Scots-Irish Project: The Roots of America’s Gun Culture

Dixie

As House and Senate Democrats move forward with gun control legislation today in the 113th Congress, it is worth reflecting on why the Scots-Irish who settled much of Dixie and the West will never give up their guns:

“Women got busy spinning breeches and shirts designed for the practicalities of their new lives. They shaped simple moccasins and coats made out of deer and bearskins. This rapid transformation in appearance quickly set them apart from the wigs and buckles and frilly shirts of New England. Almost immediately the frontier revitalized the hunter-warrior encoding in their bloodline.

“The bosom of their dress,” said one visitor, “served as a wallet to hold a chunk of break, cakes, jerk, dow for wiping the barrel of the rifle.”

In a belt around their waist, they wore the most essential accoutrements; a tomahawk and a scalping knife for hunting and self-defense. No one could go about without muskets and knives in case of an Indian raid or bear attack. Skill with a rifle and knife was essential to survival, and a good marksman had great status in his community.

“The inhabitants of this country, in common with all backwoods people,” wrote one backwoods traveler, “are wonderfully expert in the use of it, thinking it a bad shot if they miss the very head of a squirrel.

Hunting and tracking – skills necessary for survival – became competitive pastimes.

Soon out-shooting, out-bragging, and showing off became integral to frontier culture and a wholly noble pasttime.” …

Santa Anna was an educated, handsome man fro a respected Spanish Colonial family, known for his bravery in battle, his gambling, his womanizing, and tendency to switch loyalties as self-interest dictated. Convinced that Jackson was plotting a coup, Santa Anna made the mistake of issuing orders that always seemed to provoke a Scots-Irish rebellion: he increased taxes, demanded crops be grown for the benefit of Mexico, and ordered the disarmament of the Texas militia. These hardy men of the South never had and never would surrender to such terms that would leave them unarmed and helpless in the face of a despotic government. They poured into the ranks of volunteer citizen-soldiers under Houston’s command. Crockett joined the Volunteer Auxiliary Corps.”

There is a reason why the Scots-Irish are so uniquely attached to their guns.

When the Scots-Irish immigrated to America, they moved to the backcountry of Pennsylvania and Virginia where they created a buffer zone between the pacifist Quakers in Philadelphia and the Tidewater planters and the hostile Indians on the frontier who were a menace to the eastern cities.

For generations, Scots-Irish families were terrorized by Indian raids as they subdued and pacified one region after another in the backcountry. They also used their firearms in the American Revolution and the Texas Revolution to win their freedom and independence from Britain and Mexico.

The possession of firearms in the Scots-Irish historical experience has been synonymous with freedom, the safety of their families, and putting food on the table.

Note: This excerpt comes from Karen McCarthy’s The Other Irish: The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America.

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43 Comments

  1. The political left in America is never going to achieve their silly dream of a nationwide firearm-ban, any more than the political right in America will ever achieve their equally silly dream of a nationwide abortion-ban.

  2. I agree with Chris about this but I think it might be a blessing in disguise.

    Let’s examine what being an outlaw is likely to do to the psyche of the average American, because I have little doubt the laws will be passed – enforceable or not.

    Secession may be a joke at this point but I feel the winds a-changin’.

  3. “The Roots of America’s Gun Culture”

    Few more incidents of wild shooting spree asylum state. The second amendment will be a thing of the past.

  4. If these Scots-Irish are the same Borderland Scots, that were given the choice to give up their bandit life in Scotland, or move to Northern Ireland and battle the Irish for the English, then none of this surprises me. If the English couldn’t turn them into meek townsmen, no one can.

  5. They ain’t what they used to be be. Still, there may be a saving remnant. We’ll soon see. Best test would be for the Jewess Feinstein’s gun-grab bill to pass. Then let the these Stalinists attempt enforcement. There’ll be 1,2,3..many Ruby Ridges/Wacos. Could be the shortest path to Civil War and secession, even before the JewPonzi economy collapses. The more I think on this idea, the better I like it. In fact I am going to e-mail the office of my very own femmeJew Senator and indicate my willingness to hand over a pristine M1a. Provided she come personally to collect it.

  6. I doubt this gun control stuff is going to amount to much. But, you never know. We are in a racial endgame. They mean to slaughter us.

    Healthcare, I did not expect to see that shift. So perhaps they will push hard for bans on semi automatic weaponry.

  7. This gun ban stuff is all hot air. They won’t ban anything. In a month the Sandy Hook shooting will be a distant memory. Some of you so called WNs sound like trolls.

