There are a lot of reasons the United States of America would be a difficult country to invade and conquer. Not only is it separated from its enemies by vast oceans protected by the world’s most powerful navy, it’s also a large country, filled with a multitude of terrains, climates and other natural obstacles. The USA also boasts the world’s most technologically advanced and lethal ground and air forces. But even if an invader managed to get through all that, there’s one more reason they would never subdue American civilians: guns.
There are more than 340 million Americans in the U.S. today, and of those, 262 million are adults. By some estimates, those millions of U.S. citizens are armed with as many as 500 million personal firearms – that we know about. In many states, personal gun owners do not need to register their weapons. If that weren’t enough to guarantee our 2nd amendment rights, it is absolutely, 100% legal for an American to make their own firearms for personal use.
Our country was founded on the idea of personal militias for national defense and if it ever comes down to it, that’s exactly what we’d do. It worked against the British Empire, after all. So when the outlook for Britain looked bleak during World War II, a cadre of Americans organized to send their personal firearms to England so civilians there could personally defend their liberty against a Nazi invasion.
It’s the American way.
World War II kicked off in Europe with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany but not much really happened in Western Europe until April 1940. That was when Nazi Germany suddenly launched its blitzkrieg in the West, toppling Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg before finally turning south into France. By June 22, 1940, the Nazis were in Paris and France had capitulated. Britain stood alone against fascist aggression. The threat of German troops crossing the English Channel and invading the island nation loomed large for what was left of the Western democracies.
Back in the United States, isolationist “America First” sentiments kept the country from joining its ally in the fight against Nazi aggression, but most Americans sympathized with the British cause. There were those who thought a German invasion of Britain seemed inevitable, and wanted to help fight off an attack from a foreign tyrant the only way they knew how: their personal weapons. A group of these British sympathizers created the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA) to help get Britain whatever it needed to win.
In Britain, the Firearms Act of 1937 made it illegal to distribute unlicensed guns to civilians, but so many Britishers joined the Home Guard, a civilian force under the direction of the British Army, that it couldn’t arm everyone. A call was made for British civilians to donate their guns, but it turned up sporting weapons and collectors’ items, mostly leftover sidearms from World War I. So when the CDAAA set up the American Committee for the Defense of British Homes (ACDBH) to collect gun donations from U.S. citizens and an export license from the U.S. State Department and it was an overwhelming success.
Between July 1940 and June 1942 set up 364 collection committees across the United States, with at least one in every state. The ACDBH collected more than 25,000 firearms, including more than 5,300 long guns, more than 100 Thompson submachine guns and thousands of pistols. Local police stations donated confiscated weapons, some gave WWI-era machine guns, and one person even gave their personal Browning Automatic Rifle. Former President Theodore Roosevelt even donated his personal hunting rifle. The group also collected helmets and binoculars.
Though England has never been keen on arming its civilian population (for good reason, the last time it did, the United States happened), the idea had the support of William Maxwell Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook was not only a member of the Prime Minister’s government, but also controlled the newspaper with the world’s largest circulation and was extremely influential. With Beaverbrook’s backing, the British government agreed to take the donated weapons, believing it would help rally support for Britain among the American population.
The first shipment of donations arrived in November 1941 and began to be distributed to Home Guard units. But it wasn’t long before the Americans were at war themselves, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the following December. Donations began to dwindle as U.S. neutrality became a thing of the past and American gun manufacturers ramped up production to become the “Arsenal of Democracy.” By June 1942, the American Committee for the Defense of British Homes officially closed up shop.