Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture

by Michael A. Bellesiles

While gun supporters use the nation's gun-toting history in defense of their way of life, and revolutionary enthusiasts replay skirmishes on historic battlefields, it now turns out that America has not always had a gun culture, and wide-scale gun ownership is much newer than we think. After a 10-year search for "a world that isn't there," professor and scholar Michael Bellesiles discovered that Americans not only rarely owned guns prior to the Civil War, they wouldn't even take them for free from a government that wanted to arm its reluctant public. No sharpshooters, no gun in every home, no children learning to hunt beside their fathers. Bellesiles--whose research methods have generated a great deal of controversy and even a subsequent investigation by Emory University--searched legal, probate, military, and business records; fiction and personal letters; hunting magazines; and legislation in his quest for the legendary gun-wielding frontiersman, only to discover that he is a myth. There are other revelations: gun ownership and storage was strictly legislated in colonial days, and frivolous shooting of a musket was backed by the death penalty; men rarely died in duels because the guns were far too inaccurate (duels were about honor, not murder); pioneers didn't hunt (they trapped and farmed); frontier folk loved books, not guns; and the militia never won a war (it was too inept). In fact, prior to the Civil War, when mass production of higher quality guns became a reality, the republic's greatest problem was a dearth of guns, and a public that was too peaceable to care about civil defense. As Bellesiles writes, "Probably the major reason why the American Revolution lasted eight years, longer than any war in American history before Vietnam, was that when that brave patriot reached above the mantel, he pulled down a rusty, decaying, unusable musket (not a rifle), or found no gun there at all." Strangely, the eagle-eye frontiersman was created by East Coast fiction writers, while the idea of a gun as a household necessity was an advertising ploy of gun maker Samuel Colt (both just prior to the Civil War). The former group fabricated a historic and heroic past while Colt preyed on overblown fears of Indians and blacks.

Bellesiles, who is highly knowledgeable about weapons and military history, never comes out against guns. He is more interested in discovering the truth than in taking sides. Nevertheless, his work shatters some time-honored myths and icons--including the usual reading of the Second Amendment--and will be hard to refute. This fascinating, eye-opening account is sure to both inform and inflame the already highly charged debate about guns in America. --Lesly Reed

Genres: History, Banned Books, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Challenged Books, Social

604 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2000

Reviews

[Varmint · Rating 1 out of 5]

If ever there were a case for book burning.

A friend handed me this book, thinking it would end one of our interminable arguments. The story broke a few days later. The "research" was entirely fabricated. Bellesiles drummed out of his university after being exposed.

It is a fraud from the first word. Even those sympathetic with the motive should be outraged at being so manipulated.

[Danica Midlil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anyone interested in reading this book should first read this article:

http://hnn.us/articles/1185.html


The author lied all the way through the book and when the truth came out, the Bancroft Award was rescinded and he had to leave his job at Emory in shame.

This situtation really made me think about how I choose books to read. I have never before researched the validity of a book before reading it more than reading friend's reviews on Good Reads or something similar. As a consumer of information, I expected the publisher and the world of historical scholars to check all that for me before the book was even published. I find it very disturbing that I was relying on a system that apparently doesn't exist.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

*UPDATED; ADDS REVIEW*
3.0⭐
The problems with this book are well documented. Some argue Bellesiles' errors and falsehoods concerning his premise that wills and probate records from colonial America show that widespread gun ownership did not occur until much later, invalidate the whole book. It's a strong argument but not entirely true. The issue of wills is only a small part of a lavishly researched book. Bellesiles thoroughly documents the relatively high expense of firearms in early America, and many other examples related to accessibility.

An exception, Bellesiles points out, was in slave holding areas, where gun ownership was widespread and in some cases required by law. He also shows restrictions on ownership (gun control) were not unknown in the early United States. He records how general ownership of firearms surged after the Civil War, aided and abetted by marketing campaigns from the likes of Samuel Colt.

