I am not arguing that they didn’t think it right or not to own a gun; my argument is that–if they thought that–it is not implicit in the text. You can disagree, but the text is right there clear as a bell, context and everything. Anything more is something you or someone else decided to add to it. And I’m not saying that adding to it is necessarily wrong, but let’s not pretend something is there when it isn’t.

Some people lower down on the economic scale did not own their own personal weapon and communities often had firearms kept to furnish these men with. That is not particularly

You didn’t finish your thought there, not sure where you were going with it. On your earlier point, that is an interesting hypothesis but you did not provide any support for it. At this point I have to assume you’re just speculating. The issue with your claim is that a force of British elite light infantry marched from Boston (then occupied) to Lexington and Concord specifically to destroy the magazines. It seems your point of contention is that it was merely those “lower down the economic scale” who couldn’t afford to own their own weapon, but even if that were the case (it isn’t), what sort of argument are you trying to make? Are you suggesting, therefore, that there were but a handful of muskets in the magazine? Why send 250 troops to destroy a handful of weapons? No commander worth their spit would bother to do that; General Gage was a veteran of the French and Indian war and knew the area well. He was an extremely competent commander. If most of the weapons were within the homes of other individuals, he would not have bothered ordering the companies to the magazines. He would have confiscated all the weapons from private citizens.

Further, your suggestion that only those higher up on the economic pole could afford a gun seems anachronistic. Classes were not as defined as they are today; Lexington and Concord were small hamlets back then, mostly inhabited with farmers who made decent livings. The militia who formed and took arms on the green at Lexington were the standard militiamen (those given to forming and drilling under orders from the British crown since the 1750′s). These were not beggars from the streets. The communities kept firearms in a magazine because that was the place for them. This method (storing the weapons in one location) was based upon New England’s vast experiences with skirmishes and campaigns against the native tribes going back as far as the mid-1600′s. The minuteman concept derived from the lessons learned from these skirmishes and from the basic construct of English militia practices (which were, again, ordered by the crown and utilized during the French and Indian War). So your premise is incorrect; these magazines held the weapons for the militia. That isn’t to say no one had a musket–just that most didn’t. They didn’t have to, they were kept in the magazine.

Again, we’re talking about thousands of men without arms. Washington actually complained to congress because, while Pennsylvania had supplied most of the militia for the war (thousands upon thousands of men), less than half of them were capable of fighting because they had no weapons to fight with. No muskets or rifles were had. And this is in 1777, when France was secretly supplying the American colonists with rifles–and they still didn’t have enough. That, to me, suggests that rifles were just not as common as has been presumed by laypeople.

Those weapons were almost certainly smoothbore muskets which were the common infantry weapon of the time. They were not terribly accurate and that is why British infantry used tactics of massed fire at close range (as did all armies of the time, even the American Army once it was formed).

Uh, yeah. I know. I said that in the article (did you miss that part?).

The smoothbore musket was the “assault rifle” of the 18th century.

Now that’s silly. The two are not even close to being comparable.

On the other hand, private individuals in America who owned their own firearms might own a true rifle – a long gun with actual rifling in the barrel which made them potentially accurate hundred of yards farther out than the more or less 100 yards for the smoothbore.

I feel like you’re thinking you need to give me a lecture on the weapons of the American Revolution. Let me stop you there. I’m well versed in the weapons and tactics of the war.

In the retreat from Lexington American snipers used such rifles to inflict casualties on the British.

Maybe, but you didn’t provide any support for this.

While you are looking at how many shots were fired and how many were killed you are missing an important part of the equation.

No, pretty sure I didn’t.

How many shots were missed might not reflect poor accuracy. You should read Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing” to get some real insight into that. Contrary to Hollywood movies a lot of soldiers will _not_ fire to kill their enemy, even to save their own life (unless you have very special training as my generation learned for the Vietnam War and soldiers ever since have been given).

Again, good hypothesis but without any supporting for it, it doesn’t generate anything more than a simple “well, okay, but where’s the evidence?”. This is, again, anachronistic. You cannot apply soldier’s views on life and killing from one war to another.

