Louder with Crowder - The Second Amendment: American Masterclass with Historian David Barton | Louder With Crowder

00:00:00.000 The Second Amendment, the God-given right of American citizens to keep and bear arms, is as American as apple pie.

00:00:09.000 It's integral.

00:00:11.000 And that was true when it was enshrined by our founders on December 15th, 1791, and it was certainly true five years ago when I first brought you this installment.

00:00:21.000 I would argue it's just as important today when you have a sitting former vice president threatening to take out his own citizens with an F-35.

00:00:29.000 Why he picked the F-35, I don't know.

00:00:32.000 Couldn't tell you.

00:00:33.000 The Second Amendment has been the undeniable bedrock of this country since its founding and with good reason.

00:00:43.000 But a lot of people don't know the reason or the context.

00:00:49.000 Hopefully this helps.

00:00:57.000 I don't know which installment this is or what order we'll be going in doing different parts on American history with David Barton of Wall Builders.

00:01:04.000 If you're not familiar with him, he has a bunch of artifacts here.

00:01:07.000 You kind of like the queue of American history artifacts.

00:01:11.000 We'll be doing a few different segments, American, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and today we wanted to get into the Second Amendment.

00:01:17.000 So I know you have a lot of historical documents here, some cool old guns, which I assume I can't touch.

00:01:21.000 No, you're welcome to touch them.

00:01:22.000 Really?

00:01:23.000 Yeah, we love people touching these guns.

00:01:25.000 You'll regret that immediately.

00:01:28.000 So, let's start off with this.

00:01:29.000 A lot of people have different interpretations of the Second Amendment.

00:01:33.000 For example, it was only for the militia.

00:01:35.000 Was it only for a militia exclusively, or what constitutes it?

00:01:39.000 Back to the philosophy.

00:01:40.000 The philosophy was every human has a certain set of natural rights.

00:01:44.000 And those natural rights are what you find throughout nature.

00:01:47.000 So when you get into nature, three things you'll find.

00:01:50.000 If you start messing with an animal, they will defend their lives, they will defend their family, and they will defend their property.

00:01:56.000 I don't care if it's a horse or a dog or a cat or a mountain lion or a bear.

00:01:59.000 So there is a natural right of self-defense.

00:02:02.000 From that, they said, okay, every individual has the right, a God-given, natural right to defend yourself.

00:02:07.000 That's something government can't regulate.

00:02:09.000 And by the way, you can defend yourself individually, or you can defend yourself corporately.

00:02:13.000 Was that Kung Fu when you did this?

00:02:14.000 I thought you were going to... Yeah, okay, that was a little Steven Seagal action.

00:02:17.000 That's right, that's right.

00:02:18.000 We'll just have one of my stunt doubles walk in. 1.00

00:02:19.000 I learned from Chuck Norris.

00:02:20.000 Did you?

00:02:21.000 Okay, yeah.

00:02:21.000 I would imagine that you guys are fans.

00:02:24.000 Okay, so natural rights.

00:02:25.000 And by the way, that's also something you talk about quite a bit.

00:02:27.000 These are not rights given by government.

00:02:29.000 They're just recognized by government.

00:02:30.000 They're recognized by government.

00:02:31.000 They're to be protected by government.

00:02:33.000 That's what the Declaration says.

00:02:34.000 And so that right to self-defense can be individually or it can be as a herd of elk.

00:02:41.000 So, I can corporately get all my neighbors together to defend something, or I can say, I'll take care of it myself.

00:02:46.000 I got this.

00:02:47.000 So, that's what the Second Amendment does. 0.96

00:02:49.000 It has an individual part, and it has a corporate part.

00:02:52.000 I have the individual right to self-defense, and I have a corporate right of self-defense.

00:02:57.000 And the recognition was, we don't care where the danger comes from.

00:03:00.000 It might come from our own government, which is what happened back then.

00:03:03.000 It might come from gangs in the neighborhood. 0.99

00:03:05.000 It might come from a crazy neighbor or a crazy uncle.

00:03:08.000 So, whether it's me or Well, all of us, we've got a right to individually and to corporately do it.

00:03:14.000 And that's why it's interesting they had no limitations, really, on what you could use to defend yourself.

00:03:19.000 Well, I want to get into that in a second.

00:03:20.000 That's also, I think, a quote from Mason, if I'm not mistaken.

00:03:22.000 He said, well, who is the militia?

00:03:24.000 It's the entire people, of course.

00:03:26.000 Well, here's a great book.

00:03:27.000 This early book.

00:03:29.000 This is from Virginia.

00:03:30.000 This is the laws they had in 1819.

