In debunking the myth that “guns increase violent crime,” Richard Poe, the former editor of FrontPage Magazine, has rebutted the false assumption that America is more violent than other nations, again emphasizing that more people during the twentieth century were killed in other countries by their own governments than by war, while reaffirming that gun control laws have almost always preceded genocide or mass murder of the people (democide) by their own governments.
While the United States and Switzerland have more guns per capita than any of the other developed countries, they also have more freedom in general than countries with draconian gun control laws. Even Japan, a country that has embraced democracy and Western mores in many ways, still has the centuries‑old tradition of subordination of individualism to the state, and the collective Japanese citizens have less individual freedom than those of Switzerland, where virtually every citizen is armed and individual freedom is paramount.
Japan may have a low crime rate, but citizens live in a virtual authoritarian state, where the police keep full dossiers on every citizen, and “twice a year, each Japanese homeowner gets a visit from the local police to update files” on every aspect of the citizen’s home life.
Switzerland, on the other hand, a small, landlocked country, stood up against the Nazi threat during World War II, because each and every male was an armed and free citizen. (The Swiss republic was the “Sister‑Republick” that the American Founding Fathers so greatly admired.) Nazi Germany could have overwhelmed Switzerland during World War II, but the price was too steep for the German High Command. Instead, the Nazi juggernaut trampled over Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, and other countries, and avoided the armed Swiss nation, the “porcupine,” which was prepared for war and its military was ready to die rather than surrender.
As to what an armed population, such as those of the original 13 American colonies that later became the United States, did to obtain their independence is a well‑known story. Suffice to say, that the shot heard “around the world” on Patriot’s Day (April 19, 1775) was precipitated when the British attempted to seize the arm depots and disarm the American militia at Lexington and Concord in the Colony of Massachusetts.
As to what an armed population can do to prevent the overthrow of their government by oppressive, communist movements, I recommend Larry Pratt’s excellent little tome, Armed People Victorious (1990). Armed People Victorious vividly recounts stories of how two countries, as dissimilar as Guatemala and the Philippines, teetering on the brink of disaster, turned defeat into victory, when the governments recognized that allowing and encouraging the people to form armed militias to protect themselves, their families, and their villages from communist insurgents in the 1980s, helped to preserve their freedom.
Why is this so important to us as physicians? First, because we are all citizens, and we have been educated enough to understand the importance of preserving or attaining freedom. Second, because as neurosurgeons we can be compassionate and still be honest and have the moral courage to pursue the truth and find effective solutions through the use of sound, scholarly research, and factual information.
The social problem of guns and violence should be no different. We have an obligation to reach our conclusions based on objective data, historical experience, and scientific information, rather than ideology, emotionalism, expediency, or partisan politics. Moreover, the lessons of history sagaciously reveal that whenever and wherever science and medicine have been subordinated to the state, and individual freedom has been crushed by tyranny, the results for medicine have been as perverse as they have been disastrous, as the barbarity of Nazi doctors and Soviet and Cuban psychiatrists amply testified. Beyond the abolition of freedom and dignity, the perversion of science and medicine becomes the vehicle for the imposition of slavery and totalitarianism.
Governments that trust their citizens with guns are governments that sustain and affirm individual freedom. Governments that do not trust their citizens with firearms tend to be despotic and tyrannical. Let us conclude…with the wise words of another American statesman, this time Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826), the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States of America, who warned us, “When the government fears the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.”
Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. is a retired Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery and Adjunct Professor of Medical History at Mercer University School of Medicine. He is Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International. He served on the CDC’s Injury Research Grant Review Committee.
This is an excerpt of a post that originally appeared at drgo.us and is reprinted here with permission.
How many homicides in Japan are “family suicides”?
Switzerland’s greatest defense is that they were a place to dump money and gold…no questions asked…in that respect they were necessary and subsequently left alone….
Probably a lot. When I was in Japan about three years ago there was a “family suicide” of five people but there was no way for them to tell if all were willing. Because in Japan they do it with things like gas more often, there is no way to tell and probably there are a lot of hidden homicides in their suicide rates.
Anybody who still thinks the 2nd Amendment is an 18th Century anachronism, must have missed the entire 20th Century. Especially the first half. It was a good time for brutal tyrants and genocidal dictators.
The 21st Century isn’t starting out too bad for some of them either.
Like our greatest President said
“It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers. “
That is a GREAT quote, both for its rhetorical power and absolute truth. Thanks for sharing it.
I don’t think Coolidge surpassed Jefferson, but he was one of the best for sure
He was about the only one in the 20th Century that gave a crap about his oath
Awesome quote
July 5, 1926
Contrast that with the socialist tyrant we had in office 7 years later.
“…the pages of medical history are replete with indisputable evidence that physicians, upholding the Oath and individual-based ethics of Hippocrates, actually benefit not only their individual patients but also society, secondarily. In other words, physicians working in the enlightened best interest of their patients actually result in tangible benefits to humanity as a whole. On the other hand, the historic record also reveals, in this very century, when that is not the case and physicians become agents of the state, rather than advocates of their patients, events go awry. Physicians become preoccupied with preventive health measures and the so-called proper allocation of scarce resources, rather than the health of their individual patients. The result is that medicine becomes subordinated to, and physicians act as agents of, the state, a situation which is as perverse as it is disastrous. It’s time physicians choose: In vaccination, as in everyday practice, is it the dictate of your conscience to abide by the individual-based Oath and ethics of Hippocrates or to comply with the collectivist morality of population-based medicine?”-Miguel Faria Jr., MD
Looks like this doc gets it, why do so many here still morph into collectivist-communist-statist muppets when this attack(Mandatory vaccines) on our individual liberties comes up?
