In recent years, today's date has unfortunately been linked to the abominable murderous acts that took place near Waco, TX, in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in 1995. But the date also commemorates happier events. Some people celebrate it as Bicycle Day, the date in 1943 when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first deliberately ingested LSD and then went for a bike ride. (Hofmann, BTW, is 101 and still active.)
But most importantly, this is the date on which a ragtag, self-organized militia that called themselves the Minutemen prevented British troops from imposing gun control on the American colonists. The Second Amendment Foundation wants us to remember and celebrate that:
Thursday, April 19 marks the 232nd anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord that started the American Revolution with the "Shot Heard Round the World," and the Second Amendment Foundation notes that the aftermath of this week's events in Virginia clearly show that European animosity toward our right to keep and bear arms still exists.
In the wake of the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech, noted SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb, European media – and particularly the BBC – has bared its visceral disdain toward America's Second Amendment and the traditions of liberty and independence it represents and protects.
"Clearly," Gottlieb said following three days of combative day and night interviews and debates primarily conducted by BBC reporters and commentators, "there remains to this day a horrible, condescending attitude toward armed American citizens. Haven't the British yet gotten over the fact that a ragtag, often disorganized force of American colonials, wielding their own arms, was able to defeat what at the time was the most powerful armed force in the world?
"Our forefathers," he continued, "armed with their own flintlock rifles and pistols, and an assortment of muskets – the ‘assault weapons' of their era – threw off the yoke of oppression under which they were forced to live. When British broadcasters today demand to know just what it is about gun ownership that Americans defend so vigorously, the answer is too simple for them to comprehend. Simply put, we defend this individual civil right because without our own guns two centuries ago, we would still likely be saluting a king instead of electing a president. We would likely be British subjects instead of electing our own Congress and state legislatures.
"We know our system isn't perfect," Gottlieb observed. "But America's freedom and liberty are second to none. Otherwise, people would be waiting in line to leave instead of sneaking across borders to get in. April 19, 1775 gave us that, and the Second Amendment protects it. And just so the BBC and other European media aren't misled, we're not giving it up."
What he said.