00:03:32.000 And it says, if you're 16 all the way up to 45, you're the militia.

00:03:38.000 Every city, every town, every community, 16 to 45, you're that militia. 0.97

00:03:42.000 So that's how informal the organization was.

00:03:44.000 But the law says... Were women included? 1.00

00:03:47.000 Women were often included, but not in the law. 0.99

00:03:50.000 It was people 16 to 45, but women.

00:03:52.000 And it was real common to have women with arms, and in the revolution that was not an

00:03:57.000 unusual thing for women to carry arms. 1.00

00:03:59.000 So that was pretty much, they would do that.

00:04:01.000 Okay, so we actually have a great story of what's called the Army of Two in the War of

00:04:05.000 1812, where two girls took on a British regiment and won.

00:04:08.000 And so it's a great story.

00:04:09.000 They turned that into a film, and one of them was played by Michael Cera.

00:04:12.000 It was very, it was wildly popular.

00:04:14.000 Yeah, straight to DVD.

00:04:16.000 So do we have Blu-ray, whatever it is now, I have no idea.

00:04:20.000 So these are the books.

00:04:21.000 Can you read us some examples of the laws in there?

00:04:23.000 Yeah, I'll just read you some example of this law and what's required.

00:04:27.000 If you want to get in and get up close, you can do that too.

00:04:31.000 So, this is all over the state of Virginia, whatever community you live in.

00:04:35.000 It says, in every citizen so enrolled to notify Shell within nine months or after, provide himself at his own expense with a good musket or firelock, with a priming wire and brush, a sufficient bayonet and belt, with a cartouche box, and three pounds of lead, bullets suitable to the bore of his musket or firelock, a good horn containing one pound of powder, and four spare flints, and Shell appears so armed, accounted and provided, when called out to exercise your duty, No, no, no.

00:04:59.000 As a matter of fact, one of the fun stories of the American Revolution is a guy named Samuel Whitmore.

00:05:02.000 and now here's all the stuff you gotta have.

00:05:04.000 You gotta be well armed.

00:05:06.000 Now what if you're above the cutoff of 45?

00:05:08.000 You're still well armed.

00:05:09.000 No, no, no.

00:05:10.000 Matter of fact, one of the fun stories of the American Revolution is a guy named Samuel Whitmore.

00:05:17.000 And what happened was the first battle of the revolution The second is Concord.

00:05:23.000 And so after the British have been hit at Lexington and at Concord, they start marching back to Boston.

00:05:28.000 And as they're doing so, they're just shooting Americans along the way.

00:05:32.000 There were 4,500 Americans lined up along the road on the way back to Boston shooting at them, and they're just taking everything out.

00:05:37.000 So the word goes ahead of the British. 0.91

00:05:39.000 700, 800 British coming, you guys clear your houses because they're just taking people down. 1.00

00:05:44.000 Old man, 80 years old, Samuel, he said, well not my house.

00:05:48.000 So he goes inside, he gets his musket, he charges it, primes it, loads it, he gets two pistols, primes it, loads it, he sticks a sword in his belt, he walks outside, sees 800 British coming at him, ups with his musket, shoots one, drops it, ups with two pistols, shoots them.

00:06:01.000 Okay, so now we're left with 700 Still seems like a problem.

00:06:05.000 It is a problem.

00:06:06.000 He goes two more, he kills two more with his pistols.

00:06:09.000 Eighty-year-old guy, he pulls his sword out and charges the British. 0.96

00:06:12.000 One guy going at him.

00:06:13.000 So, they have lost three of their comrades right there on the front line. 0.99

00:06:17.000 They promptly up and shoot him right in the face, square in the face. 0.95

00:06:21.000 And, of course, he hits the ground. 0.98

00:06:22.000 That's it.

00:06:23.000 They stand over him, bayonet him 13 times.

00:06:25.000 Then they took the butt of the rifle and just cracked his skull, crushed his skull.

00:06:29.000 They keep moving.

00:06:29.000 We've shown you don't want to mess with us.

00:06:32.000 The neighbors heard the shooting over at old man Whitmore's house and came to look and when they got there, he's lying there in a pool of blood.

00:06:40.000 Reloading his guns to get another shot off as a British reliever.

00:06:43.000 He lived another 18 years.

00:06:45.000 After they butted him in the face and bayoneted him 13 times?

00:06:49.000 13 times. 0.77

00:06:49.000 And shot him in the face, butted him in the face. 0.77

00:06:52.000 He lived another 18 years. 0.97

00:06:53.000 There's a great tombstone to him there, 98 years old.

00:06:56.000 He finally dies after having been... So, you didn't get rid of your guns.

