Thursday, 19 April 2018 - The 25th anniversary of the Waco Massacre

[Anti Federalist]

Mostly forgotten now, in a police state that stews in a Waco every month.

But any of you youngsters who want to find out more, watch the videos.


Bitter Lessons 25 Years After FBI Final Assault at Waco

http://jimbovard.com/blog/2018/04/16...sault-at-waco/

By James Bovard 04/16/18 03:50 PM EDT

Twenty-five years ago today, FBI tanks smashed into the ramshackle home of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. After the FBI collapsed much of the building atop the residents, a fire erupted and 76 corpses were dug out of the rubble. Unfortunately, the American political system and media have never faced the lessons from that tragic 1993 day.

What lessons can today’s Americans draw from the FBI showdown on the Texas plains a quarter century ago?

Purported good intentions absolve real deadly force.

Janet Reno, the nation’s first female attorney general, approved the FBI’s assault on the Davidians. Previously, she had zealously prosecuted child abuse cases in Dade County, Fla, though many of her high-profile convictions were later overturned because of gross violations of due process. Reno approved the FBI assault after being told “babies were being beaten.” It is not known who told her about the false claims of child abuse. Reno’s sterling reputation helped the government avoid any apparent culpability for the deaths of 27 children on April 19, 1993. After Reno publicly promised to take responsibility for the outcome at Waco, the subsequent Justice Department investigation was so shoddy that even the New York Times denounced the “Waco whitewash.”

It is not an atrocity if the U.S. government does it.

Shortly before the Waco showdown, U.S. government officials signed an international Chemical Weapons Convention treaty pledging never to use nerve agents, mustard gas, and other compounds, including tear gas against enemy soldiers. But the treaty contained a loophole permitting governments to gas their own people. On April 19, 1993, the FBI pumped CS gas and methyl chloride, a potentially lethal, flammable combination, into the Davidians’ residence for six hours, disregarding explicit warnings that CS gas should not be used indoors.

Rep. Steven Schiff (R-N.M.) declared that “the deaths of dozens of men, women and children can be directly and indirectly attributable to the use of this gas in the way it was injected by the FBI.” Chemistry professor George Uhlig testified to Congress in 1995 that the FBI gas attack probably “suffocated the children early on” and may have converted their poorly ventilated bunker into an area “similar to one of the gas chambers used by the Nazis at Auschwitz.”

Orwellian language will vaporize federal aggression.

As Abrams tanks driven by FBI agents continually battered the Davidian’s home, FBI loudspeakers endlessly broadcast: “This is not an assault.” Prior to the fire, the tanks had collapsed 20 percent of the building atop its residents and the FBI planned to totally demolish the home. Grenade launchers on the tanks and other armored vehicles fired almost 400 ferret rounds of CS gas through the thin wooden walls and the windows of the building. Yet Attorney General Reno later insisted: “We didn’t attack. We tried to exercise every restraint possible to avoid violence.” Demolishing someone’s home was supposedly no more bothersome than leaving a Federal Express package on their doorstep.

Truth delayed is truth defused.

The FBI speedily asserted that the Davidians ignited the fire that consumed their dwelling. The following day, the President Bill Clinton deriding suggestions that Attorney General Reno “should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves.” Six years later, independent investigators found pyrotechnic ferret rounds the FBI fired at the scene prior to the flames erupting. Attorney General Reno lashed out at the FBI for destroying her credibility but neither she nor FBI officials suffered any consequences from the collapse of the official narrative.

Don’t trust Congress to expose federal misconduct.

A few days after the conflagration, Reno was heartily praised at a Senate committee hearing and the media had made her a national hero. There was little or no sympathy on Capitol Hill for those who died during the final FBI assault. Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, commented that the Davidians were “horrible people. Despicable people. Burning to death was too good for them.” If Republicans had not captured control of Congress in 1994, there would have been no substantive hearings on Waco.

Media favorites can perform rhetorical magic tricks.

