MouseTheLuckyDog blathered:
The people hid from one militant guy. Compare this to 1776 when British militants walked on a town. Citizens decided to gather together to oppose them despite the risk to their lives (, and many did die ). Boy how this country has changed.
You'e conflating the term "militant" with "military". The Boston Massacre (which turns out to have been no such thing - in actuality, the British soldiers were fired on from the crowd, which means they returned fire in self-defense - but the winners get to write the histories), known to the British as the Incident on King Street, occurred on March 5, 1770, when a detachment of eight British soldiers was sent to defend a sentry, Private Hugh White, who was surrounded by a mob of several hundred Bostonians, and was being subjected to insults and threats from its members. The soldiers formed a protective shield around White, and, on orders from their commander, Captain Thomas Preston, loaded their muskets. The mob's actions escalated to throwing objects, and daring the soldiers to fire. Richard Palmes, a local innkeeper, physically threatened Captain Preston with a club. One thrown object hit Private Hugh Montgomery hard enough to knock him off his feet. When Montgomery got back to his feet, he fired his musket into the crowd. No one was hit. However, Palmes further aggravated the situation by clubbing both Montgomery and Preston with his cudgel. Without orders or authorization, the other soldiers then fired into the mob, which promptly retreated.
After an overnight investigation, Preston and his detachment were all arrested - by the British military governor - the following morning. On the 17th, Preston, the eight men under his command, and four members of the mob who were alleged to have fired on the troops were all indicted for murder. Preston, defended by John Adams, with the assistance of Paul Revere (who drew a defense map of the scene, showing the position of the five fatalities in relation to that of the troops, a la CSI), was tried in late October, 1770 and acquitted on grounds that he had not ordered his men to fire. The eight soldiers under his command were tried separately in late November. Two of them were found guilty of manslaughter, because Adams convinced the jury that they had had good reason to feel their lives were in danger. The other six were found not guilty.
The four civilians were tried in December. One of the witnesses for the defense - a defendant's manservant - was found guilty of perjury. The four main defendants were acquitted.
The events of March 5, 1770 were skillfully exploited by Samuel Adams and his fellow separatists to help turn the tide of public opinion against British rule. Eventually, more than seven years after the so-called Boston Massacre (a phrase coined by Sam Adams), the colonies declared their independance, and the United States eventually won their independence from Britain.
John Adams, who successfully defended all the British soldiers involved in the incident against charges of murder, went on to write the U.S. Constitution, and become the second President of the United States.