00:07:01.000 I mean, there was no point in life... Or Whitmore! 1.00

00:07:03.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:07:04.000 He's like the Candyman.

00:07:05.000 You say his name three times in the mirror, he's still liable to show.

00:07:08.000 Oh, he could be.

00:07:09.000 He could live forever.

00:07:10.000 On the other end, you've got John Quincy Adams, when he's eight years old, is with the Massachusetts Minutemen, performs all the drills, does all the musket stuff.

00:07:18.000 So, Lexington Green, all that stuff, he's out at eight years old, getting ready for all of that.

00:07:23.000 So, whether you're eight or whether you're 80 or 98, it doesn't matter.

00:07:27.000 So that kind of brings us to the next question.

00:07:29.000 You hear this quite a bit.

00:07:30.000 Everything you've just talked about, muskets or single-shot pistols.

00:07:33.000 A lot of people say if the Second Amendment were written today it would be different because they didn't take into account, for example, firearms that might have had higher capacity or were more effective.

00:07:43.000 Do you have any answers for those folks?

00:07:44.000 Yeah, you remember they had 10-shot muskets.

00:07:46.000 Remember the muskets they used back then?

00:07:48.000 Yeah.

00:07:48.000 Not quite.

00:07:49.000 Well, no, I remember they all said the pepper box revolver, right?

00:07:51.000 They did.

00:07:52.000 The puckle gun, the Giandoni air rifle.

00:07:54.000 See, the deal was you have a right to defend yourself.

00:07:56.000 Right.

00:07:57.000 Whatever you have a right.

00:07:58.000 So, the biggest weapon of that day would have been a cannon.

00:08:01.000 Yes.

00:08:02.000 Hands down, cannon.

00:08:04.000 You're allowed, as a citizen, to own cannons.

00:08:06.000 Yes, that was the letter of mark and appraisal to... was it from... Well, you have Madison, you have all the... As a matter of fact... Yeah, was it Madison?

00:08:15.000 Well, when you go back in state laws, state laws provide for it.

00:08:17.000 So the Founding Fathers talked about it because what they did was say, hey, don't set your cannon off within a mile of town.

00:08:23.000 We're tired of town getting blown up.

00:08:26.000 But you can have a cannon.

00:08:28.000 Whatever the government had, you could have.

00:08:30.000 Right.

00:08:30.000 And that was the belief, because we might have to take on the government someday.

00:08:34.000 We hope that never happens.

00:08:35.000 But in case it does, we defend ourselves from anything that comes after us, whether it's from foreign or domestic, whether it's a gang, whether it's the government, whether it's, again, a crazy uncle.

00:08:44.000 We don't care.

00:08:45.000 So for them, there was no limitation on what you could use or how you could defend yourself.

00:08:50.000 And if your uncle were Sam Whitmore, you were out of luck.

00:08:53.000 I didn't pull out the laws on the cannons.

00:08:55.000 Mark and Reprisal, this was a letter that was sent to a private ship, right?

00:08:55.000 There are a number of them.

00:08:59.000 Where you said, yeah, you know, of course you guys have the right to cannons, but

00:09:02.000 do you have some of the laws here that you said some... I didn't pull out the laws

00:09:05.000 on the cannons. There are a number of them. Pretty easy to Google and search

00:09:08.000 and see the...

00:09:09.000 And actually, there were some 1830 decisions where certain towns said, we're not allowing you to have cannons, we're not allowing you to have these weapons, and the court struck it down and said, you can't do that.

00:09:19.000 You can't put a limitation on how people defend themselves.

00:09:21.000 Those almost sound like Black Cat laws, like don't light off the cherry bombs on the 4th 0.92

00:09:25.000 of July if you're on this side of the county line because it's more of a noise ordinance.

00:09:28.000 That's right.

00:09:29.000 It's more of a noise ordinance rather than controlling it.

00:09:31.000 And there was fireworks, they had what they called squibs and crackers, what John Adams

00:09:34.000 called them.

00:09:35.000 And there were fireworks ordinances.

00:09:36.000 Don't do them in town.

00:09:37.000 You keep burning down the barn, you know, quit.

00:09:40.000 So they were okay with cannons, though.

00:09:41.000 They were okay with cannons.

00:09:42.000 And that would be our equivalent of high capacity magazines or machine guns or anything else.

00:09:47.000 That would be equivalent to a tank.

00:09:48.000 It could be equivalent to a tank.

00:09:50.000 Wow.

00:09:51.000 That's remarkable.

00:09:52.000 And yes, we don't have all of those, Doc.

00:09:53.000 You have a lot.