When Attorney General Reno testified to the House Waco hearing on August 1, 1995, she was challenged on FBI’s use of 54-ton tanks to assail the Davidians. Reno replied that the tanks were “not military weapons… I mean, it was like a good rent-a-car.” When Rep. Bill Zeliff (R-N.H.) challenged her, Reno hectored: “I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, as you deal with this issue, not to make statements like that can cause the confusion.” This is the high-toned D.C. version of the old saying: “Who are you going to believe — me or your lying eyes?” Media coverage of Reno’s showdown with congressional Republicans ignored her rent-a-tank absurdity, instead praising her toughness and demeanor.

While the events at Waco alienated millions of Americans from the government, few if any lessons were learned in Washington. Waco should have taught the disastrous consequences of unleashing government agencies from the law and the Constitution. Unfortunately, 25 years later, controversies are raging as hot as ever about the power and prerogatives of federal law enforcement.

[Anti Federalist]

Wiki entry on the topic.

[timosman]

[Anti Federalist]

///

[Anti Federalist]

///

[Brian4Liberty]

It would be hard to be this hypocritical, even if they tried.

Trump: US, allied strikes aimed at Syria's chemical weapons
By ROBERT BURNS, JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER , Associated Press - Apr. 14, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States, France and Britain launched military strikes in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad for an apparent chemical attack against civilians and to deter him from doing it again, President Donald Trump announced Friday. Pentagon officials said the attacks targeted the heart of Assad's programs to develop and produce chemical weapons.

Shortly before the Waco showdown, U.S. government officials signed an international Chemical Weapons Convention treaty pledging never to use nerve agents, mustard gas, and other compounds, including tear gas against enemy soldiers. But the treaty contained a loophole permitting governments to gas their own people. On April 19, 1993, the FBI pumped CS gas and methyl chloride, a potentially lethal, flammable combination, into the Davidians’ residence for six hours, disregarding explicit warnings that CS gas should not be used indoors.

Rep. Steven Schiff (R-N.M.) declared that “the deaths of dozens of men, women and children can be directly and indirectly attributable to the use of this gas in the way it was injected by the FBI.” Chemistry professor George Uhlig testified to Congress in 1995 that the FBI gas attack probably “suffocated the children early on” and may have converted their poorly ventilated bunker into an area “similar to one of the gas chambers used by the Nazis at Auschwitz.”

[Anti Federalist]

It would be hard to be this hypocritical, even if they tried.

I wonder how their heads don't explode.

[timosman]

I wonder how their heads don't explode.

They $#@! with you just for kicks. No dissonance.

[Anti Federalist]

Gonna keep this bumped until Thursday

[pcosmar]

I wonder how their heads don't explode.

and still haven't been made to.

[Anti Federalist]

Bump.

[pcosmar]

Murderous Gun Control..

[Anti Federalist]

bump

[Anti Federalist]

The Bolshevik left says the government did nothing wrong:

The Waco Raid at 25: Enough With the Fairy Tale Lies

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-wa...-fabulist-lies

It’s the anniversary of the Branch Davidian compound raid, that tragic story of fatal overreach by jackbooted government thugs. The story is total fiction.

MARK POTOK
04.19.18 5:22 AM ET
It’s a tale of government gone mad.

A huge force of federal agents descends upon a peaceful commune of religious seekers in Texas, immediately opens fire on some 120 men, women and children inside, and uses military helicopters to strafe the compound with deadly fire, murdering a woman in her bed with shots through the roof.

Five people are killed by agents at the compound. A sixth, who was away when the raid began, is ambushed by agents as he tries to make his way back into the compound, shot without warning from the side. Moments later, agents can be heard finishing off the unarmed man with a final coup de grace.

And 51 days after that, concluding one of the longest sieges in U.S. law enforcement history, enraged FBI agents send tanks crashing into the compound, injecting CS tear gas as terrified residents cower inside. Walls come crashing down on the inhabitants, who are desperately trying to escape the wreckage. And then the entire building bursts into flames, presumably because the CS gas ignited. Seventy-six people, including 20 children, die in the holocaust that follows.

The story is compelling. It is also a fairy tale.

