessity of personal defense against brigands on the backwoods roads, and we see surges and spikes of gun ownership and spikes in gun buying in the lead up to law passages or in light of national events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There have been massive spikes in gun purchases at the end of or beginning of presidential terms, or most recently a pandemic, when 40 million new guns were purchased in the US. We do see a shift post JFK in the fervency in the right to ownership of guns in the US that's coaleced into what we currently hear and see today during a change in leadership amongst the NRA and the Republican party at the onset of Reagan's presidency that has led to much of the fever pitched cries of personal freedom that we hear oft reapeted today. Whether that be as a reaction to not only voices within the US looking to contain violence that is associated with guns or those within the global community while trying to preserve vestiges of American heritages they feel are threatened by global and domestic threats to their personal liberties is a subject that can and has been debated across multiple videos.
From the very first settlers to present day, the history of gun ownership in the US with the exception of isolated post colonial laws and subsequent fears, one of the few constants the citizens here have had. Whether being compelled to do so, or after those requirements dropped, wanted to enjoy, they have always been able to do. While the reasons and outlooks on guns themselves have changed over time, for better or worse, outside of the freedom to speak as they please, the right to own firearms is one that has been and continues to be rigorously defended. While to outsiders it seems unconsioble that with the death they bring, peoples fight for the right to keep the ability to own guns, to most here in the US, even the ones that want better gun laws, it's a freedom that the majority of the people enjoy without incident. I won't get into the weeds on this video with statistics breaking down gun violence numbers that could take a video by themselves. This video is simply to look at, from historical context why gun ownership here, though a point of contention for many within our borders, and seemingly, more so outside of them, is so staunchly defended.
While there are recent ideological viewpoints and interpretations of the freedom of gun ownership in the US, the base truth of the matter is, the right of the people to keep and bear arms could have as easily been left out had the framers wanted to ensuring the rights to arms in this country be held by the federal government alone in defense of it's citizens. There have been guns owned by people since folks first decided to settle this once formerly wild unknown wilderness whether for glory, monetary gain, or escape from a system they felt was persecuting them. Until a consensus is reached to lead to the majority of citizens clamoring for different laws on gun ownership than there currently is, that won't change. Maybe it's because of the history of the right to own guns that stretches back 300 years that people are unwilling to give up their guns here. Or possibly the unique nature in which Americans enjoy the right of arms. Or maybe they've just fallen into a modern ideological stance that's seemingly always at a fever pitch. Whatever the reason you want to attribute it to, the fact remains that history of the US is one of private ownership of guns.
Whether that's something that's still to be commended I'll leave to you.
