Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765: The Greatest Gun Ever

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Greatest Gun Ever

By: Ted Nugent - 7/3/2012

Through my rifle’s optics I watched the 14 steel plate topple over 1,000 yards away. A broad grin of satisfaction grew upon my face. It would stay there all day.

After touching off literally hundreds of thousands of rounds over my lifetime of dedicate aim small miss small marksmanship discipline, making my first 1000 yard shot on my new Discovery Channel TV program is unquestionably the pinnacle of my ballistically coefficient life.

I have achieved the ultimate gun nut American dream by being trained by the greatest snipers the world has ever known, being one of the lucky few to get so much trigger time with the heroes of the US Military and law enforcement. I have spent my life studying guns, admiring guns, shooting guns, fondling guns, cleaning guns, buying guns, wearing out guns, going to gun shows, writing about guns, promoting gun ownership, giving guns as gifts, and teaching others about guns. I’m the gun guy, a loud guitar Dirty Harry with a ponytail.
I’ve never apologized for guns and never will. There are no bad guns, only bad people who either use guns in the commission of a crime or others who try to ban guns and keep other free, law-abiding Americans from having the means to defend themselves. It’s real simple. Bad people do bad things. Guns cause crime like spoons cause obesity.

Precision marksmanship, or playing the guitar the way Chuck Berry would want me to, has never come easy to me. Gung-ho practice, perseverance and persistence is the only way I know.

Fortunately, as it pertains to guns, my dad and uncle introduced me to guns the way it needs to be done: smart, slow and safe.

While I now own more guns than the 82nd Airborne, my first gun is still the most important gun I’ve ever owned. Many of you probably owned one just like it as your first gun.

That gun was my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. It started it all for me. It taught me hand/eye coordination, discipline, and patience which is the essence of shooting and overall quality of life itself.

Every kid I knew owned a Red Ryder. Between my buddies and myself, we shot enough BBs to fill up a tandem garbage scow. We must have spent thousands of hours in the woods plinking and doing vermin control. It’s what kids growing up in the 1950s did. We didn’t go to the mall or play video games. We went to the woods and explored.

I’m often asked which is my favorite gun or caliber. That’s tough because I enjoy and use them all. All of my guns serve a utilitarian purpose. From procuring my family’s dinner to protecting myself and loved ones, guns are as natural to me as breathing and burning up guitar picks.

What I’m rarely asked is what I believe to be the most important gun. Without question, the Red Ryder BB gun is the most important gun in the history of American weaponry. I suspect more American shooters have begun their shooting lifestyle with a Red Ryder than any other gun. Tens of millions of Red Ryders have probably been sold, making it the most popular gun in American history.

All of the major gun manufacturers who produce amazing weaponry and the hundred plus million Americans who own them should pay homage to the little gun that doesn’t get its due but that started it all: the Daisy Red Ryder, the most important gun in America’s shooting history.

That thousand yard shot would not have been made without my Daisy Red Ryder showing me the way. Get your child a Daisy Red Ryder and continue America’s grand shooting heritage.

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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

Pages

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

Preservation and Proposition

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Greatest Gun Ever

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