14142852:Dustin. said:
The American Revolution is largely acknowledged as beginning at Lexington when British soldiers were sent to take guns from the people that lived there. The colonists realized this was the last step before they’d be completely defenseless and have to succumb to the very tyranny they left Europe to escape. A group of armed civilians organized and refused to let the soldiers into town, and (history will never know who) someone shot a gun starting a small skirmish. The colonists were enraged that their worst fears were realized, and taxation without representation, boarding British soldiers in colonial homes (and not paying the colonial family to do it!), and in general a path towards subjugation justified movement to declare independence from Britain. Britain responded by sending an army to the colonies, and a group largely composed of teenagers and farmers mobilized an army and won a total war against the British empire.
This is one reason Americans defend their right to self defense, the country was born from the very idea that if you are first to lay down your arms, you are at the mercy of whoever asked/forced you to do so. This idea has been solidified over time as Americans have watched countless other examples of governments disarming their citizens before subjugating or even executing them (Germany being the scariest and most well known example to most Americans, only 75 years ago in Utopian Europe of all places). It seems impossible in 2020, but it’s one of the key concepts behind the 2nd Amendment: the right to defend yourself is not granted by government, it is inherent to your very existence. If you are attacked, you have the right to self defense. More specifically, the founders saw it as extremely important that citizens have this right in order to ensure the people are always a force that controls the government and not the other way around. The Supreme Court has consistently researched the historical context of the phrase “well regulated” and concluded that it does indeed mean “armed”. It’s also a key component to the American Civil War 70 years later. This ideology of Constitutional rights being granted by God made it abundantly clear that slavery was inherently incompatible with the Constitution, and when the South (understandably scared of the economic repercussions of abolishment, but morally out to lunch) resisted and then seceded from the US, they weren’t asked to free their slaves. The North marched down there and shot them. Progressive agendas like to discuss slavery and genocide in response to American history, and they are not wrong. However they don’t acknowledge that the United States forcefully abolished these practices (which the rest of the world was founded on too...) faster than just about anywhere on Earth. It took less than 1 generation for Americans (Dutch, Irish, English, you name it) who thought slavery was normal to not only question it, but fight to the death to remove it from our society.
