There was a time when American colonists were loyal British subjects. But the relationship with a far-off king and Parliament deteriorated eventually, resulting in the estranged colonists listing their grievances in a Declaration of Independence. Hostilities broke out into open warfare when British troops marched on Concord to disarm the upstart colonists by confiscating their supply of gunpowder. Initial gunite was the practical starting point of the American Revolutionary War famously noted as the “Shot Heard Around the World.” The long war was fought by an ill-equipped, rag-tag, shoeless army of patriots that couldn’t win a battle but also couldn’t be defeated. The British Naval and Army forces were vastly better supplied and trained, plus had experienced military leaders. There was, however, one very important way in which troops facing each other were substantially equal—the basic firearm for each side was the flintlock rifle or musket. The best rate one soldier could fire at the other was no more than three shots in a minute and that with questionable accuracy.
After winning the war, the colonists founded a constitution that created a government of the people, by the people, and for the people that enshrined certain fundamental freedoms. In doing so, the Founders were mindful of their own recent history that any government, even one that at one time was worthy of loyalty, could one day mutate and alienate fair-minded people to the point of righteous rebellion.
