Armed America by Clayton Cramer ~ Book Review

AmmoLand ^ | July 4, 2023 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie by Clayton E. Cramer 300 pages, published in 2006 by Nelson Current.  Currently available at Barnes & Noble for $17.99 paperback and $7.49 ebook.

In 1996, a professor of history at Emory University, Michael A. Bellesiles, published a paper in the Journal of American History which upended traditional thought on guns in American history. The paper claimed guns were not common in the colonial period or in the early Republic, at least before the Mexican War. It was marketed by Samuel Colt, and inexpensive firearms after the Civil War pushed inexpensive firearms onto the market. White on White violence was low in the absence of firearms.  Four years later, Bellesiles published a book with the same theme: Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture.  From Armed America:

Throughout American History , opined Bellesiles, the militia was ineffective; in the Colonial Period, the government tightly regulated gun ownership and use; guns were very scarce before 1840; there was essentially no civilian market for handguns before 1848; violence between whites was rare; few Americans hunted until the 1830s when members of the upper class sought to imitate their British equivalents. 

Clayton E. Cramer was working on his master’s thesis on concealed weapons regulation in the early Republic when the paper came out. It did not comport with his research, at least in the South. When the Bellesiles book was published, Cramer was mystified. Where were the sources Bellesiles claimed to have found, that reversed the understanding of Cramer and generations of historians before him?  Cramer had read many of the sources Bellesiles used from the early Republic.

[marktwain]

Michael A. Bellesiles created one of the greatest frauds in "research" of American history. He claimed guns were rare in Colonial America and in the early republic. It was all lies.

Bellesiles fraud seems almost tame compared to the rewriting of history under the Critical Race Theory.

[Brian Griffin]

“He claimed guns were rare in Colonial America and in the early republic.”

There were wolves, bears and unfriendly Native Americans in rural colonial America.

Not having a gun in the house would have been dangerously stupid.

[GingisK]

Firearms in the hands of private citizens started at Jamestown by necessity.

[jeffc]

...few Americans hunted until the 1830s...

That just does not seem right (although, I wasn't there, so...).

[Brian Griffin]

There is a book called “The Second Amendment Primer” by Les Adams that many here might enjoy reading and owning.

[Brian Griffin]

“Arms and Armor of the Pilgrims, 1620-1692”

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65335/65335-h/65335-h.htm

[uranium penguin]

That is Just embarrasing...

I would suspect that pre civil war.. Guns were completely de-mystified. They were treated and looked at as every other tool.

There was NO need to give them a separate classification. No need to account for them as (again) they were just another inanimate item.

[PapaBear3625]

The anti-gun historians made much of the relative scarcity of mention of firearms in wills.

First, wills were not much in use among the working classes. Second, firearms would have been lumped among household items. Third, older men would have handed off their weapons to their children when they became too old to effectively use them.

[sauropod]

Yep. I remember that.

[marktwain]

Bellesiles simply made up sources, which did not exist. No one has been able to find a great many, especially estate documents.

When you read the actual sources which can be found, most of the time they say the opposite of what Bellesiles claims.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Anyone remember an earlier gun control screed from 1966, THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS by Carl Bakal.

Later published in paper back as NO Right To Keep And Bear Arms.
Saw a copy in a discount bin at a book store back in 1971. Refused to buy it.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Look at early State Supreme Court cases on the RKBA.

From the now out of print and highly suppressed 1982 SENATE REPORT ON THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS (I have a paper copy from the US Government Printing House)

https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html

19th century cases
16. * Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878).

“If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the (p.17)penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.”

17. * Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298, at 300-01 (1878).

“We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. * * * One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation.”

18. * Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 8 Am. Rep. 8, at 17 (1871).

“The passage from Story (Joseph Story: Comments on the Constitution) shows clearly that this right was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights.”

19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).

“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”

And the SCOTUS case that led to the Civil War..

Are Negros citizens...Dred Scott
“It would give to persons of the negro race, who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased.... and it would give them full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.”

[Big Red Badger]

Fascinating link...
Thanks

[gundog]

Per Wikipedia....

Prehistoric evidence of eastern elk from 2500 years ago has been found in Alabama and Delaware. Eastern elk were extirpated from South Carolina in 1737, Georgia in 1770, North Carolina in 1780, Maryland and Vermont in 1800, New Jersey in 1805, Arkansas and Quebec in 1830, Indiana and Ohio in 1840, Louisiana in 1842, New York in 1847, Illinois and Kentucky in 1850, Virginia in 1855, Tennessee in 1865, Pennsylvania in 1868, West Virginia and Wisconsin in 1875, Michigan in 1880, Iowa in 1885, Minnesota in 1896, and Missouri in 1898.[contradictory]

[jeffc]

Interesting. Thanks!