Twenty-five years after the conclusion of the real-life Branch Davidian standoff near Waco, Texas — the compound burned on April 19, 1993 — propagandists and activists on the radical right are once again turning the Waco saga into alleged proof that the federal government has run amok. Waco, they say, shows what the government will do to those Americans who have heterodox religious or political views, especially if they are also gun enthusiasts.

For a quarter of a century, the Waco debacle has been cited as proof that the government is the enemy of the American people. A whole industry of films, books, websites and underground publications is devoted to elaborating conspiracy theories purporting to show the government engaged in mass murder. Waco was the single most important spark igniting the radical militia movement of the 1990s. It was cited by Timothy McVeigh as the reason he murdered 168 people in an Oklahoma City bombing of a federal office building on the second anniversary of the Waco fire.

RELATED IN U.S. NEWS
Funeral for Firefighter Michael R. Davidson at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City.
Fifth Avenue Shut Down for a True Star Who Perished on Set

How Veteran Fighter Pilot Saved Crippled Southwest Flight

‘He Was Supposed to Be the First Gay President’
But the mythologizing of the facts of Waco — where the government unquestionably made grave errors, but did not deliberately carry out a mass murder of innocents — is not limited to the radical right. It’s in the mainstream, too.

The latest example of this — and arguably one of the most damaging — came earlier this year in the six-part “Waco” miniseries by the Paramount Network, a major TV production starring Taylor Kitsch as Davidian leader David Koresh and created by brothers Drew and John Erick Dowdle. The first four episodes were watched by an average of 2.4 million people. NPR called it “a compelling, tragic tale,” although other reviewers were not so naïve.

The series gets almost everything wrong. I know this because I covered the Davidian saga as a news reporter, including the trial of 11 surviving Davidians, and because I have read — unlike, apparently, the Dowdles — the detailed Treasury Department and Justice Department reviews, not to mention the exhaustive 2000 report by Special Counsel John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri.

The Davidians were hardly the peaceful victims the Dowdles paint them as. The search warrant for the initial raid was based on solid evidence the Davidians were manufacturing, using and selling illegal weapons and silencers, and indeed 48 fully automatic machine guns were found in the ashes after the fire. Koresh preached constantly that Armageddon was approaching, and that his followers would have to meet the forces of “Babylon” — the government — with force.

And, in fact, when Koresh learned 45 minutes in advance of the imminent Feb. 28, 1993, raid on the compound, he used the time to order the men in the group to retrieve heavy weapons and go to the second story of the main building. From there, through windows arranged like firing ports, the Davidians, wearing ammunition vests sewn by the Davidian women months earlier, rained down a deadly fire on arriving agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, killing four and wounding some two dozen others. (After the botched ATF raid, the FBI took over for the remainder of the siege, never firing a shot.)

It’s still a matter of dispute who fired first, although the miniseries strongly suggests that it was the authorities. And ATF agents may have first shot a dog approaching them, setting off the firefight. But three reporters who were there that day have each testified that they believed the Davidians fired first.

Contrary to the claims of “Waco,” there was no gunfire from the three helicopters — though Davidians did shoot at them, forcing them to the ground.

Similarly, Michael Schroeder, who was off the compound when the raid occurred, did try to sneak back in later that afternoon with two other Davidians. But he was not an unarmed man murdered by the ATF. The truth is that Schroeder ambushed the agents when he spotted them, and was shot dead in response.

Unlike some propaganda, “Waco” does not definitively say that the government started the April 19 fire, but it strongly implies that. At one point, it shows a Davidian putting out a small fire that was apparently caused by the CS gas or the tanks used to inject it. And it alludes to the notion that CS gas is flammable and that it would be a “war crime” to use it against civilians or others.

None of that is true, even though a 1999 poll showed 61% of Americans believed the government started the fire. The fire was unquestionably lit by the Davidians themselves. Independent arson investigators, video shot from above, and witnesses all noted that the fire started in three separate locations inside the compound virtually simultaneously. Moreover, listening devices smuggled into the compound by the FBI recorded Davidians discussing setting fires and keeping them going. Davidians themselves have testified that that is what happened.

The Davidians also fired hundreds of shots at the FBI as the CS gas was inserted. Several reviews showed the agents did not fire a single shot that day. Instead, they pleaded over loudspeakers for the Davidians to come out.

