Posted on 04/25/2026 6:37:05 AM PDT by marktwain
During and after the American Revolution, there was no registration of firearms in the colonies that were to become the United States. There is good evidence that handguns were commonly owned during this period.
One of the primary sources comes from records of the occupation of Boston by General Gage, both before and after the battles of Lexington and Concord. The history of these engagements was meticulously recorded by Richard Frothingham in the History of the Siege of Boston, published in 1873. Frothingham used original sources, particularly the Boston Town Meeting Minutes of 22-28 April, 1775, for the numbers of weapons.
After the disastrous battles at Lexington and Concord, which are considered the start of the American Revolution, General Gage was besieged in Boston. There were about 5,000 inhabitants in the city. Food was running short in Boston. Many people wished to leave.
General Gage made a deal with the Selectmen. People could leave the city *if* the inhabitants surrendered their weapons to the town council.
They were to identify themselves so the weapons could be returned later. People leaving the city were thoroughly searched. Even small amounts of food, such as a loaf of bread, were confiscated. It would have been difficult to smuggle out even handguns.
Page 94 from image 118 Frothingham image
The agreement was for “the inhabitants in general”, so it was to encompass all the inhabitants who were not under the control of General Gage. We have the number of arms that were turned in.
From Frothingham image 119, page 95.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
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Total “firearms” by todays standards: 1778 fire-arms (the common musket), 634 pistols and 38 blunderbusses, total of 2,450 from Boston. There were about 5,000 inhabitants at the time.
Registering at the national level came far later. The first federal gun registration in the U.S. was enacted in 1934 through the National Firearms Act (NFA). Aimed at Prohibition-era “gangster weapons,” it required registration of machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and silencers. Earlier localized laws, such as a 1918 Montana law, required reporting some firearms, but the 1934 NFA was the first comprehensive federal registry. So unless it was done at individual state level, nothing was registered before the NFA and very little afterwards (7 states and D.C.)
wy69
Brits, always wanting to confiscate guns. Why? Because they knew what armed citizens might do.
I recently bought a copy of “Arming America” which I haven’t read yet, I’m guessing this won’t be in it.
the atlantic is pushing a story of liberal doctrine to steal if you want to (link: theatlantic.com )
it'd be a real shame if those thieves were to receive swift justice
credit: yellowstone's 1883 s01e01
I think that is Michael A. Bellesiles debunked book.
There are a lot of fake references in that book. They took the Bancroft prize away from him because of all the false allegations and fake references in the book.
You might want to get Armed America by Clayton Cramer. He is the historian who did much to debunk Bellesiles.
https://www.amazon.com/Armed-America-Remarkable-Became-American/dp/1595552847
No, I wanted the original, I remember all the easy debunking from when it came out, not to mention how it flew in the face of the vast history reading of many of us and even common sense.
I thought it might be fun to read it.
It is good to preserve history.
I wonder how much of Chinese and Russian history is lost forever.
Islam also takes great delight in erasing history.
I have an account printed in a book in 1830 of one of my ancestors repelling an attack by Shawnee Indians with a rifle, a musket, and two pistols in 1794.
I would like to read the account.
Where may I find it?
You’d have to be a nitwit to presume they weren’t. It was such a young country, on such a massive an untamed continent, with so many threats to life and property, it’s completely natural that firearms were a necessity of life.
We tend to overlooks the fact that Colonial Americans (many of whom fought for the British) were in posession of lots of firearms that came to them by hook or by crook as a result of the French & Indian War . Regardless of what that retard Joe Bite-Me might say, there were Colonial artillery batteries in the Revolutionary War that were equipped entirely from private collections.
It can be found in “Chronicles of Border Warfare” by Alexander Scott Withers on pages 419 and 420 first published in 1830. Reprints of the book can be found on Amazon.
You really need to read the highly suppressed and now out of print 1982 Senate report on the RKBA. I have a paper copy from the US Government printing office.
Here is an on line copy.
https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html
“The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”
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.”
Paragraph 77 in the link below.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html
Hence the term “brace of pistols”
What astonishes me is the high number of bayonets recorded. I mean, that’s not a hunting implement. Yet that’s about 1 bayonet for every 5 inhabitants. And with the high birthrates of the era, a large proportion of those 5000 inhabitants would have been children, and women half the remainder. So I’m left with the conclusion that the men were armed to the teeth, with more than half of them equipped with bayonets for armed conflict (not bar fights or keeping defending against muggers!)
Bkmk
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