𝑷𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆

On January 8, 1790, President George Washington delivered to Congress the first State of the Union address in American history. Let me quote these lines from his speech:

 "A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies."(1)

Indeed, Americans have to be armed and America has to be self-sufficient in order to remain free as a people and independent as a nation. Washington’s words held true then, as they do now.

𝑪𝒐𝒘𝒃𝒐𝒚

In 1895 the Black Hills Daily Times published a story about a gun-carrying Chinese cowboy from the gold-mining town of Deadwood, South Dakota.(2) While bearing the brunt of racial discrimination, Chinese immigrants were nevertheless free to exercise American citizens’ gun rights. 

𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒓

From the TV series Yellowstone: A group of Chinese tourists trespassed on a ranch so as to take a closer look at a wandering grizzly bear therein. To drive them out, the ranch owner fired two warning shots skyward with his rifle. Then, to a trespasser protesting in Putonghua, he spoke calmly in plain English, “This is America. We don’t share land here.” (3)

𝑴𝒊𝒏𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏

Let’s check out Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts, which commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War (or, for the British, the American War of Independence). See that Minuteman Statue at the Bridge?

Imagine, in a minute or so, self-armed men answered the call for an uprising against the mighty British Empire. The real last straw for them was not a painful new tax, as commonly believed. It was His Majesty’s threat to disarm the colonists. King George III and his prime minister failed to understand that Americans relied on their own muskets for self-protection.(4) Bidding farewell to arms? Never.

𝑨𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒅 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒏𝒔

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Is it supposed to protect a state’s or an individual’s gun rights? The U.S. Supreme Court had scrutinized the Second Amendment in 1939, 2008, and 2010 (respectively referring to United States v. Miller, District of Columbia v. Heller, and McDonald v. City of Chicago). Now the dust has settled in favor of the individual’s gun rights (subject to local regulations).(5) 

Meanwhile, according to Small Arms Survey, America accounted for 393 million civilian-held firearms (46% of the worldwide total) in 2018.(6) This explains why we have more than 7,000 shooting ranges on American soil today.(7)

Have nice target practices, my fellow gun-owners!

——Lingyang Jiang 

Footnotes:

(1) Founders Online — National Archives

(2) Deadwood’s Lost Chinatown - True West Magazine

(3) https://youtu.be/LOrkILQmpRk — Paramount Network 

(4) http://theworksofdeanladd.yolasite.com/resources/Sons%20of%20Liberty.pdf — “Sons of Liberty” by Dean Ladd

(5) Second Amendment | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute

(6) Small Arms Survey - Global Firearms Holdings

(7) Shooting Ranges in the US - Industry Data, Trends, Stats | IBISWorld