Today marks the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride on April 18, 1775, a moment immortalized by Longfellow’s poem, which suggests Revere was warning that the British regulars were coming to fight. But that’s not the full, nor the correct, story. The British weren’t seeking a battle that night. So, like Paul Harvey used to say, here’s the rest and the truth of the story.
General Thomas Gage, the British military governor of Massachusetts, had intelligence that colonists were stockpiling munitions and military supplies in Concord. His mission was clear: confiscate the colonists’ guns and gunpowder to suppress their ability to resist. There was no Second Amendment then, but this event underscores why we have one now; the right to bear arms was born from the fear of government overreach.
Paul Revere’s mission was to protect the colonists’ private firearms from government seizure. That night, he rode to warn the militia and leaders like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, not shouting “the British are coming” as the poem claims; he was more discreet to avoid capture, but alerting them that British troops were on the move to disarm them. His warning set the stage for the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first clashes of the American Revolution.
Revere’s ride was a warning then, and it resonates 250 years later: the government sought to take citizens’ guns to control them. It didn’t work out for the British in 1775. They faced fierce resistance and ultimately lost the war.
Let’s not let history repeat itself in the other direction today. Protect the right to bear arms, as did the colonists.