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  • 2019-07-22 (xsd:date)
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  • Did George Washington Say Citizens Gain the Right to Unseat the... (en)
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  • Did George Washington Say Citizens Gain the Right to Unseat the Government if the Government Restricts Guns? Claim George Washington said: When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern. Rating Not True Like this fact check? Reporting In May 2019, the Facebook page McGroarty for Freedom shared the following meme containing a quote attributed to George Washington concerning the rights of citizens to bear arms: https://www.facebook.com/mcgroartyforfreedom/photos/a.475873396080195/854650471535817/?type=3&theater Across a black background, white text read: When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern. George Washington No citations, dates, or other information speaking to the validity of the quote accompanied it; nevertheless, it was shared nearly 60,000 times from that original post. A search for the quote led to the website of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, an organization whose mission statement indicates its purpose is to preserve, restore, and manage the estate of George Washington to the highest standards and to educate visitors and people throughout the world about the life and legacies of George Washington. A page titled Spurious Quotations contained the following passage: When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern. The library has yet to find an explanation for this misquote or a similar quote of Washington’s that was confused for this statement. Florida is where wokes go to die... Please enable JavaScript Florida is where wokes go to die As of its posting in May 2019, the quote was at least four years old — but likely not much older than that. In February 2015, PolitiFact examined an iteration of the meme that was circulating at that time, and spoke to an historian about this claim and others like it: But are those really Washington’s words? We contacted Edward Lengel, editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. He said there is no evidence that Washington ever wrote or said these words, or any like them. Lengel cautioned that it’s impossible to prove a negative, but he added that he’s as certain as he can be that the quote did not originate from George Washington. In an attempt to trace the chronological origin of the quote, we restricted a Google search to results registered in or before July 2015. Including the PolitiFact page, only nine results were returned — the bulk of which were misdated , later iterations of the quote. Had the commentary genuinely been from Washington, historical references would have almost certainly appeared before 2015, particularly on topics as thoroughly discussed in the United States as guns and gun ownership. A quote attributed to George Washington holding that if the government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern appeared to date back to 2015 or 2014 at the earliest, and an historian said of the quote at the time that he was as certain as he can be that it was ahistorical. No credible evidence has ever attributed those words to George Washington. Posted in Disinformation , Fact Checks Tagged bad history , fake history , george washington , history memes , not a fun fact , not actually tyranny , viral facebook quotes (en)
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