  8. I never knew much about the scots-irish so I looked them up.

    It should be noted that they are supposedly 1600’s immigrants to Ireland. Thus one can treat the Scots-Irish and the Irish as two different peoples, in the same way that one can treat Ashkenazi Jews and Germans as two different peoples.

  9. StukaPilot says:
    They ain’t what they used to be be. Still, there may be a saving remnant. We’ll soon see. Best test would be for the Jewess Feinstein’s gun-grab bill to pass….

    From the ones I know, they are the same people. What’s different is how warfare has changed. So much of it has been a battle of words, ideology, not your fists, so they aren’t sure how to fight in that kind of climate. Besides which, they’re honest (in a way) and HATE bullshit, and prefer direct fighting, not politicking.

    Made me think of Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men, the Willie Stark and Jack Burden dynamic.

    With leadership and talking points, they would not back down. From the ones I’ve known, they’re hard people, harder than the Irish-Irish, capable of a truly brutal honesty.

  10. Metal Gear / Iceman says:
    I never knew much about the scots-irish so I looked them up.
    It should be noted that they are supposedly 1600?s immigrants to Ireland. Thus one can treat the Scots-Irish and the Irish as two different peoples, in the same way that one can treat Ashkenazi Jews and Germans as two different peoples….”

    They are a different people—in a different, and much earlier, trajectory to America; somewhat different relationship to England, Scottish background, a sense of displacement and frontiersmanship, completely different religion— the Irish-Irish never went through any of that.

    But Idk— about the Jew-German comparison?

    The Irish-Irish in America have been positioned as “oppressed” in the Marxist lexicon, the “good whites,” maybe not slaves but (supposedly) indentured servants all, which is just as good as a slave almost…right? They have done more, perhaps, than many populations to undermine the regional, de-centralized economy and to centralize it, and open the borders for catholics, (which people like Philip Hart did, and also Reagan—a crypto catholic, whose whole family was catholic, but who hid it, and created full diplomatic ties with the pope and so on).

    The Irish-Irish have deep-seated prejudices (so much so they are often unaware of it) and they do not know why.

    Because they look the most like the colonial Americans, and are the majority force in big city politics (it’s not all Jews), the Colonial Type can wind up learning this from the inside-out.

    We used to talk about that in college a lot. The Irish-Irish descent kids (usually about third or fourth generation or so) would seem “American,” but slowly you realized there were huge gulfs of differences, making for some painful encounters (and in which the…Wasp…the colonial… the BAD WHITE with tainted Southern Blood and so on, would just be degraded).

    They look like us, but (at least in my experience) have no loyalty to us. They SAY they hate the “Big Money” but they often really do not, but instead, mostly just want their guy to have the control.

    They see “The American Revolution” (of which they were not a part) as a triumph over the crown—in the Irish sense. They don’t get the English were fighting other English with the Scots and it HAD NOTHING TO DO (in a sense) with their deal. They can only see it all from their own point of view, seems like.

  11. The Irish are weepy crybabies compared to us Scots-Irish. FYI the Scots-Irish are not much for dress up naziism. Clyde Wilson did not have much love for Webb’s “Born Fighting”, but I thought it a good primer. Perhaps he was in the, ” let’s not upset the wimmen folk phase”, all the Old Pa’s fall into that trap as their testosterone fades.

  12. The Kennedy posters are a pretty good indication of the tribalism. There’s Jack and Bobby and MLK all saints.

    Anglo Americans bought into their own bullshit about the revolution though. Their step children lapped it all up and turned it on the wicked step parent.

  13. “one can treat the Scots-Irish and the Irish as two different peoples, in the same way that one can treat Ashkenazi Jews and Germans as two different peoples.”

    “Scots Irish are about as Irish as Lithuanians are Polish.”

    Bzzzzt! Wrong. The Scotch-Irish are primarily lowland Scottish with Anglo-Saxon admixture and the Scots (Scotti in Latin) are an Irish Gaelic tribe that invaded Great Britain and defeated the Picts after the Romans left. The Scots language is a Gaelic dialect like Irish and Manx and unlike other Celtic languages such as Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.

  14. My ancestors came from Scotland and Ireland, Keep in mind what the Judeo Brits did to the Highland Scots—taking their farms and removing them. They even made a law if you spoke Gaelic it was a death sentence…My ancestors were in South Carolina and they got hit again…with Reconstruction and property confiscation by Yanks. Then they fled to southern Georgia around Okeefenokee Swamp to survive Reconstruction. The Judeos are always after us…. Leprechauns and History of Invasions—good history to read….Keep in mind what Cornwallis told Washington and how Judeo Masonry has controlled USA since it began….