Bellesiles issued a revised edition of the book that attempted to correct the inaccuracies but it was, of course, much too late. Embarrassed historians who had initially applauded the book, now understandably rejected it whole cloth, because of the fraudulent research.

Because of the emotionalism surrounding gun ownership in the US, the gun lobby seized on the opportunity to attack anyone who questions the mythic origins of American gun culture as embodied by the minutemen and the musket over the fireplace. Unfortunately, Bellesiles did a huge disservice to history. I can't reccomend this book, even for the majority of it that's accurate.

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is most unfortunate that Bellesiles compromised his scholarly integrity by fudging one stream of data (weapons passed along through probate in the eighteenth century). This opened the door to scrutiny of his research data by other scholars and ultimately the loss of his professorship and standing as a historian. That is as it should be.

But overall, this book contains an extraordinary bit of research and writing on the history of this country's obsession with guns. While the data on probate records represents a very small fraction of the total picture he assembles, he offers a fascinating analysis of historical records that show a picture of this country's history quite different than the one put forth by gun enthusiasts. The fact is, probate record-fudging notwithstanding, this country's origins and expansion beginning from the early seventeenth century do not support the notion that our ancestors were knowledgeable about and competent with the use of firearms. Quite the contrary, it was not until the Civil War that guns were ubiquitous and users were adequately skilled in their use.

This is a big book, in both size and implications for dismantling the myth of gun ownership from our country's beginnings.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is basically sound in both scholarship and presentation.; but its controversial content resulted in the most orchestrated, politicized trashing of an author in American history, comparable to the Soviet mauling of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Bellesiles is an iconoclastic contrarian of '60's mold, and at times - only a few - he may swerve too far in stating his case. But his premise is sound: that early America was not the home of universal firearm ownership, and that its "public liberties" did not flow from the barrel of a privately-owned, unregistered gun.

In a rural, non-manufacturing society like America, colonial and Federal, gun ownsership was equivalent to owning a wagon or horse: an ideal not realized by all, and possessed in modest quantities. The gun as a "consumer item" was not possible until the rise of mass production under the necessity of arming Federal troops for the Civil War.

My own grandfathers' arms history is proof: one lived in Pennsylvania and New England, and never owned a gun. The other, however, grew up in frontier Louisiana, and his "stockpile" consisted of an elderly shotgun and one "Spanish revolver." These were his only firearms, all dating from the 1890s, which he kept his entire life. As a boy in the 1880s he could remember men who still used muzzle-loading rifles, which had been passed on from father to son, and made their own bullets. Thus gun ownership, while more common among American farmers than Europeans, was low-caliber, varied from region to region, and was limited by general poverty.

Further proof that early gun ownership was not as prevalent as Second Amendment hardliners insist: the insurgents of Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts tried to seize the state arsenal to arm their forces. If gun manufacture and dealing were as widespread as the NRA minions declare, why not just purchase these allegedly plentiful weapons on the open market? The same holds with John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry, and the debacle of smuggling arms into Kansas Territory disguised as "Beecher's Bibles." The truth is that the financial and legal freedom to buy and own firearms did not exist in modern form. The gun industry as now known was only beginning and its chief purchasing outlet was the US Army, not the civilian market. Surplus army weapons were the true origin of idealized mass gun ownership.

Thus it's no accident that the "frontier" we see portrayed in TV and film is nearly always confined to the post-Civil War era, the time of Colt "peacemakers" and Winchesters. Whole movies were devoted to "guns that won the West." If a "Western" were (ever) to be made on the Great Lakes Indian wars, or the outlaw gangs of the Old Southwest east of the Mississippi, its writers would be at a loss. Few of the symbols and weapons they associate with the "American frontier" would have been available. One must wonder how much the NRA has influenced the scripting of the very frontier history Bellesiles justifiably took to task.

[Jim]

Do not read. Apparently, Michael Bellesiles lost his Bancroft Prize (and his position at Emory Univ.) for academic dishonesty when it was proven that he invented the "research data".

