[QUOTE=pisshead]i've heard that one, but i never heard it in a school history book...On April 18, 1775, British General Thomas Gage sent 700 soldiers to destroy guns and ammunition the colonists had stored in the town of Concord, just outside of Boston. They also planned to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the key leaders of the patriot movement.
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/l...p?document=864

Home > Document Library > Founding Era > American Revolution > Orders from General Thomas Gage to Lieut. Colonel Smith, 10th Regiment â??Foot


Orders from General Thomas Gage to Lieut. Colonel Smith, 10th Regiment â??Foot

General Thomas Gage
April 18, 1775
Boston, Massachusetts
Lieut. Colonel Smith, 10th Regiment â??Foot,
Sir,

Having received intelligence, that a quantity of Ammunition, Provisions, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with a Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and distroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever. But you will take care that the Soldiers do not plunder the Inhabitants, or hurt private property.


There is a major difference between confiscating the guns of armed insurgents, to protect the forces of the Crown from the people that had already decided to overthow them, and the average colonists who used them for survival.

As I said, it was the Stamp, Townshend, and Intolerable Acts that started/incited the Revolution - NOT these unsubstansiated allegations of the confiscation and/or banning of the colonists' guns by the British.