In the wake of recent tragic events in Tucson, Arizona, thousands of left-wing bloggers (following, no doubt, the dictates of their pundit overlords at MSNBC) have relentlessly riddled the American People with rapid-fire arguments in support of more stringent gun control laws. And let’s face it – mayhem-laced news stories like this provide more than enough ammunition for bleeding-heart liberals who want to take potshots at the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding straight-shooters like you and me. With this in mind, the last thing we should want to do is aimlessly shoot our mouths off and trigger a whole new round of political crossfire. As for myself, I have no wish to become a prime-target for their verbal sniping. That is why – up till now – I’ve kept my powder dry. But no more. It’s time to let these anti-American socialist bastards have it with both barrels.
As a retired home-school teacher of American History and this year’s co-sponsor of the National Rifle Association’s annual “Guns For Tots” Christmas Ammunition Drive, I began musing the other day about how much safer we Americans would be today, if only the NRA had been around in the early days of the Republic to protect our God-given right to amass and stockpile warehouses full of dangerous weapons. This in turn set me to thinking that, as both a gun-enthusiast and self-taught scholar, I might be uniquely qualified, not only to cast light on the history of firearms in our Great Republic, but to martial resistance against the passage of more restrictive gun laws in the future. With these worthy goals in mind, I’ve decided to take a shot at killing two birds with one stone. A few past instances of hematological irrigation for the Tree of Liberty should suffice.
The Whiskey Rebellion (1794)
This colorful little kerfuffle had its origins in Treasury Secretary (and Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton’s ingenious plan to tax the whiskey distilled by backwoods farmers, thereby providing a vast pool of capital from which his Wall Street investment friends could freely draw the low-interest loans necessary to create new jobs for the soon-to-be-bankrupt backwoods farmers. In other words, “American Capitalism on the March.” So far, so good. But when the government agents began to arrive in Western Pennsylvania to collect the excise, they discovered (to their amazement) that the farmers were none-too-happy about having to pay it. Apparently these “Joe the Plower” types had recently abandoned their pre-revolutionary slogan “No Taxation Without Representation” in favor of the new, post-revolutionary “Tea Party” slogan “Misrepresentation Without Taxation.”
In order to suppress this first in a long line of anti-tax movements peppering American History, (Founding Father) George Washington launched a well-publicized federal invasion of the Keystone State under the command of Revolutionary War hero “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, and accompanied by (Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton. Alas, by the time this punitive expedition reached the rebellion’s epicenter in Springfield, Massachusetts, “Joe the Plower” and his sweaty, grimy friends had mostly dispersed, leaving the movement (such as it was) to pretty much peter out on its own.
But it need not have ended this way.
If the National Rifle Association had been around in those days to prevent the government from banning the sale and possession of automatic weapons in the first place, “Joe the Plower” and his patriotic army of drunken rioters and arsonists might have been able to turn back and defeat this shameful government intrusion into the affairs of private citizens.
That’s right. By boldly seizing the initiative, this feisty little citizen-militia might even have succeeded in launching a preemptive strike against federal troops before they ever had a chance to leave their base camp in Maryland. Instead of being forced to kowtow before the hydra-headed tyranny of big government, these ordinary, somewhat decent, occasionally law-abiding, mostly peace-loving citizens might very well have blasted their way into the federal force’s bivouac with submachine guns, making bloody human confetti of “Lighthorse Harry” Lee and (Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton.
Who knows, these Patriots might even have captured “The Father of Our Country” himself as part of a massive citizens’ arrest, putting him on trial for treason, and sentencing him to be hanged, preferably from the nearest cherry tree.
Had they succeeded in doing so, they would have fulfilled the Gipper’s dream of “Getting Washington off the Backs of the People” before Old George had the chance to climb on in the first place.
And while, admittedly, even Glenn Beck might find it hard to condone the wanton killing of one, let alone two, Founding Fathers, it’s hard to overlook the fact that an early demise for Washington and Hamilton would not only have preempted the establishment of the unspeakably evil Federal Reserve System, it would also have cleared a fortuitous future space on both the one and ten-dollar bills for the face of Our Beloved Ronald Reagan.