But except for nine people, they did not. The others either joined in a mass suicide, were the victims of mercy killings, or were somehow trapped inside the building. In fact, 20 of those who died in the fire were slain by other Davidians. Most were shot at pointblank range, including Koresh and five children, but autopsies showed the Davidians also stabbed one 3-year-old to death.

As the Danforth Report concluded: “Government agents did not start or spread the tragic fire of April 19, 1993, did not direct gunfire at the Branch Davidians [that day], and did not unlawfully employ the armed forces of the United States. In fact, what is remarkable is the overwhelming evidence exonerating the government from the charges made against it.”

It’s not much of a surprise that the miniseries gets so much wrong, given that it is largely based on A Place Called Waco, a book by Davidian survivor David Thibodeau. Thibodeau, who suggests among other things that the Davidians did not set the fire, is either a liar or a fool, and his book is self-serving tripe.

At times, “Waco” devolves into absurdity. It is cartoonish in its depictions of evil ATF and FBI officials and the earnestly seeking, goodhearted Davidians. At one point, Koresh, who in real life was a monster ultimately more responsible for the bloodshed than anyone, is shown with what is apparently a halo of heavenly light around his head as he supposedly communes directly with God.

“Waco” is only the latest film of its ilk.

It began in the 1990s with “Waco: The Big Lie,” a film by militia enthusiast Linda Thompson that claimed tanks with flamethrowers started the April 19 fire. Others include “Waco: The Rules of Engagement” (which, shockingly, won an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism) and “Waco: A New Revelation.” Both were largely based on the claims of the late Michael McNulty, a gun rights activist and one-time researcher for McVeigh’s defense team, who asserted that the government shot down Davidians escaping the fire.

Dan Gifford, executive producer of “Waco: The Rules of Engagement,” said at the time that his film shows that “mass murder by one’s own government in this country is very possible.” Such bogus claims, like those of the people who wrote and produced the recent “Waco” miniseries, have consequences.

There’s no question that officials made mistakes in Waco, some of them terrible. The ATF was warned that the Davidians knew they were coming, but went ahead with their raid regardless. There were opportunities to arrest Koresh away from the compound that were not taken. Raid commanders tried to cover up their failures, and FBI officials failed to report that they had fired pyrotechnic rounds of gas on April 19 that might have (but didn’t, as was shown later) started a fire.

But the government did not set out to carry out a mass murder. A huge team of FBI negotiators worked day and night to convince the Davidians to leave their compound peacefully. At the end of the day, the Davidian standoff is not so much a horrifying example of a heedless government gone mad as it is a classic case of a complex situation used to evil effect by opportunistic fabulists — people who twist the facts to serve a right-wing, antigovernment narrative about democracy in America.

Mark Potok, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, covered the entire 51-day Waco standoff for USA Today, as well as the trial of 11 surviving Davidians. He also covered the trial of Timothy McVeigh, who was ultimately executed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. He later worked for 20 years as an official of the Southern Poverty Law Center, helping lead efforts to monitor the radical right in America.

[Anti Federalist]

In fact, a quick scan of teh newz reveals that the only mentions anywhere of this, are all pro government.

$#@!ing criminals.

[phill4paul]

I still remember that day. I was on a plumbing call. The homeowner was watching breaking news. We just both watched it and shook our heads.

[oyarde]

May the deceased little children Rest in Peace .

[shakey1]

tragic piece of history

[Anti Federalist]

By US Standards, America Should’ve Been Bombed for What Happened in Texas, 25 Years Ago Today

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/th...ars-ago-today/

25 years ago today, the U.S. government used chemical weapons on American civilians, which resulted in the death of nearly 80 men, women, and children.

By Rachel Blevins - April 19, 2018

When reports claimed that a chemical attack killed 70 civilians in Syria earlier this month, the Trump administration was quick to place the blame on the Syrian government—despite having no evidence—and they claimed that the horror of such an atrocity deserved retaliation in the form of targeted airstrikes.

