True. Although the second amendment is specifically not applicable only to Congress based on that logic.

Therefore, any store owner that puts up a sign forbidding me from keeping or bearing arms is violating my 2nd amendment rights.

Abstractions like "Congress shall pass no law" and "Shall not be infringed"? Hard to get less abstract than that.

Either way - our boys gave em hell dammit! :)

Other than the fact this has nothing to do with what I said, what evidence do you have showing the intent of Rand?

As you correctly pointed out earlier, there is ongoing controversy and disagreement regarding sequencing of events and the significance of those events. This is due in large part to the changing stories of eye witnesses regarding what they observed and what part different people had in the events of the relevant days. Affidavits were taken at various points in time years apart. It is very difficult for historians to come to complete agreement regarding some of the details because of those conflicting accounts. However, as you note, some important facts are pretty certain. Among them is my claim that the Minutemen at the North Bridge did not fire until fired upon well after they observed what they thought was the burning of the town and the attempted ripping up of planks on the Bridge and certainly well after they learned whatever they learned of the Lexington skirmish. They were in fact simply observing the goings on for an extended period before the fatal engagement. I think we agree on those facts. Based on that I observed that in my opinion the War started when the colonials fired at the Bridge since it represented the first initiation of lethal force against the British troops. I fail to see why you think this is controversial or unsupported. In any event, what matters is that the War began, the principles for which these brave men fought and the country that resulted. Some details of the day may never be resolved and I still maintain it a "quibble" to argue, for instance, about the identity of the Minuteman who fired the first shot in Concord against the British. Many think they know, but many more are unsure.

Instead of trying to deduce what you think happened, just go by the history; so can others rather than "deciding" based on opinions and "quibbles".

According to the historical record the "bloodshed" at Lexington occurred about 5AM. The battle at the North Bridge in Concord occurred between 9 and 10AM, 4 to 5 hours later. The minutemen consisted of well-organized companies from the numerous surrounding towns, which descended on Concord after having been alerted, according to plan. They were not "passive observers" and their preparations and actions were not "irrelevant to the start of the war". Several companies took positions and maneuvered on the hillside at the Buttrick farm overlooking the North Bridge, almost 500 men total. Sixty two of them were from Lincoln, the town between Lexington and Concord, and they did know that there had been "bloodshed" at Lexington.

The British did not turn back after Lexington because the plan was to go to Concord as the main objective and they had not been stopped at Lexington by Captain Parker's band of 60-70 men against 300-400 British. The British went through, and had planned to go through, Lexington on the way to Concord. The First and Second Provincial Congresses had just been held in Concord. The last meeting before the battle had just adjourned 4 days earlier. Concord was the center of revolutionary activity and organizing. The British hoped to capture leaders like John Hancock, President of the Provincial Congress, in Lexington, but were headed to Concord, where the main supplies were stored and where they especially hoped to capture Colonel Barret, the local head of the minutemen.

That is why the Revolution began at the North Bridge in Concord when it did, as a result of the British escalation marching on Concord -- and the preparations and courage of those fought back despite their lack of military experience.

Well, since neither Dawes nor Revere ever reached Concord before the battle it is only relevant what Prescott knew and he did not know anything about casualties at Lexington. As to what was reported by Lincoln minutemen and understood by the officers at the Bridge the record is at best unclear and in some instances contradictory according to the somewhat contemporaneous statements of the participants. In any event, we agree about the smoke and, I assume, the planks of the Bridge and, of course the British volley that caused the colonial casualties as the immediate causes of the cry to "fire." Your "all one event" theory proves too much I think. We can probably agree that if the British had not moved on from Lexington to Concord nothing more would have happened that day to start the war. That is not to say the War would have not commenced on some later day, of course. And your observation that the Minutemen "were prepared" is technically correct but not relevant to the issue of the start of the war. Remember, these "prepared" militiamen did nothing but passively observe the events even after they thought incorrectly that the town was being set ablaze by the British! It was not until the face to face confrontation at the Bridge that the momentous events of the day commenced. The start of the War, in my view, in actual fact began not at the Boston Massacre, not at Lexington, not in Boston, but at the North Bridge because there and then occurred the first use of lethal force by the colonists against British soldiers. That seems a common sense line of demarcation. And we know precisely when, and on whose orders, that shot "heard round the world" was fired. By some accounts we know who actually fired it. But let's let the others on this site have a respite from our historical quibbles. And quibbles they are because what really matters is not the sequence of events but what those patriots were fighting for and what they created. We benefit from their actions still today. Thanks very much indeed for the conversation.

The Lincoln minutemen reported at Concord what had happened at Lexington. Only Prescott did not know the details earlier because he only heard a volley of fire in the distance.

The minutemen at the North Bridge knew of casualties at Lexington and thought their homes in the town were being burned (the smoke came from "bonfires of military stores"). That was the trigger that caused them to start down the hill from the Buttrick farm towards the British on the other side of the bridge, required to get into the town to defend it. After a volley of fire from the British wounding one minuteman came the command: "Fire, for God's sake, fire".