I don’t care if a child is not vaccinated. But if the child gets the mumps, all treatment and/or burial costs are the sole responsibility of the parents. I do not want my tax dollars or insurance company to pay a dime to a family that could have avoided the disease with a vaccine. If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough. Someone with kids may have another argument to make.
My son has had the full course of vaccinations. He is fit, healthy, and intelligent. Everything the anti-vaxxers say won’t happen if kids are vaccinated.
Really, that’s your argument? How many smokers get cancer? The ones that don’t prove prove smoking is safe? Good logic. Guess we should repeal the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Your kids are ok, so what else matters, right?
@ PG, please take your anti-vax NUTTERY out of this website.
Yes people on the left are nearly twice as likely to be anti-vax nuts (9% Democrat v 5% Republicans) , but we do find some on the right too.
The fund you mention is because it is remotely possible for any injection to cause injury. When you are talking about hundreds of millions of people you will get a couple per year who get injected with a contaminated needle, or whose skin was not cleaned, or have some one in ten million allergy. Not because vaccines are actually harming anyone.
You don’t even seem to realize your anti vax nuttery is the SAME nuttery deployed by the gun control nutz.
Lol, Chris, hypocrites like yourself are the reason I post this. And no, it’s the statist left that supports giving the government total control over a persons medical decision making. Conservatives, real ones anyway, tend to understand the concept of individual liberties and support a persons rights in making their own choices. Liberties are not a la carte, we are either free or we are not. Do you think the 2nd Amendment will survive in an environment where groups of people get to pick which rights we have and which ones we don’t?
@Chris,
Please take your anti Liberty nuttery out of this website. State control is also predominantly a leftist idea. Stuff it.
Why is this literally the only thing you post about? Really. I’m not even trying to be mean. This is a gun website and you literally only post about vaccines. Perhaps with this passion you have you could start The Truth About Vaccines instead?
But then he’d have to write that they work, have more benefits than risks, and that everyone should vaccinate their children.
I do agree though that vaccines shouldn’t be mandatory… the government should butt out of people’s lives and let Darwinism take over.
joe, I’ll ask again, cite the research that shows vaccines have more benefit than risk. You won’t, because you can’t, because that science has never been done. To have that data, you would have to have large scale studies comparing people vaccinated to the CDC schedule against people who have never been vaccinated. This health outcome comparison has never been done, despite having large enough groups on both sides to do this study. And it will never be done. And you know why.
STFU, you obviously do NOT know what a longitudinal study is. Plenty have been done showing profound benefits of vaccines
@ChRis, LMFAO!!! A longitudinal study? Post one that conclusively shows vaccine safety. I’ll grab some popcorn.thanks for the laugh.
@Chris, I knew you were full of 💩 and wouldn’t cite a “longitudinal” study that conclusively shows vaccine safety…because no such study exists. Keep cheerleading for bigger government and less individual liberties because that’s consistent with conservatives who support gun rights…….
I’ve made many non vaccine related posts here. The organization got nail ost here was written by a neurosurgeon who has also made some other important statements about his profession and the individual liberties that are stake. It highlights the hypocritical stance that many alleged 2A supporters take regarding other individual rights. As I posted, many alleged gun rights supporters morph into statist cheerleaders when it comes to other rights.
Correction: 2nd sentence -the original post here was written by a neurosurgeon….
pg2 posts are easy to bypass without reading.
“Switzerland, on the other hand, a small, landlocked country, stood up against the Nazi threat during World War II, because each and every male was an armed and free citizen.”
Ya gotta hand it to the Swiss, who have promoted this load of romantic propaganda crap since the end of WW2.
Switzerland never “stood up” against Germany. Switzerland was Germany’s banker and ally. It’s where the Nazis stored the fortunes that they looted from the rest of Europe, and the Swiss profited handsomely from the spoils.
Had the Nazis wanted to conquer Switzerland, it would have done so quite easily. They didn’t because Switzerland was a vassal state of Nazi Germany. And when the war ended, the Swiss kept the stolen goods for itself. Switzerland has admitted this.
I am glad someone beat me to it . . . And it was not just WWII. Holding on to the fortunes of Europe’s elite comes w/ certain perks namely you got to keep the banks, and thus the country, free.
The Swiss neutrality was token at best. Pro Nazi sentiment in Switzerland was common right up until the end of the war. Anti-Semitism was common before, during, and long after the war.
Swiss industries were feeding the Nazi war machine. Swiss banks were storing and laundering the loot plundered from Europe. And after the war the impossible requirements made by the banks for holocaust survivors and their families to recover their assets.
Pro Nazi sentiment in Switzerland was common right up until the end of the war.
The same could be said about the Vatican.
One way to determine morality of an action is to extrapolate what would happen if everybody did what you did.
If all countries did what the Swiss did we’d all be living under the Nazi flag.
Also.. Swiss gun ownership may be at relatively high rates, but the laws are as draconian as NY or chiraq..
buy permits, you have to provide your own background check, you have to keep the records for a long time.. same laws apply to ammo, and you can only buy a limited amount of ammo for the specific firearms you already own, etc…
every gun is tracked (excepting the normal stuff.. bolt hunting rifles, muzzleloaders, etc) for all transactions
That so many put up with all that speaks to their positive gun culture.
The point is compared to other countries, and it is not “draconian” compared to Japan, England, or most of Europe.
Guatemala and the Philippines?
Those are really, REALLY bizarre examples of guns protecting “freedom.”
And they happen to be two countries with extreme levels of criminal violence today.
And it sounds like they were 18th-Century-style organized popular militias, not individual-rights-based gun ownership.
This article is brimming with fail.
OMG. The author of the book he cites is the guy who just got punked on Showtime.
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