Palin Recruits Revere for Trivialization of II Amendment

In late spring of 2012, Palin traveled with her family on what she described as an "American History" bus tour. On the New England leg of the tour she gave comments to a Boston TV crew regarding their visit to Paul Revere's house, saying that it was


"he [Revere] who warned uhh the the British that they weren't gonna be taking away our arms uhh by ringing those bells and uhh making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that uhh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dRqaDrhgb8&feature=related

These remarks attracted considerable attention from the mainstream media.

A few have defended the accuracy of these comments by pointing to the fact that Revere, while briefly held under arrest by the British, gave an exaggerated account of Revolutionary forces in and movements toward the Lexington-Concord vicinity. Revere is generally believed to have been intentionally dispensing misinformation, but his precise motive for this has been a subject of historical speculation. The contention that he was trying to discourage the British from advancing their patrols rapidly into that vicinity in order to prevent the arrest of Revolutionary leaders Hancock and Adams is generally associated with the (revisionist) view that the Revolutionaries in Revere's circle felt the arms stored in or near the Concord Armory were safe from seizure by the British because they had been hidden, and the whole "British are coming" project was prompted by fear of political arrests rather than the desire to maintain Revolutionary control of the arms that had been stored at the Armory for use of the local militia. The more generally accepted view is that Revere hoped to induce the British to move toward Concord more slowly than they otherwise might have, in order to give the Revolutionary militia more time to assemble and organize for the defense of the Armory.

Palin's remarks almost certainly were not based on the little known details of the British interrogation and release of Revere. In fact, they were closely associated with the conventional view that the British were moving to seize the arms at Concord and the Revolutionaries were assembling to repulse the British and keep the arms under their own control. Whether or not Palin understood exactly whom Revere intended to warn of what and/or exactly what auditory signals, when and where, were employed by Revere (and her remarks clearly suggest she understood neither) she was perhaps correct in a deeper sense. The Founding Fathers would certainly have understood a profound connection between the famous history of the "Shot Heard 'Round the World," i.e., the British movement toward and Revolutionary defense of Lexington and Concord (that is to say, the version of it that had been generally received, as opposed to the protection-of- Hancock-and-Adams version that was either uncovered or invented by certain later historians) and the Second Amendment. Palin was trying to highlight that connection.

Palin's remarks about Paul Revere's ride provoked considerable discussion. What they did not initiate was a serious conversation about the political intent and significance of the Second Amendment, the era of musketry and rifle fire and associated rise of citizen armies, introduced and typified by the American Revolution and the Battle of Valmy, or the Amendment's continuing meaning in a world where the weapons of conclusive significance in the American armory are thermonuclear bombs and tactical air support, and the comparative irrelevance of musketry and rifle fire is being demonstrated day by day in Libya.