00:09:54.000 But I'm sure a lot of those are very expensive.

00:09:55.000 We've got a lot of them back in the archives.

00:09:57.000 We've got thousands and thousands and thousands.

00:09:59.000 Okay.

00:10:00.000 But you were about to grab something.

00:10:01.000 It looked like the weapon that Mel Gibson used.

00:10:03.000 You're going to have trouble with this.

00:10:04.000 But I mean, try hiding these on your persons.

00:10:06.000 You can carry all of these anywhere you go.

00:10:09.000 And these are all American Revolution weapons.

00:10:11.000 So if you want a battle axe, I think that would take your shorts down, what's left of

00:10:15.000 them.

00:10:16.000 You wouldn't have anything.

00:10:18.000 That's actually how we trim these. 0.52

00:10:19.000 Available at lotofthecratershop.com.

00:10:21.000 We have someone hand axe them. 0.98

00:10:24.000 Wow, and this is made of what?

00:10:25.000 That is iron, and that is a battle hatchet that is used in the Revolution.

00:10:29.000 So, again, whatever you have that's not a problem with that.

00:10:32.000 You can have the regular dirt knives.

00:10:34.000 That's a 10-inch blade from the American Revolution.

00:10:37.000 You can stick this in the end of your musket and have your own little bayonet knife and whatever.

00:10:44.000 These are pistols from back in the Revolution, and these are battle axes from back there.

00:10:48.000 Well, and I can see this pistol here, so I'll be very careful.

00:10:50.000 You still have to practice good trigger discipline even if it probably hasn't worked in 150 years.

00:10:55.000 Well, it's interesting.

00:10:58.000 I have a great letter here from John Quincy Adams who talks about how his kids are now 10 years old and I want them trained on the use of guns.

00:11:06.000 He says because accidental deaths happen because you don't know how to use guns.

00:11:10.000 They don't come from misfiring and firing the wrong stuff.

00:11:12.000 And I'm pretty familiar with firearms.

00:11:14.000 Wouldn't know the first thing about how to get this to work.

00:11:17.000 Do you have any functioning?

00:11:18.000 Oh, yes.

00:11:18.000 Let me grab one here.

00:11:19.000 I'm going to grab right behind.

00:11:20.000 Well, don't fire it in the building.

00:11:22.000 No, we're not going to fire it.

00:11:23.000 Let's respect the ordinance in here.

00:11:26.000 Oh, OK.

00:11:26.000 I saw a Christmas story.

00:11:27.000 There you go.

00:11:29.000 So what you get is this musket, nice little 78 caliber smoothbore.

00:11:33.000 Yeah.

00:11:34.000 So you see how large it is.

00:11:36.000 We're not going to prime it and set it off.

00:11:37.000 But what you would do, you cock it back.

00:11:39.000 And by the way, just for grins, there's two positions on this.

00:11:44.000 That's half cocked.

00:11:45.000 I pulled the trigger so it's not going to go off.

00:11:46.000 It looks like it's ready to fire.

00:11:48.000 This is where you get, don't go off hat cocked.

00:11:50.000 So this is what you would have said to them.

00:11:52.000 Don't go off hat cocked because it's not going to fire.

00:11:54.000 If I get all the way back, now what I've done is I've poured powder down here.

00:11:58.000 Was that sort of like a safety mechanism?

00:12:00.000 Yes, while you're loading.

00:12:02.000 And what happens is it's not going to fall and create a spark and set it off.

00:12:07.000 So you pull it back there while you're loading up with powder.

00:12:09.000 So what you start, powder here, then you drop a .78 caliber ball on it, then you put wadding in, cram it down so that when you go up it's not going to roll out the end.

00:12:18.000 Then you go right here and you load this with powder.

00:12:21.000 There's a little hole that goes inside.

00:12:23.000 You put this down on top. 0.99

00:12:24.000 Now you do a full cock and when I shoot this thing, watch the sparks. 1.00

00:12:29.000 Yes. 0.98

00:12:30.000 So the sparks set the fire, it goes inside, burns that, that explodes, it goes out the end, and so you've got to do this every night.

00:12:36.000 It takes you 15 to 20 seconds to reload every time you shoot this thing.

00:12:39.000 Yeah, that sounds good.

00:12:39.000 So it takes a while, which the problem is, your kill range effectively is going to be 30 to 40 yards.

00:12:46.000 And if it takes you 15 to 20 seconds, man, a big ol' NFL lineman can cover 40 yards in 6 seconds.

00:12:51.000 Right.

00:12:51.000 So you're in trouble, which is why you then use the bayonets that went with these.

00:12:56.000 Now, here's the other kind of fun part.