[Robert Hund]

I could not get started with this book. Random reading failed to uncover anything interesting. However, I deduced the author, his employer (Emory University, Atlanta) and publisher are what my late friend, Jack Bruny, would sarcastically describe as part of a "pinko, red conspiracy" to discredit the National Rifel Association.

I don't take sides on this topic. I also don't want to wast my time reading political propaganda. I did spend several pleasant minutes remembering Jack, his dedication to the ceramic tile and terrazzo business as well as to hunting and fishing, his total recall of everything which had ever happened to him, and his desire to share all of it with his friends. I was fortunate to be his friend.

[Kerri]

I can't give this a rating, due to the controversy surrounding its veracity. I can say that it asked interesting and important questions, and its a shame the answers were thrown into disrepute. I hope that someone, some day, applies more stringent methods to asking these same important questions. Columbine. Aurora. Multiple other such events. Something's very wrong, and its not merely this author's methods.

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Above is the text of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, which has been the justification of (white) gun nuts to be allowed to carry whatever weapons they want, shoot whoever they want without repercussions (Trayvon Martin anyone?) and to accuse you of being anti-American should you suggest that the country consider enacting limits on gun ownership or common sense gun rights legislation. These gun activists have been spurred on by the likes of the late Antonin Scalia, who argued that the contents of the Constitution have one specific meaning, which is idiotic, given just how fluid language can be, especially over a document that has existed for over two centuries ("I've done everything the Bible says Lord," says Ned Flanders, "even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff.") However, Bellesiles, in Arming America tries to address Scalia's interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by giving the historical context in which that statement was written in 1791.

Bellesiles, who wrote a great book on the violence of the year 1877 (which lead me hear) presents us with a very thoroughly researched book about guns in the United States. If you are a gun enthusiast who uses Scalia's "literalist" readings of the Constitution to justify your position, Bellesiles disproves it. Historically speaking, most Americans didn't own guns in 1791, firearm technology was expensive and unreliable (bayonets were the weapons that won wars) and the concept of a militia was a joke--citizens avoided service and the militias at muster were mocked by those observing them. Eventually, Bellesiles tells us that volunteer militias came into existence, but that was more for men to play dress up and feel important (see Trump, Donald for the type.) Eventually, technology catches up just in time for the Civil War and when it is over, America is armed to the teeth, with entrepreneurs like Samuel Colt telling punters that they absolutely need a gun to feel safe (I don't know--it sounds like some dipshit telling us we need to build a wall to keep the dangerous brown people out.) Of course, selling to fear made Colt a rich man. And of course, gun culture wouldn't be complete without some bald racism, with militias basically existing to keep slaves in line and then after the Civil War, armaments helping para-military organizations like the KKK assert their dominance in the south.

The problem with Arming America is that Bellesiles, like most historians, doesn't know how to self edit. He proves the same points over and over again, making reading this book a real slog. And one could also argue that while his logic is sound, his attempt to make the argument is faulty. In the years since Bellesiles published this book, Sandy Hook, Parkland, the Pulse Night Club Shooting, Las Vegas, the Tree of Life, etc., etc. have all happened, as well as Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, etc., etc. The problem with a book like this is that when an asshole with a gun decides he wants to open fire saying "Look, old boy, your concept of American gun culture is totally grounded in incorrect mythology" is not going to disarm that asshole. The myth exists, and the dude with the gun believes it, as well as many other Americans. You just have to hope they aren't aiming at you.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 1 out of 5]

read the wikipedia page on the book
and the amazon reviews
and the wikipedia article on the Second Amendment

[and the amazon of his later books, which still have some amazing statements, which get shot down
before you even think of starting it. In A People's History of the U.S. Military, Bellesiles totally gets the tale of the blowing up a bridge in the Korean War wrong, so beware!]

oh heck read all the stories you can about the guy, and all his books

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What i think is interesting about him is that he got me to consider how we overplay the militia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_...
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The Second Ammendment - wikipedia

The first test of the militia system occurred in July 1794, when a group of disaffected Pennsylvania farmers rebelled against federal tax collectors whom they viewed as illegitimate tools of tyrannical power.