If you read statistics from the Civil War you find similar statistics, due not so much to poor marksmanship but rather to human nature.

600,000 Americans lost their lives in the Civil War. While maybe *some* soldiers chose not to shoot their opponents, your claim fails on the fact that most (over 75%) chose to shoot their enemy than to not. Noteworthy here is that the rifled muskets of the Civil War were more accurate and more deadly; the same style of fighting was used in both wars, and the Civil War yielded more casualties mainly because of better training (better marksmanship training) and better accuracy.

Either way, it is still anachronistic to presume that the soldiers who fought in the Civil War were the same as those who fought the Revolution. Social situations were vastly different and so were the reasons for fighting.

Thanks for replying.

Some people lower down on the economic scale did not own their own personal weapon and communities often had firearms kept to furnish these men with. That is not particularly

Those weapons were almost certainly smoothbore muskets which were the common infantry weapon of the time. They were not terribly accurate and that is why British infantry used tactics of massed fire at close range (as did all armies of the time, even the American Army once it was formed). The smoothbore musket was the “assault rifle” of the 18th century.

On the other hand, private individuals in America who owned their own firearms might own a true rifle – a long gun with actual rifling in the barrel which made them potentially accurate hundred of yards farther out than the more or less 100 yards for the smoothbore.

The disadvantage of the rifle was it took quite a bit longer to load and fouled up quicker. The smooth bore could be loaded much faster (hence why I called it the “assault rifle” of the time) and not become unusable as quickly due to fouling. In the retreat from Lexington American snipers used such rifles to inflict casualties on the British.

During the whole war American snipers with rifles often tried to shoot British officers, and in several occasions may have turned the tide of battle when key British leaders were killed. But the militia was not always dependable in the massed battles of the day, although sometimes they had some good days too.

While you are looking at how many shots were fired and how many were killed you are missing an important part of the equation. How many shots were missed might not reflect poor accuracy. You should read Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing” to get some real insight into that. Contrary to Hollywood movies a lot of soldiers will _not_ fire to kill their enemy, even to save their own life (unless you have very special training as my generation learned for the Vietnam War and soldiers ever since have been given).

If you read statistics from the Civil War you find similar statistics, due not so much to poor marksmanship but rather to human nature.

lwk
free2beinamerica2.wordpress.com

Also why can’t people demonstrate even some basic critical thinking. Webbing between our fingers and toes? I don’t see any webbing between mine like the show suggests we have, do you see any on yours? Lost our hair to be more streamlined? Hmm. we have hair on our heads and that’s the first place to offer resistance when swimming. Eating shellfish made us smart? Well the sea otter ought to be a fellow more brilliant than Einstein, then. So much nonsense!

I also found the show entertaining. LIke a moth drawn to the flame, I could not resist watching it even though I have studied science all my life not to mention the fact that I’ve spent hundreds of hours in the ocean scuba diving.

I was REALLY SURPRISED to see this kind of thing on Animal Planet. Isn’t this the domain of SciFi channel?

The problem with treating Murdock as though she is even worth responding to, is that it gives people the wrong impression. This is precisely what people mean when they object to creationists talking about “teaching the controversy”– there is no controversy of that sort! There is no reputable school of biology which still buys into young-earth creationism, just as there is no reputable school of religious studies that believes Solomon represents the sun because his name comes from Latin sol, “Eastern” om, and Egyptian on… which is one of Murdock’s arguments.

Let me try to explain myself with a mini-analogy: if I were to say “Susan can’t do graduate-level mathematics because she doesn’t know differential equations”, then what I am saying would be correct. But it gives you the entirely wrong impression, because there is something else I’m not telling you: Susan is 2 years old. Susan can’t do grad-level maths, because Susan can’t COUNT– the bit about not knowing differential equations is true, but also disingenuous and misleading.

So it is with D.M. Murdock. For the record I’m not saying she’s not entitled to her opinions, or that she shouldn’t be allowed to write and publish books. But the school of religious studies even acknowledging her– like how Ehrman, Price, and Godfrey do– is like a botanist “acknowledging” an internet blogger who thinks all plants are man-made and are part of a conspiracy to get people to buy pesticides.