Author’s Note: As “Lighthorse Harry” Lee would have been too dead in 1806 to impregnate his wife with the zygote/unicellular person that would eventually become Confederate military strategist Robert E. Lee, most likely the War of Northern Aggression would have ended three years earlier than it did, saving around 500,000 lives. This would, unfortunately, have resulted in the same dismal outcome (i.e. the abolition of slavery), but with one mitigating consolation: the creation of a vastly expanded pool of ignorant, unskilled, compliant white laborers eager to work in post-war cotton fields, steel mills, and textile sweatshops, thereby driving wages down to historic lows, clearing the way for the Capitalist Free Enterprise System to thrive as never before.
The Burr-Hamilton Duel (1804)
As every American High School student knows (actually, the figure is down around 3%), in 1804, Vice-president Aaron Burr fatally shot former Treasury Secretary (and Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawkin, New Jersey. This unfortunate incident in American History might have been prevented, or at least mitigated (or, possibly, made grievously worse) by the timely intervention of the NRA. No one really knows.
What we can say for sure is that if the NRA had been around in 1804, there certainly would have been no government-sponsored anti-dueling ordinance in effect in the State of New York, and therefore no need for the disputants to cross the Hudson River and potentially endanger the safety of innocent wildlife in New Jersey.
Instead, Monsieurs Hamilton and Burr would simply have suited up in Kevlar frocks, waistcoats, and breeches, taken up their positions at opposite ends of Wall Street, and, on a prearranged signal, begun to ceremoniously lob hand-grenades at each other. If, after the supply of these explosive devices had been expended, there was still no clear winner, the duelists would have been summoned to close quarters to fight it out with flame-throwers.
So how (you might well ask) would this chain of events be preferable to what actually occurred on that summer day in 1804? Before attempting to answer this question, we must consider two essential facts:
1. Given the duel’s relocation to the Lower Manhattan venue, (Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton would have been able to call on the enthusiastic support of dozens of his colleagues inside the New York Stock Exchange, each packing at lease one semi-automatic pistol along with several reserve clips. Thus would Mr. Hamilton’s chances of victory (and perhaps even survival) have been exponentially increased.
2. On the other hand, given the overarching fact that (Founding Father) Alexander Hamilton would have perished ten years previously in a hail of gunfire back in Springfield, Massachusetts, Vice-president Burr (barring unforeseen technical glitches in one of his hand grenades) would likely have emerged from the contest unscathed, and free to quietly fulfill his term of office, leaving lifelong NRA member Dick Cheney as the only serving VP in American History ever to shoot a man in cold blood.
The Assassination of President Kennedy (1963)
If both Jacqueline Kennedy and John Connally had remembered to bring fully-automatic weapons with them into the Presidential Limousine on that fateful autumn day in Dallas, things might have turned out very differently. In fact, it’s likely Lee Harvey Oswald would only have had time to squeeze off a single shot before the First Lady was able to pivot to her right and respond with a massive and lethal burst of firepower in the direction of the Texas School Book Depository’s sixth floor. Collateral damage would have been minimal (it was lunchtime, after all), while the assassin himself would probably have sustained a sufficient number of gunshot wounds to render his mangled corpse unidentifiable (which would have greatly simplified the work of the Warren Commission). Meanwhile, Governor Connally could have provided protective fire with a controlled spray of bullets along the left side of the motorcade, mowing down, in the process any and all suspicious moving targets on the grassy knoll (further simplifying the Warren Commission’s report). Perhaps most importantly, responsible gun-owner Jack Ruby would still be with us today, a free and productive member of society, providing adult entertainment to inebriated out-of-towners on the eve of Super Bowl XLV, and preparing to celebrate his 100th birthday in the warm bosom of his friends, family, and female employees.
So those are the facts – irrefutable and undeniable – underlying the true story of how – over the lifespan of our republic – gun control laws have brought untold suffering and hopelessness to hundreds of thousands of Civil War soldiers and their families, not to mention Elizabeth Hamilton and Martha Washington. If only we, as a people, had had the courage and foresight to establish and support the National Rifle Association one hundred years before we did, those people might still be alive today.