Attempts by the four adjoining states to raise a militia for nationalization to suppress the insurrection proved inadequate. When officials resorted to drafting men, they faced bitter resistance. Forthcoming soldiers consisted primarily of draftees or paid substitutes as well as poor enlistees lured by enlistment bonuses. The officers, however, were of a higher quality, responding out of a sense of civic duty and patriotism, and generally critical of the rank and file.

Most of the 13,000 soldiers lacked the required weaponry; the war department provided nearly two-thirds of them with guns.

In October, President George Washington and General Harry Lee marched on the 7,000 rebels who conceded without fighting. The episode provoked criticism of the citizen militia and inspired calls for a universal militia. Secretary of War Henry Knox and Vice President John Adams had lobbied Congress to establish federal armories to stock imported weapons and encourage domestic production.

Congress did subsequently pass "[a]n act for the erecting and repairing of Arsenals and Magazines" on April 2, 1794, two months prior to the insurrection.

Nevertheless, the militia continued to deteriorate and twenty years later, the militia's poor condition contributed to several losses in the War of 1812, including the sacking of Washington, D.C., and the burning of the White House in 1814.

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The War of 1812 - wikipedia

The United States Army was initially much larger than the British Army in North America. Many men carried their own long rifles while the British were issued muskets, except for one unit of 500 riflemen. Leadership was inconsistent in the American officer corps as some officers proved themselves to be outstanding, but many others were inept, owing their positions to political favours.

Congress was hostile to a standing army and the government called out 450,000 men from the state militias during the war.

The state militias were poorly trained, armed, and led. The failed invasion of Lake Champlain led by General Dearborn illustrates this. The British Army soundly defeated the Maryland and Virginia militias at the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814 and President Madison commented

"I could never have believed so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I had not witnessed the scenes of this day".

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Unpreparedness

The United States was also not prepared for war. Madison had assumed that the state militias would easily seize Canada and that negotiations would follow.

n 1812, the regular army consisted of fewer than 12,000 men. Congress authorized the expansion of the army to 35,000 men, but the service was voluntary and unpopular; it paid poorly and there were initially few trained and experienced officers.

The militia objected to serving outside their home states, they were undisciplined and performed poorly against British forces when called upon to fight in unfamiliar territory.

Multiple militia refused orders to cross the border and fight on Canadian soil.

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New England failed to provide militia units or financial support, which was a serious blow, and New England states made loud threats to secede as evidenced by the Hartford Convention.

Britain exploited these divisions, blockading only southern ports for much of the war and encouraging smuggling.

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Militia_(United_States) - wikipedia

Confederation period (1783–1787)

Politically, the militia was highly popular during the postwar period, though to some extent, based more on pride of victory in the recent war than on the realities.

Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value:

"While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare.

"State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."

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Early republic (1801–1812)
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States-based militia system.

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War of 1812 (1812–1815)

In the War of 1812, the United States militia, because of a lack of discipline and poor training, were often routed in battle on open ground by well trained and equipped British regulars.

They fared better and proved more reliable when protected behind defensive entrenchments and fixed fortifications, as was effectively shown at Plattsburgh, Baltimore, and New Orleans.

Because of their overall ineffectiveness and failure during the war, militias were not adequate for the national defense.

Military budgets were greatly increased at this time and a smaller, standing federal army, rather than States' militias, was deemed better for the national defense.

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Antebellum era (1815–1861)

Joseph Story laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:

"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights."

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American Civil War

At the beginning of the American Civil War, neither the North or the South was nearly well enough prepared for war, and few people imagined the demands and hardships the war would bring.

Just prior to the war the total peacetime army consisted of a paltry 16,000 men. Both sides issued an immediate call to forces from the militia, followed by the immediate awareness of an acute shortage of weapons, uniforms, and trained officers.

State militia regiments were of uneven quality, and none had anything resembling combat training.