Lexington and Concord have been arguing over where the war started ever since. But it was all one event with the British escalation of marching out to Lexington and Concord to capture leaders and destroy military supplies. The minutemen had known they were coming and were prepared for it (many of the supplies had already been hidden), but didn't know when until the Paul Revere alert. The result, in some form, had been inevitable before the British left Boston.

Ayn Rand wan't trying to predict the future. She was trying to prevent the collapse with a superior philosophy radically challenging the prevailing ideas causing it.

All good history, but again knowing of the skirmish at Lexington, even that there had been firing, is not the same as knowing any colonists had actually been killed. A small distinction but one which would have mattered greatly to the Minutemen. The immediate causes of the colonists' decision to actually fire on the King's troops at the North Bridge were the British short term occupation of Concord, the smoke from the fires in town as the British searched for weapons and munitions, the British ripping up of some of the planks of the North Bridge over the Concord River within sight of the Minutemen, and, most importantly, the British actually firing upon the Minutemen, killing two of them and injuring others. At that point, one of the officers of the militia ordered that they "fire, for God's sake fellow soldiers, fire" and the war started.

Kelly hated Trump and was under instructions from her superiors to make him look bad. It was obvious. Thats not journalism, and he should have just called her on her attitude and how that kind of question doesnt add to the debate. If he thinks Rosie ODonnell is a fat pig, so be it. If the shoe fits, she should wear it, otherwise shrug it off. I would rather our president tell me like it is, or at least what he really thinks, than hide behind political correctness like the rest of them do. For ONCE, we need someone who will tell me if the emperor has no clothes.

I remember a couple years ago when a lady spoke up at a rally and Christie, on the microphone in front of everybody, said she'd be "on her knees later that night". All the neocons laughed. It was disgusting. Not a mention of that now...

He's a POS.

Concord was told by the Lincoln minutemen of the shooting in Lexington. There was a delay of several hours before the British arrived in Concord.

Paul Revere's ride (and others by different routes that arrived much later) from Boston was to confirm that the British had left Boston for Concord. He arrived in Lexington before the British did and continued on to Concord with two others, Prescott and Dawes, who knew the local woods. Prescott lived in Concord. All three were confronted by British in Lincoln (between Lexington and Concord) but got away. Prescott was the first to escape, not being captured at all, and continued to Concord to deliver the news of the British forces on the way. They heard the volley of shots in Lexington, but didn't know the details.

There are several dramatic stories published on the battle at Lexington and Concord, but two excellent scholarly accounts are:

Frank Warren Coburn, The Battle of April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1912 and

Allen French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, 1925.

Well, there is a massive government/medical complex much larger than the government/media complex, or the government/military-industrial complex. They are in everything. I have a story about that and the Net Neutrality act that would frost you...

You do not even need to be in obscure cyberland to see how commonplace violation of the 4th Amendment has become.

As I posted recently to FB:

If somebody busts into a house in the middle of the night without presenting a warrant and gets shot, they are not a hero or a victim of anything. The entire purpose of getting a warrant is to present a warrant. A warrant that authorizes its own non-presentation violates both the spirit and the letter of the 4th amendment.

It's like the Seinfeld bit about the car rental agency. You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to keep it. And keeping it is the most important part of the reservation.

Except in this case, the police know how to obtain the warrant, they just don't seem to know how to present it. And presenting it is the entire purpose of the warrant.

Indeed, truth is the rarest element to be found in government. Ron Paul in his 2015 book “Plowshares” and DiLorenzo in his book “Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government” fully exposes the degree — all of which seems to follow LeFevre’s 1959 book “The Nature of Man and His Government.” Rand was not the only foreteller of the future.

You are absolutely correct in all respects except your assertion that the minutemen at the bridge knew that anyone had been killed at Lexington. I don't believe that was true. Certainly Revere did not tell them since he had been arrested long before he reached Concord.

Knowing about HAMP and hurricanes, I expected some spunk from Christie, instead, the hug. I lost total respect from then on. Ditto on Busch and their one world dynasty.

Rand is my fav.

A constitution based on objectivism would be a great document indeed

It didn't help the British that they shot people at Lexington who had stood down due to the overwhelming numbers of the British soldiers at Lexington common. The news widely spread throughout the area (even without an internet) before the British got to Concord, and minutemen were soon swarming in from surrounding towns all day. The battle at the North Bridge began when smoke was seen rising from the town over the hill and the minuteman thought the British were burning the town. The search for weapons and supplies was itself relatively peaceful -- the kind of coercion bureaucrats today would call "amicable". But the whole situation escalated dramatically when the British marched from Boston to Lexington and Concord. After a long serious of accumulating causes of the revolution leading up to the 'Concord Fight' turning in force against British soldiers, the battle at the North Bridge ignited the revolution, which is why it became known as the "shot heard 'round the world".

U know its coming just as you say