From: Clayton E. Cramer Date: Saturday, April 21, 2001, 4:49:51 PM Subject: Duke of York's first laws for New York... _Arming America_ contains the claim: Few freemen welcomed this duty, and fewer still could afford firearms, so it became necessary for governments to supply them, with laws passed to effect that purpose. At the same time, legislators feared that gun-toting freemen might, under special circumstances, pose a threat to the very polity that they were supposed to defend. Colonial legislatures therefore strictly regulated the storage of firearms, with weapons kept in some central place, to be produced only in emergencies or on muster day, or loaned to individuals living in outlying areas. They were to remain the property of the government. The Duke of York's first laws for New York required that each town have a storehouse for arms and ammunition. Such legislation was on the books of colonies from New Hampshire to South Carolina. [Bellesiles, 73] I have previously pointed out that this claim about requiring weapons to be kept "in some central place, to be produced only in emergencies or on muster day, or loaned to individuals living in outlying areas" was not true for Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Maryland, or Virginia. Statutes in all of these colonies required individuals to have guns in their homes, when attending church, and in some years, when traveling more than a mile from home. It is certainly true that laws were not always enforced, and it may well be true that some significant number of colonists did not have guns. But the laws of those colonies show quite the opposite of Bellesiles's claim about not allowing most colonists to have guns in their personal possession. Now I have checked Bellesiles's citation to the New York laws. He cites _The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution, 5 vols. (Albany, NY, 1894), 1:49-50. And of course, there is a profound disagreement between Bellesiles and his source. The Duke of York's "Military Affaires" statute provides that "Every Town shall be provided of a Sufficient ware house and a Safe convenient place thereunto Adjoyning for keepin Powder and Ammunition...." [_Colonial Laws of New York_, 1:49] The warehouse was to contain powder, bullets, and match, but not a word about any guns to be so stored, and certainly nothing requiring militia arms to be stored there. There is a direct contradiction on 1:49-50 to Bellesiles's claim: "Besides the Generall stock of each Town Every Male within this overnment from Sixteen to Sixty years of age, or not freed by public Allowance, shall if freeholders at their own, if sons or Servants at their Parents and Masters Charge and Cost, be furnished from time to time and so Continue well furnished with Amrs and other Suitable Provition hereafter mentioned: under the penalty of five Shillings for the least default therein Namely a good Serviceable Gun, allowed Sufficient by his Military Officer to be kept in Constant fitness for present Service, with a good sword bandeleers or horne or worme a Scowerer a priming wire" and so on. Would someone please explain to me why there are so many of these problems getting the facts right in _Arming America_, the winner of the Bancroft Prize for History this year? -- Clayton E. Cramer http://www.claytoncramer.com/ to see excerpts from my five published books and full text of a number of scholarly and popular articles.