The typical militia drilling at the time amounted to, at best, parade-ground marching.

The militia units, from local communities, had never drilled together as a larger regiment, and thus lacked the extremely important skill, critically necessary for the war style of the time, of maneuvering from a marching line into a fighting line.

Yet both sides were equally unready, and rushed to prepare.

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Reconstruction era

With passage of federal reconstruction laws between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the former rebel states and ordered elections to be held.

These elections were the first in which African Americans could vote. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units.

The majority of militiamen were black.

Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.

In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia, despite the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia.

These groups engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.

"...the militia companies were composed almost entirely of Negroes and their marching and counter-marching through the country drove the white people to frenzy. Even a cool-headed man like General George advised the Democrats to form military organizations that should be able to maintain a front against the negro militia. Many indications pointed to trouble. A hardware merchant of Vicksburg reported that with the exceptions of the first year of the war his trade had never been so brisk. It was said that 10,000 Spencer rifles had been brought into the State."

The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs, typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections.

This was the case in the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi.

An eyewitness account:

"I found the town in great excitement; un-uniformed militia were parading the streets, both white and colored. I found that the white people—democrats—were very much excited in consequence of the governor organizing the militia force of the state... I found that these people were determined to resist his marching the militia (to Clinton) with arms, and they threatened to kill his militiamen."

Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five black people.

Reaction to this riot was mixed

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The takeaway is that it's pretty interesting how people today think militias and arms were much more powerful than they really were. When you had people more with pikes, axes and knives, and the few with muskets that could hit the side of a barn at 30 feet weren't all that effective. Assuming the militia showed up, or didn't run away, or were disbanded.

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Battles of Lexington and Concord - wikipedia

The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.

The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America.

In late 1774, Colonial leaders adopted the Suffolk Resolves in resistance to the alterations made to the Massachusetts colonial government by the British parliament following the Boston Tea Party.

The colonial assembly responded by forming a Patriot provisional government known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and calling for local militias to train for possible hostilities.

The Colonial government exercised effective control of the colony outside of British-controlled Boston. In response, the British government in February 1775 declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion.

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About 700 British Army regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy Colonial military supplies reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord.

Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battle, warning of the British expedition had been rapidly sent from Boston to militias in the area by several riders, including Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, with information about British plans.


The first shots were fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. Eight militiamen were killed, including Ensign Robert Munroe, their third in command.

The British suffered only one casualty. The militia was outnumbered and fell back, and the regulars proceeded on to Concord, where they broke apart into companies to search for the supplies.

At the North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 regulars from three companies of the King's troops at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered regulars fell back from the bridge and rejoined the main body of British forces in Concord.

The British forces began their return march to Boston after completing their search for military supplies, and more militiamen continued to arrive from the neighboring towns.

Gunfire erupted again between the two sides and continued throughout the day as the regulars marched back towards Boston. Upon returning to Lexington, Lt. Col. Smith's expedition was rescued by reinforcements under Brigadier General Hugh Percy, a future Duke of Northumberland styled at this time by the courtesy title Earl Percy. The combined force of about 1,700 men marched back to Boston under heavy fire in a tactical withdrawal and eventually reached the safety of Charlestown.

The accumulated militias then blockaded the narrow land accesses to Charlestown and Boston, starting the siege of Boston.

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Background

The colonists had been forming militias since the very beginnings of Colonial settlement for the purpose of defense against Indian attacks. These forces also saw action in the French and Indian War between 1754 and 1763 when they fought alongside British regulars.

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Lexington

Although often styled a battle, in reality, the engagement at Lexington was a minor brush or skirmish.

As the regulars' advance guard under Pitcairn entered Lexington at sunrise on April 19, 1775, about 80 Lexington militiamen emerged from Buckman Tavern and stood in ranks on the village common watching them, and between 40 and 100 spectators watched from along the side of the road

Their leader was Captain John Parker, a veteran of the French and Indian War, who was suffering from tuberculosis and was at times difficult to hear. Of the militiamen who lined up, nine had the surname Harrington, seven Munroe (including the company's orderly sergeant, William Munroe), four Parker, three Tidd, three Locke, and three Reed; fully one-quarter of them were related to Captain Parker in some way. This group of militiamen was part of Lexington's "training band", a way of organizing local militias dating back to the Puritans, and not what was styled a minuteman company.