  15. @RobRoySimmons says
    “The Irish are weepy crybabies compared to us Scots-Irish.”

    After all these years, the Irish still have a chip on their shoulder, over English colonialism in Britain. I believe many joined leftist movements, as a way of getting back at the English.

    Guess what Irish, the Scottish and Welsh also suffered at the hands of the English and they didn’t turn into rabid anti-Whites because of it.

  16. “The Irish are weepy crybabies compared to us Scots-Irish.”

    Not compared to the Scotch-Irish that post on this website they’re not! They’re constantly bitching and moaning about dem ol’ debbil yankees… At least the Irish fought for and (mostly) achieved their own independence. You Southrons have a long way to go yet to fill your dream of independence.

  17. The lowlands in Scotland are broadly speaking AngloSaxon. The kingdom of Northumbria populated the place last. The Scots-Irish are not particularly Scot either. The nearest group that fits are Reivers.

  18. ” The Scots-Irish are not particularly Scot either.”

    Or so you assert. In actual fact DNA testing of the British Isles shows a definite cline and the increase of Celtic haplogroups as you go from east to west. Northern Ireland Protestants are on average 70% Celtic in their DNA.

  19. Londonderry was a Scotch Irish colony. Because so many of the colonists were London prentis boys. By and large these skilled tanners, smiths, husband men we’re the same men who then left Ulster to migrate to the Americas. The colonists would generally be highly urbanized and skilled in trades. The plantation was heavily London and oddly enough Pembroke in Wales which was a London colony too.

  20. Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Daniel Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Steward, Roberet Morison, Alexander Cunningham, Samuel Hunt, James Spike, John Coningham, William Cairnes and Samuel Harvy

    These are the names of the Londonderry Apprentice Boys.

    The Protestant Scotch Irish governor was George Walker a Yorkshireman. This isn’t complicated. Even a loon like Lynne would agree as to whom these people were. Nasty bigotted Bastards from places like London.

  21. I alone proud Scot/Irish originally from Alabama. I do,cling to my guns.

    One thing people are missing it will not take a law to remove our guns. Obama has already shown many times he will use executive orders to do things to force his way. He can make gun ownership very difficult on his own. He can make it nearly impossible for someone like me to get .308 ammo in large quantities.

    Most people will give over their guns willingly. I am appalled how the average man, and I do mean Southern man, know next to nothing about what his happening. The only thing that would make most southerns go to war now would be if the government took away their SEC football. I have southern friends who say we don’t need guns with high capacity magazines. You can hunt deer with one or two shots they say. Hell, they don’t even know what the second amendment is all about.

  22. Sure, Chris, and Obama doesn’ t have a snowball’ s chance at reelection either, right?
    Mark my words, before this insane middle school lab experiment known as Amurrica is done, you will have gun bans, sodomite “marriage”, amnesty, and the dept ceiling raised continuously.
    i also think the Repubs are going to lose the house in 2014.

  23. Wayne is correct. Now that society has been gutted the next stage is multiracial fag commies against multiracial fag socialists. Anyone can go to the CPUSA website and compare it to the Democrat platform themselves. The Commies know Obama is the enemy

    A concrete example of the usefulness of this strategy: we said that the fight for health care reform, along the lines Obama and groups like Health Care for America Now outlined, was the only step forward actually possible, given the alignment of forces-where the labor movement is, the makeup of the Senate, grassroots groups-ready to fight. Consequently, the CPUSA embraced that struggle, to the chagrin of some who thought that this was a sellout of the Single Payer movement. But, as we’ve seen, this is where the real fight was.

    We were right about that, but what did we add? Firstly, we fought to bring people on board. As I mentioned, a number of people on the left didn’t agree with this position. Secondly, and more importantly, we were able to use our strategic line to argue for what is right, to keep in perspective the real enemies. If Obama didn’t do this or that, we argued why this was the case, and made it clear that he is not the enemy, at least not now; the real enemy is the Republican ultra-right. The Blue Dog Democrats, as odious as they can be, aren’t the enemy either. In this and all other struggles currently, we make the point that targeting them-Obama, the Blue Dogs, etc.-simply lets the tea partiers, the CPAC people, all these types, off the hook and dilutes the movement forward.

    Obama and the Democrats are not the enemy; they represent better possibilities for working people than the Republicans. Still, we argue that the role of labor and its closet allies (those who are racially and nationally oppressed, women, young people) has to be increased, and that the grassroots activity on the ground needs to be increased in order to help the Democrats secure at least their best agenda; so doing would both guarantee a real defeat of the extreme right at the ballot box later in the year, and also lay the groundwork for further stages of struggle.