00:12:59.000 How tall are you?

00:13:00.000 Well, with the hat, about 6'9".

00:13:01.000 Without it, I'm about 6'2".

00:13:03.000 You're 6'2", all right.

00:13:04.000 George Washington was about 6'2 3⁄4".

00:13:06.000 So, you're about the height of Washington.

00:13:09.000 He was exceptionally tall.

00:13:10.000 He was considered to be head and shoulders above his troops.

00:13:13.000 So, the average troop is about right here.

00:13:13.000 Right.

00:13:15.000 You're talking 5'1"-5'4".

00:13:17.000 Yeah.

00:13:18.000 Unless you count the French reinforcements, and they're about 4'6". 0.83

00:13:21.000 Real small.

00:13:21.000 That's right.

00:13:22.000 Yeah.

00:13:23.000 But thank you for helping us out, French.

00:13:23.000 Thin guys.

00:13:25.000 Good on you.

00:13:26.000 You know, and that is one time they got to win something.

00:13:30.000 Yes, they did!

00:13:31.000 They got with the Americans, they got their win. 0.92

00:13:35.000 So this is what they would have done.

00:13:36.000 So imagine a short guy like this having to carry this and deal with this.

00:13:41.000 Go 40, 50, 60 miles a day in a wool uniform, carry all your stuff with you.

00:13:45.000 These were tough guys and they ate two meals a day.

00:13:47.000 Yeah.

00:13:47.000 So they're tough guys, but this is individually, and every single 16-45 year old who is required by law to have one of these, have all the stuff that went with it, have enough ball and powder to shoot.

00:14:01.000 Now, is this only if they were actively enrolled in the military?

00:14:04.000 No, if you're a citizen.

00:14:05.000 And that's similar to what they do in Switzerland.

00:14:09.000 It is.

00:14:09.000 That's right.

00:14:10.000 That is their militia.

00:14:11.000 And so in Georgia, for example, you're required to bring your guns to church.

00:14:15.000 If you go to church, and everybody went to church, you bring your guns to church.

00:14:18.000 So there was no kind of off-limits place in that sense.

00:14:22.000 Some cities tried to pass, you know, no-carry zones.

00:14:26.000 And, of course, kept striking them down.

00:14:28.000 It didn't stand up.

00:14:29.000 It was a natural right, and a natural right, as you said before, it's not given us by government, it's recognized by government, it's to be protected by government.

00:14:37.000 But like you said, for some people, they might argue, well, this is something that couldn't be hidden, so it was all open carry, as opposed to being concealed, and they would say... Go back to this, go back to this, go back to these, you can hide this under, you know, you got those long jackets, you put that in, hide it.

00:14:53.000 Welcome to Hyde, but there, you know, one of the differences back then was we also had a common set of moral values, and so whether it be the Ten Commandments or something else, we have a record of one of the Founding Fathers.

00:15:06.000 His name is Justice Kent, and James Kent is called a Father of American Jurisprudence.

00:15:13.000 And he talked about the crime wave that they were having in New York.

00:15:16.000 He was the chief legal official in New York.

00:15:19.000 He's the chief Supreme Court justice.

00:15:21.000 He's what's called the Chancellor of New York.

00:15:23.000 Top legal guy in the state.

00:15:24.000 And he said, he was appalled that over 16 years they had had eight murders in the state of New York.

00:15:31.000 What's this over here that I see?

00:15:32.000 and that's a crime wave. So you had a sense of moral value that was a little

00:15:37.000 different than where we are today as opposed to Chicago with a killing every

00:15:41.000 eight hours or whatever. So the difference was there was no limitation

00:15:45.000 on this because government can't limit your right to defend yourself.

00:15:47.000 What's this over here that I see? This almost looks like a pump action sort of thing.

00:15:51.000 It is. This is, we're still Second Amendment here, and this is from a great feminist, 1.00

00:15:58.000 except you don't know her that way today.

00:16:00.000 It says Annie Oakley right there, so people know who Annie Oakley is.

00:16:02.000 You're coming up with your wonderful...

00:16:04.000 It says Annie Oakley right there, so people know who Annie Oakley is.

00:16:08.000 She was a sharpshooter, and she started shooting when she was about nine years old.

00:16:12.000 By the time she was 15, she had made so much money shooting game and selling it to to meet Marcus that she paid off the family mortgage.

00:16:19.000 She was an orphan.

00:16:21.000 And when was this?

00:16:22.000 This would have been, man, she was nine years old.

00:16:28.000 That's right.

00:16:29.000 She was without a father.

00:16:31.000 Okay.

00:16:31.000 For a period of time, but not an orphan.