After having waited most of the night with no sign of any British troops (and wondering if Paul Revere's warning was true), at about 4:15 a.m., Parker got his confirmation.[45] Thaddeus Bowman, the last scout that Parker had sent out, rode up at a gallop and told him that they were not only coming but coming in force and they were close.

Captain Parker was clearly aware that he was outmatched in the confrontation and was not prepared to sacrifice his men for no purpose.

He knew that most of the colonists' powder and military supplies at Concord had already been hidden. No war had been declared. (The Declaration of Independence was more than fourteen months in the future.)

He also knew the British had gone on such expeditions before in Massachusetts, found nothing, and marched back to Boston.

Parker had every reason to expect that to occur again. The Regulars would march to Concord, find nothing, and return to Boston, tired but empty-handed. He positioned his company carefully. He placed them in parade-ground formation, on Lexington Common. They were in plain sight (not hiding behind walls), but not blocking the road to Concord.

They made a show of political and military determination, but no effort to prevent the march of the Regulars.

Many years later, one of the participants recalled Parker's words as being what is now engraved in stone at the site of the battle: "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

According to Parker's sworn deposition taken after the battle:

"I ... ordered our Militia to meet on the Common in said Lexington to consult what to do, and concluded not to be discovered, nor meddle or make with said Regular Troops (if they should approach) unless they should insult or molest us; and, upon their sudden Approach, I immediately ordered our Militia to disperse, and not to fire:—Immediately said Troops made their appearance and rushed furiously, fired upon, and killed eight of our Party without receiving any Provocation therefor from us."
— John Parker

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First shot

According to one member of Parker's militia, none of the Americans had discharged their muskets as they faced the oncoming British troops. The British did suffer one casualty, a slight wound.

Witnesses at the scene described several intermittent shots fired from both sides before the lines of regulars began to fire volleys without receiving orders to do so. A few of the militiamen believed at first that the regulars were only firing powder with no ball, but when they realized the truth, few if any of the militia managed to load and return fire. The rest ran for their lives.

"We Nathaniel Mulliken, Philip Russell, [and 32 other men ...] do testify and declare, that on the nineteenth in the morning, being informed that ... a body of regulars were marching from Boston towards Concord ... About five o'clock in the morning, hearing our drum beat, we proceeded towards the parade, and soon found that a large body of troops were marching towards us, some of our company were coming to the parade, and others had reached it, at which time, the company began to disperse, whilst our backs were turned on the troops, we were fired on by them, and a number of our men were instantly killed and wounded, not a gun was fired by any person in our company on the regulars to our knowledge before they fired on us, and continued firing until we had all made our escape."

The regulars then charged forward with bayonets. Captain Parker's cousin Jonas was run through.

Eight Lexington men were killed, and ten were wounded.

The only British casualty was a soldier who was wounded in the thigh.

[Dan Downing · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aaargh. Everything here is problematic. Okay, start at the beginning, I tell myself.
In 2012 I wandered around the yearly Fair one of the hospitals holds. It has a Book Booth, full of garbage mixed with gems.

That year I came home with a dozen books, all quite nicely preserved, all cost one dollar. "Arming America" addressed a long time pastime of mine, guns, and had a wonderful painting reproduced on the cover. I've been looking at the smaller repro on the spine for eight years. I chose to read it a few days ago. The book is 20 years old.
It started off as intriguing and well written. Not grandly written, but better than a lot of histories manage. And it did appear to be a work of history. One hundred-fifty pages of Notes, an Index, a swell Acknowledgments, and a ten-page Appendix stocked with charts and statistics. After about 70-80 pages I browsed those back of the book sections. That is where the trouble started.