While the United States military maintained that the 120 missiles launched in the attack destroyed a facility that was used to produce chemical weapons, witnesses on the ground in Douma, Syria, claimed that the airstrikes actually destroyed a cancer research facility.

U.S. intelligence officials have since admitted that the attack was carried out despite the fact that the United States had no proof that the Syrian government had carried out a sarin gas attack. Instead, the U.S. acted before an investigation could be conducted, and as is usually the case with reported gas attacks in Syria, proof has yet to be found to show that President Bashar al-Assad was responsible.

If the idea that a government would use chemicals to kill dozens of its own citizens is so abhorrent that the U.S. would risk World War 3 to take a stand against it, then it must mean that the U.S. would never do the same thing to its own citizens, for fear that it could be subjected to a similar response from another country—right?

However, on April 19, 1993, there was a government that used chemical weapons on its own people, and nearly 80 men, women, and children died as a result. But the attack was not carried out by the Syrian government and it did not happen in the Middle East. It took place in Waco, Texas, and it was perpetrated by the United States government.

It all started as the government began looking for ways to obtain a warrant to search the 77-acre plot occupied by a group called the Branch Davidians when they heard rumors that the mysterious cult was stockpiling weapons and modifying them with illegal parts in preparation for the end of the world.

Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was accused of having multiple underage wives, sexually abusing the young daughters of his members, and ultimately holding cult members against their will. But an investigation conducted by Child Protective Services in 1992 concluded that no one was being held against their will and there were no signs of child abuse.

The case against the Branch Davidians continued to grow, and as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) looked for more evidence against them, Koresh was also accused of running a meth lab on the property. Although no evidence of this was ever found, it served as a legal pretext for ATF agents to receive military training, in order to initiate a raid on the property.

ATF agents attempted to serve a search warrant at the property on Feb. 28, 1993, and they were met with gunfire from the Branch Davidians. They returned fire, and four ATF agents and six Davidians were killed as a result. After the shootout, the FBI joined in and the agencies launched a standoff for the next 51 days.

During the siege, federal agents cut off water and electricity to the compound, and in their attempt to get Koresh to surrender, the Houston Chronicle reported that the agents tortured the remaining members by “using tanks to crush vehicles in front of the compound, playing loud music and flooding the area with bright lights at night to increase pressure on the Davidians.”

Despite weeks of efforts to get the Davidians to surrender, the government learned that the group was, indeed, prepared for the apocalypse. The Clinton Administration decided that the siege was taking too long, and Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the use of CS gas, even though it was known that the Davidians did not have gas masks for the two dozen children who were still inside the compound.

Early on the morning of April 19, federal agents brought in heavy equipment to break down the walls of the building and they spent hours filling it with a dangerous mix of CS gas and methyl chloride that has been shown to be potentially flammable.

When the compound engulfed in flames, killing 76 men, women and children, who were trapped inside, the government insisted that the fire was set by the Branch Davidians as a way to commit suicide. However, in 1999, the FBI admitted its agents had fired pyrotechnic tear gas grenades at the Davidian compound, which could have sparked a fire.

As The Free Thought Project has reported, researchers investigating the incident “concluded federal agents were observed shooting from the compound’s grounds into the building already set ablaze by fire. While the official government narrative is those individuals committed suicide, the researchers were able to demonstrate they were likely killed by automatic weapons fired by federal agents, possibly killed as they were attempting to flee their burning compound.”

Following the massacre, there are also a number of glaring problems associated with attempts to investigate the events surrounding it. According to reports, the corpses of the victims liquefied weeks after they were autopsied, and the door to Mount Carmel, which Davidians believed would show that the ATF fired first, went missing.

The Waco Siege is just one example of the overwhelming hypocrisy exerted by the U.S. government regarding the use of chemical weapons on civilians.

As The Hill noted, the horrific massacre occurred three months after the U.S. signed a treaty promising not to use chemical weapons on enemy soldiers, which just happened to leave a loophole that would let the U.S. torture its own citizens:


“Shortly before the Waco showdown, U.S. government officials signed an international Chemical Weapons Convention treaty pledging never to use nerve agents, mustard gas, and other compounds, including tear gas against enemy soldiers. But the treaty contained a loophole permitting governments to gas their own people. On April 19, 1993, the FBI pumped CS gas and methyl chloride, a potentially lethal, flammable combination, into the Davidians’ residence for six hours, disregarding explicit warnings that CS gas should not be used indoors.”

