Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765: Alamo: Texas gun owners stage rally at the symbol of Texas Independence

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Alamo: Texas gun owners stage rally at the symbol of Texas Independence

By Christopher Sherman / AP and Simon Moya-Smith, Staff Writer, NBC News

Gun rights advocates gather at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 19, to demonstrate in support of a Texas law that permits the open carry of long arms, such as rifles and shotguns.

Hundreds of gun-rights advocates, many toting rifles and shotguns, gathered early Saturday at the Alamo in San Antonio to rally in support of gun ownership and the right to bear arms.

The rally, called "Come and Take It San Antonio," comes in response to what organizers called San Antonio police's "disregard for Texas law and The Constitution." Organizers said the police department has harassed gun owners and created a hostile environment for legal gun ownership.
Gun-rights proponents flooded a plaza near the historic site -- considered a shrine of Texas liberty since a small band of Texans fought and died in a battle against Mexican forces there in 1836. Many of those gathered carried banners, flags and sundry firearms.

The rally launched with remarks from organizers: We aren't here to start a war today, one said, according to the San Antonio News-Express. We are here to show that an armed society is a polite society."

Open Carry Texas President C.J. Chivers told the crowd that he wanted to hold the event in San Antonio, because of a confrontation between police and gun rights advocates a couple months ago, according to the Associated Press.

"(The San Antonio Police Department) is no longer going to be messing with us," Chivers said from a podium, with the Alamo's famed Spanish mission behind him.

The day's keynote speaker, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, is a Republican candidate for the lieutenant governor and an avid gun-rights advocate.

Patterson told NBC News that the rally was about the right of Texans to openly carry their pistols.

According to Texas law, gun owners cannot openly carry handguns, but there is no such law prohibiting the carrying of long guns. San Antonio police have recently made arrests of people carrying long guns, citing a more restrictive city ordinance banning weapons in public places.

The premise is that someone who is openly carrying a handgun is not a criminal, he said, adding that criminals tend to be discrete when carrying a hand gun.

Patterson said he supports a person openly carrying a hand gun in most environments, excluding a bar.

He said a bar is one of the few prohibitive locations that might make some sense.

Victoria Montgomery, public relations manager with Open Carry Texas, told NBC News that Saturday's rally was about people who want to be free and about the right to openly carry arms of all sizes.

People are starting to wake up they have rights, she said. And they're standing up to protect those rights.

Montgomery said she is in favor of openly carrying a weapon in schools, restaurants and churches.

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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

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Alamo: Texas gun owners stage rally at the symbol of Texas Independence

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