00:16:32.000 That's right.

00:16:33.000 She had a mom. 0.97

00:16:33.000 That's right. 0.97

00:16:34.000 But what period in time would this have been?

00:16:36.000 This would have been in, yeah, 1860s.

00:16:38.000 1860s, okay.

00:16:39.000 1860s, because she became really famous in the Buffalo Bill Wild West.

00:16:43.000 Yeah.

00:16:43.000 And so this, this was the kind of stuff she would do.

00:16:46.000 She'd shoot shotguns, pistols, rifles, right hand, left hand. 0.99

00:16:50.000 And she was a sharp shooter. 0.54

00:16:52.000 What made her a feminist? 1.00

00:16:53.000 Well, what made her a feminist was she advocated for all sorts of women's rights. 1.00

00:16:59.000 But you don't hear that today because the one riot she said especially, here's what makes men and women equal, the gun.

00:17:06.000 If a woman can handle a gun as well as she handles a baby, there's not going to be inequality. 1.00

00:17:11.000 And so that doesn't line up with modern feminism, but she was the first female superstar in a male's world. 1.00

00:17:20.000 And she, I mean, what she did, these are targets that she would use. 0.61

00:17:26.000 In one particular setting, her husband, Frank, they had a launcher.

00:17:31.000 It's kind of like a skeet thrower, but it would throw these, and he threw 5,000 of these out, and with a rifle, not a shotgun, with a rifle, she shot 4,772 of these.

00:17:40.000 It seems needlessly ornate.

00:17:40.000 These?

00:17:42.000 I mean, they could just throw out, like, just a clay ball.

00:17:45.000 Look at this.

00:17:45.000 That's like a Christmas ornament that you pay a premium for at World Market.

00:17:49.000 This, when it blew up in front of a crowd, you could really see it blow up.

00:17:51.000 Okay.

00:17:52.000 And so this is what they would use in a lot of the shows.

00:17:55.000 And by the way, these were made by the French.

00:17:56.000 So there's a contribution of the French for you.

00:17:58.000 So they've made something we can shoot.

00:18:00.000 So she was actually on a tour of Europe in front of the Queen.

00:18:03.000 This is actually a coin with the Queen's face on it that throw in the air and she would take and shoot through it. 0.72

00:18:08.000 So you see the hole through the middle of it.

00:18:10.000 I would be really intrigued to find people that good a shot today.

00:18:14.000 And so this kind of goes back to the fact that this is in the 1800s.

00:18:18.000 Obviously people are talking about this as though it's new right now.

00:18:20.000 Well, we don't have this problem of these many guns today and they used to be muskets. 1.00

00:18:25.000 No, she was firing something obviously significantly more advanced than people would think of as a musket.

00:18:30.000 And you really have to get to the 20th century to sort of look at the restriction on firearm rights.

00:18:34.000 You have to get to the really late 20th century to start looking at it.

00:18:38.000 In her case, she actually offered Woodrow Wilson when World War I came, she said, I've trained 15,000 women as snipers.

00:18:46.000 I mean, they can go take care of this problem you got in Europe." 0.98

00:18:49.000 And he said, no, I'm not quite ready for that.

00:18:50.000 But that's how many women she had trained with guns. 1.00

00:18:54.000 And so this was so common.

00:18:55.000 As a matter of fact, this, we have a number of these, not Annie Oakley, but these are

00:19:00.000 called gallery guns.

00:19:02.000 And the reason they are is that carnivals all the way through the 1930s and 40s, you

00:19:07.000 would pay a nickel and get five shots.

00:19:09.000 And kids, this is what they would shoot.

00:19:11.000 It was a .22 at the shooting gallery at the carnival.

00:19:14.000 So kids are doing this all the time, and there's no big deal over it.

00:19:17.000 We don't think that's a big issue.

00:19:19.000 I'm sure there were a few accidents.

00:19:20.000 Well, there probably were, but they were very rare.

00:19:24.000 And looking at the founding era, I've only found two gun accidents at all in that era.

00:19:28.000 And Jefferson told his 15-year-old, he said, you take a gun with you everywhere you go.

00:19:33.000 That's one of the best forms of exercise you can have.

00:19:35.000 John Quincy Adams, his 10-year-old, he says, I want them with guns.

00:19:38.000 I don't want pistols and rifles.

00:19:40.000 And so they train, because as John Quincy Adams explained, the more familiar you are, the less accidents you have.

00:19:45.000 Right.

00:19:46.000 And so that's what they really did.

00:19:47.000 And you have some books here, yeah.

00:19:49.000 Is this the Physical Education book?

00:19:50.000 Yes, it is.