I have been reading "The American Rifleman" for years and years. You do that as part of your NRA membership. As the decades have gone by I have become more and more disgusted with the paranoia and cant which fills part of each issue, especially the enhanced political action section. The 'anti-gun lobby' simply can not be all that intent on totally banning guns or taking mine away. Nor yours. Added to the facts of gun death in America, whether suicides or crime or cops or hunting mishaps, the flat absolute support of the Second Amendment becomes ludicrous. It soon became clear, from the text and from the blurbs on the back of the dust jacket, that there was an anti-gun flavor to "Arming America". I was willing to risk it. And the author's purported thesis was not wholly absurd. He contends that, in essence, the American gun adventure really began in the nineteenth century, during and around the Civil War. Before that guns, that is, muzzleloaders, were not that common among the general populace. He goes well back into European history to build the basis for his argument. It is a strong and persuasive case. But then one looks at the charts in the back.
As I poured over those numbers I became mystified. Usually I enjoy stacks of numbers and they make ideas clearer. Not here. Things became confused. The basis for such confusion rests in the belief one has in the integrity of the material being read. If one realizes one is reading crap, as in many NRA articles, one accounts for the confusion. But this was supposed to be massively researched and documented material.

This may be the longest 'review' in Goodreads I have ever offered. I'll cut to the chase. I became worried, distrustful. Well after the mid-point I resorted to Google. I discovered the book had won awards and pulled fire from the NRA. Then it drew criticism from historians, resulting in the withdrawal of the prestigious Bancroft Prize and the writer's resignation from his post at Emory University. Wikipedia describes the book as 'discredited'. That all is sad. Certain types of data were fudged by Dr. Bellesiles but much of the data and many of the ideas hold up to scrutiny. Enough so that being anti-gun cannot be offhandedly equated with being anti-American, as often happens. But since dissecting out the rotten meat requires expertise beyond the general reader the whole mess needs to be taken down to the lowest notch, in this case One Star.

[Jud Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read the book twice -- once when it first appeared and again just recently -- I can judge the book completely advised of its faults. In short, Bellesiles' theory that the Civil War (roughly) coincided with a watershed that carried with it a "gun culture" in the United States is overly cumbersome and inadequately delineated. His summation in the epiloque is that the watershed represents a transition from the gun as a "tool" to one as a "perceived necessity." The problem with this is that "gun" all by itself is an over-broad category. Different types of guns relate in different ways to different parts of American culture. "Gun" counts carried out by state military departments probably undercounted personal hunting guns, e.g. fowling pieces; similarly the considerable difference in ease of use and effectiveness of a sidearm before and after the development of the Colt revolver: how did technology influence the degree of pistol ownership?

I would like to have seen him narrow his focus, e.g. on what made it more or less difficult -- before and after 1776, say, or 1792, and up to, say, 1836 -- to keep a theoretically-universal, plain-vanilla citizen militia (not volunteer riflemen) reliably outfitted with muskets, the standard military issue of the time. Maybe somebody has already written that book. But the point is a more narrowly-conceived thesis is harder to hit than the broad side of a barn.

[Harvey Keck · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find no justification for reading this excuse for scholarship.
I recall Doctor Bellesiles' reaction to what I remember was Mr. Clayton Cramer's findings.
Cramer recounted his experience in checking the citations in Bellesiles' “scholarly work”:

"I sat down with a list of bizarre, amazing claims that Bellesiles had made, and started chasing down the citations at Sonoma State University’s library. I found quotations out of context that completely reversed the author’s original intent. I found dates changed. I found the text of statutes changed — and the changes completely reversed the meaning of the law. It took me twelve hours of hunting before I found a citation that was completely correct." 

Bellesiles responded by looking down his Ph. D. nose at this non-academic, a mere M. A. who dared to challenge his lofty academic credentials.
Soon enough, Columbia University corrected their mistake and revoked the Bancroft Prize.

[Joanne G. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author created and distorted resources. As a result, Mr. Bellesiles had to resign his tenured position from Emory University.

