The founders were well aware that the Revolution would have never started or succeeded if the population did not have personal arms. The British commanders were shocked to find armed citizens. It was a bedrock belief that an armed citizenry was the best guarantee against tyranny whatever the source. That was the rational behind the 2nd Amendment. The Left hates it because they fear that their tyranny will be stopped by armed citizens.
“The Left hates it because they fear that their tyranny will be stopped by armed citizens.”
The Left hates it because they KNOW that their tyranny will be stopped by armed citizens.
Fixed it.
“The founders were well aware that the Revolution would have never started or succeeded if the population did not have personal arms. ...” [allendale, post 4]
A conceit widely believed in the United States, but the first part is doubtful, and the second is demonstrably false.
American colonists became more and more vexed over the period 1750-1775 (approximately) because the Imperial British government moved to curtail liberties they had enjoyed since their ancestors began arriving on the Eastern Seaboard 100-plus years earlier: a reversal of British policies that nominally controlled everything but in practice largely left the Colonials to their own devices.
That changed as the machinations of European power politics altered the situation. The Seven Years War marked the greatest departure: Britain emerged victorious and in undisputed control of eastern North America, but its government began taxing the Colonies more (to pay off debts and to get the colonials to pay for their own defense), and banned movement of colonists west of the Appalachians. The British government had made treaties with American Indian tribes who had provided support during the war, in which they agreed to prevent the colonists from invading the natives’ lands.
Up until independence, the Colonials had thought of themselves as British subjects with rights equal to anyone living in the British Isles. Britons looked on the situation differently: to them, the most exalted Colonial was still not equal to the lowliest Briton “back home”. Colonials were beneath contempt ... no one back in England cared whether a colonist was privately armed or not.
Many additional events from 1763 through 1775 riled things still more: Colonial challenges to increasingly stringent British policies ratcheted tensions still higher.
The attempt by British forces to confiscate arms and munitions of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on this date in 1775 was nothing new: the Boston garrison had sortied into the countryside before, but had not confiscated much of anything. This time it became the spark that set off open rebellion, but it is important to recall that the Redcoats moved to seize “officially” held weapons and ammunition in local armories, not privately owned guns.
To address the second aspect:
The fledgling United States did not “win” the American War of Independence. It did not lose. American forces retreated from one defeat to the next, narrowly avoiding annihilation, until the French, then the Spanish and the Dutch, became involved.
Of a sudden, Imperial Britain was faced with a worldwide war against major European powers; the conflict in the Colonies receded in importance. In the final analysis, the British came out of it very well, scoring victories in other theaters. The loss of most of British North America was their only major setback.