Write Thoughts on Historical Rebellions
By Ralph L Myers
Recently, President Biden said, during a
press conference announcing his new gun crime prevention efforts, “The Second
Amendment has always had limitations, and those who think they need weapons to
overthrow a tyrannical government would need F-15 fighter jets and nuclear
weapons.” But what he really means is, just in case, and to be on the safe
side, we better disarm those who would attempt to overthrow a tyrannical
government.
I don’t argue with Mr. Biden’s logic
that American gun owners would not stand a chance against the U. S military’s
might and power. But I disagree with him if he thinks, even for one moment, the
oppressed citizens of America would not fight back in the face of overwhelming
odds against them. Let’s look back on some historical precedents, starting with
our American Revolution.
On the night of April 18, 1775,
hundreds of British troops set off from Boston toward Concord, Massachusetts,
to seize weapons and ammunition stockpiled there by American
colonists. Early the next morning, the British reached Lexington, where
approximately 70 minutemen had gathered on the village green. Someone suddenly
fired a shot—uncertain which side—and a melee ensued. When the brief clash
ended, Americans had killed eight people and injured at least an equal number,
while one redcoat had sustained a wound. The British continued on to nearby
Concord, where that same day they encountered armed resistance from a group of
patriots at the town’s North Bridge. The colonists and redcoats exchanged
gunfire, resulting in the death of two colonists and three redcoats. Afterward,
the British retreated to Boston, skirmishing with colonial militiamen along the
way and suffering several casualties; the Revolutionary War had begun. Ralph
Waldo Emerson later memorialized the incident at the North Bridge in his 1837
poem “Concord Hymn,” which opens with the stanza: “By the rude bridge that
arched the flood/They unfurled their flag to April’s breeze/Here, the embattled
farmers once stood/And fired the shot heard round the world.”
Nathan
Hale, a heroic American patriot, uttered these powerful words during the
American Revolutionary War. “Give me liberty or give me death.” His unwavering
commitment to freedom and independence resonates throughout history. Historians
believe that an American Colonist, soldier, and patriot named Patrick Henry
uttered these powerful words during the American Revolutionary War. After being led to the gallows, legend holds that the
21-year-old Hale said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my
country.”
“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The wrong part 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 public liberty. ... What country
before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country
can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time
that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The
remedy is to set them right as facts and pardon and pacify them. What signifies 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.”
Letters
of Thomas Jefferson
“I am an American, free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.”–Theodore Roosevelt.
Fighting
against an overwhelming military, the Colonists faced a massive British Navy
and Army. Just like President Biden has threatened. Throughout all phases of
the American Revolution, they employed guerrilla warfare. First used at
the Battles of Lexington
and Concord, this style of unconventional fighting proved invaluable to the
Continental Army. Revolutionary war tactics varied depending on the
phase of the war and location. For instance, during the winter of 1777,
Washington encouraged the military to raid British supply lines
and ambush larger detachments of British soldiers to catch them by
surprise in the Forage War. It ultimately resulted in about 900 casualties for
the British. Similarly, George Washington used a spy network called the ‘Culper
Ring’ to gain intelligence on British troops and troop movements, as well
as spread disinformation to deceive the British into
thinking that the Continental Army was much larger than it actually was. In the
West, frontiersmen, such as Daniel Morgan, also took part in fighting and harried
British forces for portions of the war.
However,
the greatest use of guerrilla warfare during the American Revolution occurred
during the Southern Campaign. During the later years of the war, the American
general, Nathanael Greene, and Baron Friedrich von Steuben actively employed
guerrilla warfare. In the forests of the South, Greene could draw British
forces away from their supplies and then engage them with small fighting units
to inflict damage. By dividing his forces, Greene could spread his
soldiers across a wider area. As a result, British General Charles Cornwallis and
the Southern detachment of the British Army often found extreme difficulty
finding the Americans and successfully contending with them in skirmishes.
Our
third president, James Madison, stated, “Oppressors can tyrannize only when they
achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.” To me,
this is what President Biden has in mind with his F-15, nuclear weapons comment.
I believe David, with far less inferior weapons to what Goliath had, prevailed
in his battle with the help of God. The odds of patriots succeeding in a battle
against the government are impossible. The administration should not
take them for granted.
President
Madison also observed, “The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power
had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents.
They saw all the consequences of the principle, and they avoided the
consequences by denying the principle.
The anti-gun, anti-second amendment proponents often resort to an
argument that the firearms available during the founding of America and the
establishment of the 2nd Amendment, the technology of firearms in
America’s founding is entirely different from that of today. James Madison made
this observation clear about this when he said, “The Second Amendment isn’t
about technology, and it isn’t even about guns. “It’s about a principle, the
right and ability to overthrow a tyrannical government. That principle
is as legitimate today as it was in 1791.”
The right and advice to overthrow a tyrannical government probably doesn't exist in other countries, unlike what America's founding fathers advocated when drafting the Bill of Rights. Military and civil coups are as old
as civilization itself. To say that America has reached the boiling point of
another civil war, and civil insurrection, is not far-fetched. She has far too
many problems that are being ignored, or advocated by an administration that
too many are tyrannical.