Since the book’s publication, scholars who have checked the book’s
claims against its sources have uncovered an almost unprecedented number
of discrepancies, errors, and omissions.

http://www.yalelawjournal.org/review/...

https://fee.org/articles/no-gun-cultu...

[Erin]

Started reading because it appeared on a list of banned books. 24 hours later I learn there is some controversy over the veracity of some data and that Bellesiles subsequently resigned from his professorship at Emory.
Continuing reading while I investigate the situation. If the book was banned for its liberalism, I may continue to read with a different slant to my skepticism. If banned for being made up, I may abandon.

[♡ Kristina]

Banned Books 2004
Reasons: inaccurate, political viewpoint

Banned Books 2003
Reason: inaccuracy

[BB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Arming America presents itself as a fearless challenge to one of the most persistent stories in the United States. The book insists that early Americans lived in a world where firearms were scarce, unreliable, and largely unimportant. It also insists that the romantic image of an armed and self-reliant population is a much later invention. On the surface this sounds fresh and even necessary. Many readers appreciate a historian who is willing to question national mythology.

The book’s central weakness appears as soon as it tries to prove its case. The main body of evidence comes from probate inventories and other records that are supposed to show how few guns existed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet the data that support this claim crumble under scrutiny. Scholars who attempted to check the sources reported arithmetic errors, misread documents, and patterns that made little sense. Some records could not be located at all. Other examples seem to have been interpreted in ways that fit the argument too neatly.

The controversy that followed publication overwhelmed the book itself. What began as a bold reinterpretation of American history ended as a public unravelling of evidence and method. The prize awarded to the book, was later withdrawn. The publisher pulled the original edition. These events created an atmosphere of distrust that lingers even today. Readers now approach the book not as a serious revision of the past but as an object lesson in how scholarship can go wrong.
Despite these flaws, the book still contains moments that invite thought. It encourages readers to reflect on the power of national mythmaking and on the ease with which stories about identity become fixed in the public mind. Yet a work that aims to dismantle old legends must maintain a level of precision that this book does not achieve. The revised edition confirms this problem. Once the disputed data are removed, the remaining argument feels thin and incomplete.
Arming America might have changed the conversation about the origins of gun culture in the United States. Instead, it became a cautionary episode in the history of academic writing. The ambition was enormous. The execution never matched it. Hope Bellesiles rewrites it as he is a good writer.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book serves its purpose well, easily killing off the myth that, from long before the foundling of the republic, Americans had been gun toting sharpshooters ready to defend the country at the drop of a hat. Quite the opposite, really. Further, it turns out that guns were about as scarce as the gold and gems the original settlers he hoped to find on arrival in the New World. Even if they wanted to own guns, they were too expensive to buy and too rare to purchase, even if one had money. And nobody was a sharpshooter. Nobody. The guns were too shitty, powder too unavailable and expensive to practice target shooting, and even more damning, folks were too busy tending farms where meat was far more easily procured than in a time-wasting hunt for some animal with less edible meat than a fattened sow.

For all its myth-busting, though, it was kinda boring. The book often reads like a never-ending list. Sure, the documentation well supports the thesis, but the flair, the muscular prose is lacking and lulls one to sleep. But hey, lots of great sources to refer to in the bibliography!

[David Bradshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks NRA for finding one chart that was off - the text is spot on- the civil war which the South continues to fight began the arming

[Jill Cordry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and insightful, but too repetitious.

[Alex]

Arming America : The Origins of a National Gun Culture by Michael Bellesiles (2000)

[Edward Sullivan]

The myth of America's gun culture exposed in this exceptionally scholarly work.

[Manintheboat · Rating 1 out of 5]

So it's a fraud eh? Is that why it's on the Banned Book list?

This is a big book. I read like 100 pages because it is not a topic that interests me and this book did not make me interested in it.

[Mason Sykes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It disproves the NRA gun-filled-violent-west-we've-always-been-barbarians version of history to an astonishing degree. I like it!