2A History: When the Militia Set Things Right

A few days ago, I wrote about a piece that argued that gun rights are imaginary because one person doesn’t make a militia, so the right to keep and bear arms must be a collective right. It was just high-minded sounding enough that the gullible might buy it, but anyone who has actually delved into the topic to any degree–or is just skeptical enough to do a Google search–knows it’s BS.

Now, it’s true that one person doesn’t make a militia, but a militia is made up of individuals who bring their own guns to the fight or who somehow acquire guns in the course of acting as a militia.

In American history, the militia was typically a body of men called up to fight, often beside regular troops of the standing army. They served as a supplemental force. When the National Guard was created, it tended to fill that role, though the militia has always existed on the books just the same. The truth is, though, that we haven’t been in a fight big enough to warrant the militia being called up, thankfully. Even World War II wasn’t that bad.

But there have been times when militias formed to take on the government. We hear about Shay’s Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion, and many just nod their heads that these militias lost. Some even think that it’s proof that we can never remove a tyrannical government.

The thing is, the militia has.

Oh, it wasn’t on a national scale, but the Battle of Athens is part of American history that too few people actually know about.

Politics in the Deep South in the mid-20th Century was akin to what we typically think of happening in Chicago or New York. Political machines ran a lot, and outsiders weren’t welcome. That was the case in Tennessee, where the E.H. Crump machine out of Memphis called a lot of the shots, and things were less than great if you were interested in things like fair elections and honest police officers.

It got worse during World War II as so many young men were off fighting the war. There wasn’t nearly as much opposition to the mechanizations as there might have been. When the boys returned to Athens, Tennessee, they found that their home wasn’t all that different from Nazi Germany. Sure, Jews weren’t being herded into camps and exterminated, but these boys were targeted by the deputies precisely because of their veteran status, and more than one black voter was beaten half to death to make a point.

Enter the militia.

These were young men who had become warriors. They tried the legal route by running their own candidates against the corruption. They even gathered a group of 30 or so veterans who had seen front-line combat to form a “fightin’ bunch” that would fight back should the machine step in.

The details of the shenanigans would run long, but the information is out there. The short version is that the powers that be in Athens tried their damnedest to steal the election, including shooting one man who tried to vote in the back after he tried to run from a beating he got because he wanted to vote. It should be noted that this event spurred things on, and it was a black man who was the victim.

In the South.

That should tell you something.

Anyway, the sheriff, the Speaker of the State House (another part of this cabal), and about 50 or so deputies holed up in the jail. Since the sheriff and the speaker were also the majority of the county election board, and they had a few ballot boxes with them, no one could certify the election.

The veterans got their guns, got guns from the National Guard Armory, and surrounded the jail.

Accounts seem to differ on who shot first, but what happened was a battle that ultimately lasted for several days and ousted the corrupt officials who had turned a small Tennessee town into a totalitarian state, all while pretending to respect the Constitution.

They did it because they had the right to keep and bear arms and opted to exercise it. Yeah, they got some guns from the National Guard armory, but they were likely able to get those in part because they had guns of their own.

They took on a corrupt, authoritarian government, a group of individuals forming a militia, and used their right to keep and bear arms to take down that authoritarian government. 

Not every militia action needs to have national ramifications. In this case, a group of men who grew up knowing their rights and knowing what was right and wrong saw their world change while they were fighting for freedom in Europe, North Africa, or the Pacific. Because they were gone, it’s possible that they were able to notice how much the water boiling the frog had been turned up. Regardless, they did notice and used those rights to make things right.

No, one man isn’t a militia. That was how the author of that piece I discussed at the top of this one started his piece, and it was the only thing he got correct, really.

One man isn’t a militia.

One man standing next to other men, however, can be.

The Battle of Athens proved that.

Take your collective right nonsense and step off. Those men in Tennessee proved to everyone what the Second Amendment is for and why it’s important.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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