The Boston Massacre paved the way for the American Revolutionary War. The massacre saw armed British soldiers attack American colonists. Historian William Briggs has argued that this event taught America that being able to bear arms was essential for self-defence. 1 Although this can be seen as an event which solidified the idea, it was a belief which already existed in the minds of many colonists. American colonists arrived from England, and with them brought what historian Donald J Campbell, an expert in American gun culture, has referred to as a “cultural orientation”. 2 A notable aspect of this orientation was a belief in the right to possess weapons, for self-defence, as well as the defence of the country. Campbell has located the root of this belief in the fact that England did not historically have a reserve army. 3 Therefore, civilians were responsible for their own protection. By the time American colonists had arrived from Britain this belief was well cemented as an aspect of British ‘cultural orientation’ due to struggles with both Queen Elizabeth I and King Charles II in order to maintain the right to retain arms. Learning from the Boston Massacre, and their cultural history, American colonists relied on guns throughout the Revolutionary War to ensure their victory. Guns allowed the colonists to regain certain rights which they believed were being abused by The Townshend Acts, as well as providing an opportunity to forge their own values and laws. 4 The significance of the gun was recognised legally by the 2 nd Amendment in 1791, “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”. 5 The 2 nd Amendment recognised the importance of guns in the founding of America. In addition, it formed a strong tie between the implementation and protection of American values, and the right to bear arms. This association was transplanted into the most famous Western narrative, that of the cowboy. To understand this transplant, historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s ‘Frontier Thesis’ must be examined. Turner argued that American values were formed on an ever shifting frontier. 6 Using Turner’s idea, a narrative formed on the East coast of America during the Revolutionary War can actually be explained 1 William Briggs, How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017), p. 18. 2 Donald J. Campbell, America’s Gun Wars: a Cultural History of Gun Control in the United States (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2019), p. 20. 3 Campbell, p. 16. 4 Benjamin Walford-Johnston, ‘American Colonial Committees of Correspondence: Encountering Oppression, Exploring Unity, and Exchanging Visions of the Future’, The History Teacher , 50.1 (2016), 83-128 (p. 84). 5 Library of Congress, United States: Gun Ownership and the Supreme Court , <https://www.loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/second- amendment.php#:~:text=The%20Second%20Amendment%2C%20one%20of,self%2Devident%2C% 20and%20has%20given> [accessed 7 December 2020]. 6 Frederick Jackson Turner, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’, in The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921), pp. 1-39, p. 5.
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