[RonZeplin]

Patriots' Day

The Roots of the First American Revolution

“The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. [T]he advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any...” —James Madison (1788)

On April 19th, we honor the anniversary of Patriots' Day and the legacy of Liberty launched that day, which is our inspiration to this day. In doing so, we mark the opening salvo of the first American Revolution in 1775, and the first step toward the establishment of an eternal declaration of the unalienable Rights of Man -- the rights of all people, subordinating the rule of men to our Creator-inspired Rule of Law, the basis for our Republic's Constitution.

On December 16th, 1773, "radicals" in Boston, members of a secret organization of American Patriots called the Sons of Liberty, boarded three East India Company ships at Griffin's Wharf and threw 342 chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. This iconic event, which foretold the revolution to come against oppressive taxation and tyrannical rule, is immortalized as "The Boston Tea Party."

Resistance to the British Crown had been mounting since King George imposed the Writs of Assistance, giving British authorities power to arrest and detain colonists for any reason. He also imposed oppressive bills of attainder and authorized troops to "quarter" in the homes of his colonial subjects. Protests intensified over enactment of heavy taxes, including the 1764 Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townshend Acts.

The growing unrest came to bloodshed in March of 1770, when British troops fired on civilians in Boston, killing five colonists. This event, which became known as the Boston Massacre, gave credence to the slogan, "No taxation without representation."

But it was the 1773 Tea Act, under which the Crown collected a three-pence tax on each pound of tea imported to the colonies, that instigated many Tea Party protests and seeded the American Revolution. Indeed, as James Madison reflected in 1823, "The people of the U.S. owe their Independence and their Liberty, to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent."

News of the Tea Party protest in Boston galvanized the colonial movement opposing onerous British parliamentary acts that were a violation of the natural, charter and constitutional rights of the British colonists.

In response to the rising colonial unrest, the British enacted measures to punish the citizens of Massachusetts and to reverse the trend of resistance to the Crown's authority. These were labeled "The Intolerable Acts," the first of which was the 1774 Boston Port Bill that blockaded the harbor in an effort to starve Bostonians into submission.

Among the Patriots who broke the blockade to supply food to the people of Boston was William Prescott, who would later prove himself a heroic military leader at Bunker Hill and Saratoga. To his fellow Patriots in Boston, Prescott wrote, "We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort and relief; knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. ... Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and transmit them to their posterity. ... Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed?"

The Boston blockade was followed by the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act and the Quartering Act. But far from accomplishing their desired outcome, the Crown's oppressive countermeasures hardened colonial resistance and led to the convention of the First Continental Congress on September 5th, 1774, in Philadelphia.

By March of 1775, civil discontent was at its tipping point, and American Patriots in Massachusetts and other colonies were preparing to cast off their masters. The spirit of the coming Revolution was captured in Patrick Henry's impassioned "Give me Liberty or give me death" speech.

That month, Dr. Joseph Warren delivered a fiery oration in Boston, warning of complacency and instilling courage among his fellow Patriots: "The man who meanly will submit to wear a shackle, contemns the noblest gift of heaven, and impiously affronts the God that made him free. ... Ease and prosperity (though pleasing for a day) have often sunk a people into effeminacy and sloth. ... Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."

On the eve of April 18th, 1775, General Thomas Gage, royal military governor of Massachusetts, dispatched a force of 700 British Army regulars under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith with secret orders to arrest Boston Tea Party leader Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Provincial Congress President John Hancock and merchant fleet owner Jeremiah Lee.

But what directly tied Gage's orders to the later enumeration of the Second Amendment in our Constitution was the primary mission of his Redcoats: A preemptive raid to confiscate arms and ammunition stored by Massachusetts Patriots in the town of Concord. The citizen minutemen understood even then that their right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.