00:19:51.000 Okay.

00:19:51.000 This is a published school PE book.

00:19:53.000 Right.

00:19:54.000 So, PE, and this is from all the way through the 1970s, and oh my gosh, do we have all sorts of sports here.

00:20:00.000 If I can get to the front cover of this thing.

00:20:03.000 Yeah, we've got angling, and archery, and badminton, and baseball, and softball, and basketball, and bowling, and field hockey, and golf, and gymnastics, and jumbling, and handball, and lacrosse, and Right here, we have an entire section on riflery.

00:20:16.000 And so, this is what we're teaching the 70s, teaching kids how to handle the rifle, the parts of the rifle, all the different parts, and it also shows, along with the rifle, targets, how to score a target, and it shows you how to use a sling when shooting.

00:20:16.000 Wow.

00:20:31.000 Yeah.

00:20:32.000 This is how to use the sling, and here was how to score the target.

00:20:37.000 Now, would they actually shoot in school ever, or was it just theoretical?

00:20:39.000 Here's the interesting thing.

00:20:41.000 They show you how to build a target box.

00:20:45.000 And this is inside a house.

00:20:46.000 You're shooting a .22 inside a house.

00:20:48.000 And as they point out, we use these in gymnasiums and hallways and cafeterias.

00:20:54.000 And if you want more information on this, go to the NRA.

00:20:57.000 So there's probably schools saying the NRA is your source on this.

00:20:59.000 Right.

00:21:00.000 But in schools, we have .22s, kids shooting .22s in schools, targets in hallways and cafeterias and other places.

00:21:07.000 And this is in the 70s.

00:21:09.000 So you build the box and shop, and then you blow it up and pee in it.

00:21:13.000 Exactly.

00:21:15.000 And it shows you how to make it safe.

00:21:17.000 So all of this, all the different positions for shooting, standing or prone or sitting or whatever, this is every kid.

00:21:23.000 Let me ask you this, because we start with the Second Amendment as we're talking about, and clearly if you go through the historical documents, It's meant for more than just muskets, right?

00:21:31.000 So that's put to bed.

00:21:32.000 Everyone was, constituted the militia.

00:21:35.000 And now you've showed us these different examples of people who are very comfortable in firing firearms in the schools up until the 70s.

00:21:41.000 When did this sort of phobia of firearms happen?

00:21:45.000 Because the entire time that I've been alive, it's not been that kind of a scenario.

00:21:49.000 We've always been told that, you know, don't touch a firearm, don't go near it, let a parent know, stay away from it.

00:21:54.000 You'll see a massive change in the value system in the 60s and the 70s.

00:21:59.000 We started saying, don't tell me what's right and wrong, and you can't tell me what's right and wrong, and we can't let... In 1980, the Supreme Court said, you can't let kids see the Ten Commandments.

00:22:07.000 If they saw something like don't steal and don't kill, they might obey it.

00:22:10.000 So, I mean, we're even at the point where we're taking down what was in courthouses because there's moral values attached to it.

00:22:17.000 With that becomes an increase in lack of self-control.

00:22:20.000 Behavior goes the wrong direction.

00:22:21.000 Crime starts rising.

00:22:23.000 And our answer is, don't deal with the thinking process.

00:22:26.000 Let's take it out of your hands.

00:22:28.000 And that's a crazy thing to do.

00:22:30.000 I mean, for me as a Christian, I'll go back to Cain and Abel.

00:22:33.000 They didn't have guns, so what did Cain do?

00:22:35.000 He picked up a rock and clubbed his brother Abel.

00:22:36.000 So we need rock control laws.

00:22:38.000 That would stop it.

00:22:39.000 I also knew someone who named their son Abel, which sort of seems like you were destining him for failure.

00:22:44.000 But we sort of see a bell curve, right?

00:22:46.000 Like you talk about kind of the, I would say really the 70s, 80s, 90s, particularly sort of came to a crest in the 90s, the anti-gun sentiment.

00:22:53.000 And now we probably have more firearm open carry rights.

00:22:57.000 And crime has decreased.

00:22:58.000 So crime sort of peaked in the 70s and 80s if I'm not mistaken.

00:23:00.000 Crime hit a high by about 94, 96.

00:23:01.000 And so between the 60s and the early 90s there was a 694% increase in violent crime.

00:23:04.000 hit a high by about 94, 96.

00:23:07.000 And so between the 60s and the early 90s, there was a 694% increase in violent crime.

00:23:12.000 It went through the roof.

00:23:14.000 Then you start loosening up.

00:23:15.000 People start saying, I want to be able to defend myself.

