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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (5970)	2/16/2001 12:18:27 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

They were thinking of the Minutemen and other similar citizen groups that rose to throw off the yolk* of tyranny* A bit of egg on the face on that one, perhaps? Check the OED.... Sorry, I know it's picky but I couldn't resist.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (5970)	2/16/2001 9:53:31 AM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

For a contrary view you might consider this book review: Spiking the Gun Myth , by Gary Wills, a review of Arming America : The Origins of a National Gun Culture. By Michael A. Bellesiles. search1.nytimes.com An excerpt: Bellesiles deflates the myth of the self-reliant and self-armed virtuous yeoman of the Revolutionary militias. Washington hated to see militiamen come into his camp. They destroyed camp discipline, morale and hygiene (disease often kills more than does the enemy in war). Their high desertion rate infected the regulars. To those advocating reliance on them, Washington responded: ''The Idea is chimerical, and that we have so long persisted in it is a reflection on the judgment of a Nation so enlightened as we are, as well as a strong proof of the empire of prejudice over reason.'' Militias were ill trained, undisciplined and they could not face the bayonet. (Washington's regulars had to learn from European drill instructors how to do that). At Lexington, the militia in the town square got off six or seven shots, none of which hit anyone; the British bayonet charge killed the one man who tried to stand and reload. Since Americans had no gun factories, our desperate need for alliance with France came, among other things, from the need for a source of firearms. Guns desperately sought for military use held no charms of private ownership for the men returning from war to their farms: ''Most veterans turned their back on their guns, walking away from their encampments without their heavy muskets, even when the government offered them for sale at low rates. In the years after the war's end, these veterans, like most males, showed not the least noticeable enthusiasm for continuing military exercises in the militia, which died a slow, embarrassing death as a national institution.'' Thus, when the War of 1812 began, the dormant militias were unarmed. An 1803 census of guns carried out by the War Department found that only 23.7 percent of adult white males had access to guns, which meant that less than half of the militiamen could be armed -- in the South, only 29 percent could be. Individual ownership of guns did not become possible, on any widespread basis, until Samuel Colt began, in the 1840's, to perfect a previously neglected firearm, the pistol. He created a revolver that could be aimed (he put a sight on it for that purpose). He hoped to replace the sword, previously the symbol of manhood in and out of the military, with a personal gun. But he had not gone into large-scale manufacture by the time the Army asked for 1,000 revolvers in the Mexican War -- he had to farm out work to competitors to fill the order. The pistols began to arrive too late to affect the outcome, but Colt -- who had initially opposed the conflict as an imperialist adventure -- subsequently claimed, in shameless advertising, that his revolvers had been the decisive factor. Actually, his pistols had no signficant military or hunting use. They were ''clearly intended for personal use in violent situations.'' The revolver began to displace the knife as the normal instrument of murder.