"Many today don’t realize that we are facing the same sort of tactics by our own Federal government that our forefathers faced from the British just prior to the War for Independence. In fact, I’ll venture to guess that most people never were taught in school what follows in this article. That’s right, gun control is nothing new now, nor was it even new in the twentieth century. It was very much alive in the eighteenth century. So when someone comes along telling you “the founding fathers wouldn’t have envisioned this or that” with regards to arms, just remind them of what they faced during their lifetimes when the primary weapons were single shot muskets and cannons.

Following the events of December 16, 1773 in which the Sons of Liberty in Boston made a political protest of the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea that was imported into the colonies in Boston Harbor. Disguised as Indians, a group numbering anywhere from 30 to 130 men dumped 342 chests of tea into the sea over the course of three hours.

As a result of this protest, Parliament, with the direct encouragement of King George III, passed the Coercive Acts, or as they were properly known the Restraining Acts, in 1774.

Though Parliament was warned by men like Edmund Burke and Lord Chatham that such legislation would not be wise and would only provoke the colonists more, they failed to listen to reason.

Patriots that heard of the Acts determined that they would fight and die rather than see such laws enforced upon them by the British Army. The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: “That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles.” Interestingly enough, a South Carolina newspaper essay, which was reprinted in Virginia at the time, recorded that any law that required the military to enforce it was “necessarily illegitimate,” according to David B. Kopel.

In Massachusetts, the Royal Governor, General Thomas Gage, forbid town meetings from taking place more than once a year. So when an illegal meeting was taking place in Salem, he sent in the British Redcoats to break it up. They were met with 3,000 armed Americans and they retreated. Interestingly enough, Gage’s aide, John Andrews, said that anyone in the area that was 16 years or older owned a firearm and had gunpowder. If you were wondering, yes this is where the issue of the First Amendment came from and where “town hall meetings” originated from. Let’s just say in Massachusetts, it was “getting real.”

The British realized that they could not control the people with only 2,000 troops in Boston. So what did they do? They sought to eliminate the people’s ability to firearms and gun powder.

Remember, at one time it was law in the colonies for militiamen to own their own firearms and have a minimum quantity of gunpowder on hand, though all could not afford it. Remember too, that this powder was not stable like that we use today."

On September 1, 1774, just before dawn, Gage sent approximately 260 Redcoats up the Mystic River to seize several hundred barrels of powder from the Charlestown powder house and this became known as the “Powder Alarm.”

Sounds very familiar doesn't it???