00:23:18.000 You start seeing all sorts of laws passed for self-defense.

00:23:22.000 And the more areas where you have the more legal guns, the more self-defense you have.

00:23:28.000 You know, Chicago is a gun-free zone, and there are murder rates through the roof.

00:23:31.000 Same with New York City, etc.

00:23:33.000 So, where citizens have the right to defend themselves, I mean, in Texas, quite frankly, nobody really wants to break into a house, because most Texans own about 23 guns, and you don't want to face what's on the other side of the door.

00:23:45.000 Now, what would you say to people who compare it, and we do have to get going, I know we have other installments, we have to get to freedom of speech, and we have one on the Revolutionary War, pre, well, kind of pre-Second Amendment, but what would you say to people who say, well, internationally, you know, we have the worst gun crime in the world, and so some of them acknowledge everything that you're talking about, but they say, We just got it wrong, because we have more violent and more government here.

00:24:05.000 You know, we do have more crime, but we have more freedom than anybody in the world.

00:24:08.000 We have less government than anybody else in the world.

00:24:11.000 I like the fact that I can have my own property.

00:24:14.000 I can use it how I wish.

00:24:16.000 I don't have a 68% tax rate like they do in the Scandinavian nations. 0.75

00:24:20.000 I like the fact that I can decide what I want to do with my kids.

00:24:24.000 If I'm in Germany and homeschool my kids, I will go to jail. 1.00

00:24:27.000 We have more freedoms, and you know, that's Unfortunately, we don't have the same morals we had for a number of years.

00:24:34.000 You know, one of the things I look at with the Great Depression, when you have so much unemployment, crime didn't go up except in Al Capone-organized crime.

00:24:44.000 Right.

00:24:44.000 Because everybody had that sense of the Good Samaritan, the Golden Rule, and you know, now today, if we had a downturn economically today, oh my gosh, it'd be who's got the biggest... Yeah, because they often say that crime and poverty are sort of synonymous.

00:24:56.000 Well, yeah.

00:24:57.000 The Great Depression?

00:24:58.000 Yeah, the Great Depression proved that that didn't happen.

00:25:01.000 And it is more of a heart issue in so many ways, and we don't deal with good neighborhoods.

00:25:07.000 We don't deal with civility and civics and just the responsibilities.

00:25:11.000 So I think that's coming back, and I know that there is a lot more of that in certain geographic regions of the country, and you see the crime is down in those regions.

00:25:19.000 So where there's less civility, you see a lot more crime.

00:25:22.000 And even where you have very stringent fire alarms in San Francisco, they'll just defecate on you.

00:25:27.000 They just poop in the streets.

00:25:28.000 So that ends up being a different problem.

00:25:30.000 A different attack.

00:25:31.000 Final question, before we end this segment, and happy 4th everybody, what would you say is the biggest misconception, the number one thing that people get wrong about the Second Amendment?

00:25:40.000 It is none of the government's business.

00:25:42.000 It is an inalienable right given us by God.

00:25:44.000 Government can recognize it.

00:25:46.000 It cannot regulate it.

00:25:47.000 And so that's the biggest conception.

00:25:49.000 Go back to the Declaration.

00:25:51.000 Read those first 126 words.

00:25:52.000 It's just for the five principles of government.

00:25:55.000 There is a God.

00:25:56.000 He gives you a certain set of rights.

00:25:58.000 Those are inalienable rights of government.

00:26:00.000 Must protect them, and past that you get the right to consent of the governed.

00:26:04.000 So our decision to choose whether we want gun control laws, that's not our choice.

00:26:09.000 We have the right.

00:26:10.000 It's a natural right to defend ourselves.

00:26:12.000 I'd say that's the biggest misconception is that government has a right to regulate.

00:26:16.000 It doesn't have a right to regulate our free speech.

00:26:18.000 It doesn't have a right to regulate our private property.

00:26:20.000 Those are all inalienable rights.

00:26:22.000 I think that's the biggest misconception is we think we've allowed government to have a role it should never have had.

00:26:27.000 I think that's a good point and I think the undergirding history and we'll have some links to some of the other historical documents that I highly encourage you read because there's obviously a lot to brush up on outside of just the Declaration and the amendments.

00:26:38.000 Well, thank you so much, Mr. Barton.

00:26:40.000 We appreciate it and there's more if you tune in.

00:26:43.000 Subscribe.

00:26:44.000 I don't know where the button is.

00:26:44.000 You can point somewhere and I'm sure we'll put the button there.

00:26:47.000 More to come.

Louder with Crowder - July 08, 2024

The Second Amendment: American Masterclass with Historian David Barton | Louder With Crowder

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