    In some ways, the fact that people confuse us with progressive Democrats is good; it means that we’ve tapped into mainstream sentiment; we’re not off in left field. I didn’t join the Communist Party because of some socialist dream; I joined because I want to be involved in a fight to better society, and the Communist Party seemed, and still seems, the best vehicle for that. The fact that socialism is the outcome of such a fight is incidental to that fact. The case should be the same for the vast majority of people that we will recruit, if we play our cards right.

  24. Perhaps there was a Neolithic movement to ban flints. A bronze age movement to ban daggers.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBk0TSH90M&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    Well worth seeing just to Ogle the blonde presenter. Probably lots of common ancestors of the Scotch Irish here too. See the last twenty minutes for weaponry. The bronze dagger with gold inlay is a beauty. The gold wire bracelet is also a delight. Apparently it was found on the seabed off the coast of Devon and is one of the most advanced examples of gold smithing for its date. The info on the Beaker Culture should be of interest to Rudel especially.

  25. @Wayne

    “Sure, Chris, and Obama doesn’t have a snowball’s chance at reelection either, right?”

    – Don’t throw that in my face — I voted for Romney. Multiple times. You and Lew “voted nigger”. Reap what you sewed, Dixian.

  26. When Obama got elected, the white British cried tears of joy and celebrated in the streets, English Johnny.

  27. No, it looks like they were digging up artifacts. They were also busy setting up nativity scenes:
    http://www.salon.com/2012/12/23/there_really_is_a_war_on_christmas/?mobile.html

    Something Americans are not allowed to do anymore. This equality of religion idea is obviously a wedge for Jews to claim Atheism in their 20s and 30s then magically rediscover the kippa for the 40s. Sneaky bastards. Theres no problem like this in either Italy or any Christian nation in Europe.

  28. 2016 is Democrats. 2014 will see a Republican resurgence, but 2016 reality will return once more. Demographics is destiny.

  29. I predict 2014 will bring even more losses to the Republicans because:
    1) The media is lock stock and barrel in the corner of the Marxists, has been forever.
    2) Repubs don’t give the people anything to fight for but plush deals for corporations, free trade agreements and war.
    3) Republicans continue to pander to everyone…but whites
    4) The Tea Party is toast. Nobody cares anymore. They had some momentum, all it’s energy was diverted to multicultural ends.
    5) Demographics. By 2016, Texas will be blue, and probably a host of other Southern states.
    6) Finally, lots of people just like a winner. Repubs are the losers par excellence, have been for 50 years.

  30. Further, I predict that instead of getting down and dirty in the trenches against the media, academia, and Dimocrat Party, the Repubs will look for love by lurching to the left even more than they already have. The Zio-Christians will go along for the ride, even if it’s a Thelma and Louis over the cliff.

  31. I believe that blocking any increase in budget paramount to getting the fiscal house in order. Sequestration is necessary to slow down the waste that is epidemic in the military. Along those lines ,A 10% across the board reduction in the last approved budget would make managers more careful of their obligations to the American people. This would be all agency’s including the military as well as DHS , and TSA .The FBI ,Border Patrol ,ICE and Coast Guard would stay at present levels. As far as this asinine crap with gun control, there are more negligent deaths by automobile,a dozen children were killed in door incidences getting off a school bus this past year.This is another grand stand to attempt control the individual and put at the mercy of evil. Evil was invited to Sandy Hook,Aurora and Columbine by fools with words on signs and not backed up by any type of deferring factors. Gun Free Zone Ha! Speed Limit Ha! Home invasion robbery,assault . Let’s see which house will the career felon go to one with some type of security system or the one that is neat as a pin with $ 20.00 bills in plain site on the table and no evidence of a security system. Done for now .Yes there will be repercussions if Obama,Bloomberg and Feinstein has their way to bad those that will pay the price will not be standing next to them.

  32. The Left doesn’t want to vinyl guns. Democrats are not the Left. They are Center Right. I’m an American communist, and I’ll explain why we oppose gun control.

    US history is a violent one. The genocide of Native Americans and slavery of Africans, plus the Gulf between the rich and poor and an economic model that requires constant growth, makes for a lot of violence.

    You can’t trust the cops, they are corrupt and racist and serve to generate money through tickets and convictions (real or fake). You can’t trust the state in general. They’ll spend more money on prisons and war than public infrastructure and social services.

    It’s up to use to arm ourselves and patrol our own communities because we cannot trust racist, corrupt police and courts to do this for us.

    When we decide to establish popular control over the economy and government, we will have to be ready to act on our own behalf in military and police actions to defend ourselves from the old state, it’s bigotry, corruption, and constant violence.

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