Patriot militia and minutemen, under the leadership of the Sons of Liberty, anticipated this raid, and the confrontations between militia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord were the fuse that ignited the American Revolution.



Near midnight on April 18th, Paul Revere, who had arranged for advance warning of British movements, departed Charlestown (near Boston) for Lexington and Concord in order to warn John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other Sons of Liberty that the British Army was marching to arrest them and seize their weapons caches. After meeting with Hancock and Adams in Lexington, Revere was captured, but his Patriot ally, Samuel Prescott, continued to Concord and warned militiamen along the way.

The Patriots in Lexington and Concord, as with other militia units in New England, were bound by "minit men" oaths to "stand at a minits warning with arms and ammunition." The oath of the Lexington militia read thus: "We trust in God that, Should the state of our affairs require it, We shall be ready to sacrifice our estates and everything dear in life, Yea, and life itself, in support of the common cause."

In the early dawn of April 19th, their oaths would be tested with blood. Under the command of Captain John Parker, 77 militiamen assembled on the town green at Lexington, where they soon faced Smith's overwhelming force of British regulars. Parker did not expect shots to be exchanged, but his orders were: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

A few links away from the militia column, British Major John Pitcairn swung his sword and ordered, "Lay down your arms, you damned rebels!"

Not willing to sacrifice his small band of Patriots on the green, as Parker later wrote in sworn deposition, "I immediately ordered our Militia to disperse, and not to fire." But the Patriots did not lay down their arms as ordered, and as Parker noted, "Immediately said Troops made their appearance and rushed furiously, fired upon, and killed eight of our Party without receiving any Provocation therefor from us."

The British continued to Concord, where they divided ranks and searched for armament stores. Later in the day, the second confrontation between regulars and militiamen occurred as British light infantry companies faced rapidly growing ranks of militia and minutemen at Concord's Old North Bridge. From depositions on both sides, the British fired first, killing two and wounding four.

This time, however, the militia commander, Major John Buttrick, yelled the order, "Fire, for God's sake, fellow soldiers, fire!"

And fire they did, commencing with "The Shot Heard Round the World," as immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. With that shot, farmers and laborers, landowners and statesmen alike brought upon themselves the sentence of death for treason. In the ensuing firefight, the British suffered heavy casualties and in discord retreated to Concord village proper for reinforcements, and then back toward Lexington.

During that retreat, British regulars took additional casualties, including those suffered in an ambush by the reassembled ranks of John Parker's militia — "Parker's Revenge," as it became known. The English were reinforced with 1,000 troops in Lexington, but the King's men were no match for the militiamen, who inflicted heavy casualties upon the Redcoats along their 20-mile tactical retreat to Boston.



"What a glorious morning this is!" declared Samuel Adams to fellow Patriot John Hancock upon hearing those first shots of what would be an eight-year struggle for American independence. Notably, those shots were fired not in response to the British government’s oppressive taxation but rather its attempt to disarm the people.

Thus began the American Revolution — a revolution not just for the people of Massachusetts but for the cause of Liberty for all mankind, such rights not being temporal but eternal.

Two months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress, under President John Hancock, declared, June 12, 1775: "Congress...considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state...do earnestly recommend, that Thursday, the 12th of July next, be observed by the inhabitants of all the English Colonies on this Continent, as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, that we may with united hearts and voices, unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins and offer up our joint supplications to the All-wise, Omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all Events, humbly beseeching Him to forgive our iniquities... It is recommended to Christians of all denominations to assemble for public worship and to abstain from servile labor and recreations of said day."



Why would the first generation of American Patriots forgo, in the inimitable words of Sam Adams, "the tranquility of servitude" for "the animating contest of freedom"?

The answer to that question — Liberty or Death — defined the spirit of American Patriotism then, as it defines the spirit of American Patriots today. The ideological descendants of those who once pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor "today pledge to support and defend" Liberty as enshrined in our United States Constitution.

In 1776, George Washingtonwrote in his General Orders, "The time is now near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."

Of that resolve, President Ronald Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

[Ender]

It would be hard to be this hypocritical, even if they tried.

Ya think?

And I'd +rep you if I could.