Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765: Baseball Bats and the 2nd Amendment

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Baseball Bats and the 2nd Amendment

By Chris Cox

If you want to see what a disarmed society looks like, look no further than England.

Thousands of angry, drunk, violent thugs running wild and stealing anything they can carry. Shopkeepers and homeowners crippled with fear, unable to defend their loved ones or their property. Innocent citizens forced to watch helplessly while their life’s dreams everything they worked so hard to build and acquire are carried out the door, or smashed to pieces, or burned to the ground.

Men, women and children forced to strip naked in the streets, while packs of criminals laugh and ridicule them before making off with their clothing.

The fact is, when British politicians stripped their citizens of their God-given right to self-defense, they robbed them of their freedom and their dignity.

Sales of baseball bats are up over 5,000% on Amazon.co.uk. This isn’t to mark the beginning of little league season. These are desperate homeowners and shopkeepers purchasing the best and in reality, only self-defense tool that the British government will allow them to own…at least for now.

If past is prologue, this flood of baseball bats into London will spark cries from government leaders for mandatory bat registration and a wave of new laws on how, when, and under what circumstances British citizens may carry or swing a bat. After all, this is exactly how British citizens lost their gun rights.

First came mandatory gun licensing. Next came a wave of restrictions on firearms ownership. Then came the outright gun bans.

It has been illegal to own a handgun in Britain for nearly 15 years. As a result, Britain’s violent crime rate has soared. In fact, Britain consistently clocks-in with the highest violent crime rate in all of Europe. Last week’s riots notwithstanding, you are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York. These are the inconvenient statistics that the gun-ban crowd likes to sweep under the rug.

As if banning handguns didn’t send a strong enough message to criminals that British citizens are ripe for the picking, the British government went even further in 1999.

Recall the tragic story of Tony Martin, the British farmer who was awakened one night to the sound of breaking glass and found two burglars in his home. Martin had been robbed six times before. This time, he went downstairs, retrieved a shotgun, and fired at the intruders.

For this, Martin received life in prison for killing one of the burglars, ten years for wounding the other thug, and one additional year for possession of an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar served just 18 months of a three-year sentence and was given $5,000 in legal assistance from Britain’s Legal Services Commission so he could sue Martin for violating his civil rights.

The British government goes out of its way to embolden the criminal element in society, and now British politicians look at last week’s riots in utter amazement, confused as to how such a thing could happen. As Britain’s Home Secretary recently said in an interview, “The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”

All Americans should pay close attention to the riots in the Great Britain, because this is the criminal utopia that gun-ban extremists at the United Nations, and in our own White House, want to impose on us.

Next year, the U.N. will convene leaders from various countries around the world to finish writing an international Arms Trade Treaty that could severely restrict or even outright ban Americans’ right to sell, purchase, carry or own a firearm. Anti-gun extremists have been working on this treaty for well over a decade. Now they’re closer than ever to realizing their dream.

Ironically, the British government is one of the strongest proponents of this latest U.N. scheme to destroy our Second Amendment rights. Evidently, British politicians think America and the rest of the world should enjoy the same the criminal utopia that was on full display in London last week.

The U.N. and its anti-gun allies incessantly campaign for the United States to be more like the rest of the world especially disarmed Great Britain. As we watched the horror unfold in the UK, it has never been clearer: The rest of the world should be more like America when it comes to freedom.

Chris W. Cox is executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) and serves as the organization’s chief lobbyist. Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/

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It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.

Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765

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Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

Preservation and Proposition

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Baseball Bats and the 2nd Amendment

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