Today in history: Patriot colonists take up privately-owned firearms against British gun control

In addition to it being Good Friday for Christians throughout the world, today is also the anniversary of the day that jump-started the fight for American independence.

On April 19, 1775, the "shot heard 'round the world" was fired when patriot militiamen met with British forces at the battle of Lexington and Concord.

Indeed, April 19, marks the day that colonial patriots who were fed up with the tyrannical oppression of the English monarchy began the struggle to one day govern themselves by their own consent.

It also marks the day that patriotic men took a stand against gun control efforts by a tyrannical government that wanted to keep them under its thumb.

And they did so with privately-owned firearms.

The night before, patriot intelligence found out that British forces were planning to mobilize out of Boston. So, Paul Revere and William Dawes were dispatched to warn militia members that the redcoats were indeed coming. According to Dr. Joseph Warren's source in the redcoat command, the regulars were en route to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock (though that part of his intelligence was wrong).

That morning 700 British regulars met some 77 patriot militia. “Throw down your arms! Ye villains, ye rebels," a redcoat officer commanded.

Then the shot rang out. We still don't know who fired that famous shot heard round the world, but moments later eight Americans and one redcoat lay dead and the die had been cast.

In reality, as attorney David Kopel explains, they were out to confiscate and/or destroy patriot arms and gunpowder, as they were doing throughout the colonies. King George's redcoats were following reports that there was a sizable patriot gunpowder cache to be seized in Concord, but it had already been moved to safety.

"When the British began to withdraw back to Boston, things got much worse for them," Kopel continues:

"Armed Americans were swarming in from nearby towns. They would soon outnumber the British 2:1. Although some of the Americans cohered in militia units, a great many fought on their own, taking sniper positions wherever opportunity presented itself. Only British reinforcements dispatched from Boston saved the British expedition from annihilation--and the fact that the Americans started running out of ammunition and gun powder.

"One British officer reported: 'These fellows were generally good marksmen, and many of them used long guns made for Duck-Shooting.' On a per-shot basis, the Americans inflicted higher casualties than had the British regulars."

That is American history. That is our history.

Events like this one are the kind that inform the codification of the right to keep and bear arms into the Bill of Rights, (i.e., the Second Amendment).

Anti-gunners can try to whitewash this all they want, and they do. But the history here speaks for itself, as loud and clear as a musket shot.

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