Come and take it protest sign ar-15
(AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)

 

The two countries’ opposite approaches [to gun control] are especially striking given both nations were born from armed insurrection — the US winning its independence in the Revolutionary War in 1783, and the Chinese Communist Party establishing the People’s Republic of China in 1949 after a lengthy rebellion against the Nationalist government.

But their attitudes diverged from there, with the US enshrining the right to bear arms in the Constitution, arguing that this right, and a “well regulated militia,” were “necessary to the security of a free state.”

China swung in the other direction, deciding that an armed public posed a threat to safety and stability in the still-fragile, newly won country. For Communist Party leaders, weapons were a means of revolution, with Chairman Mao Zedong famously declaring in 1927: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Just two years after the People’s Republic was founded, the government implemented measures prohibiting citizens from buying, selling or privately manufacturing guns. Several smaller ministries had passed gun control laws over the years — but the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, in which the Chinese military crushed protests led by college students in Beijing with deadly force, marked a tipping point.

The government implemented new gun control regulations just months later — an extension of its wider crackdown on all forms of public dissent and organized resistance.

By 1996, a national gun control law had been promulgated by the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature. Under the law, only a few groups of people are allowed to own guns, including law enforcement, security personnel, government-approved sports shooters and government-approved hunters.

The Communist Party’s grip has only grown tighter under President Xi Jinping. In recent years, authorities have carried out more raids and offered freedom from prosecution in firearms amnesties. Police destroyed 69,000 illegal guns last November; this May, the government announced it was launching yet another four-month campaign to seize illegal guns.

— Jessie Yeung and Steve George in China and the US were both born from armed conflict. They’re now polar opposites on gun control

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52 COMMENTS

    • CNN presumes that the Chinese government is a progressive, benign government interested in the welfare of their people, not a tyranny quick to silence any criticism, crush any resistance, expand their own personal wealth and wield power based on their whims, not laws..

    • Oh, don’t be too surprised. The rest of the article goes on about how US “gun crime” shocks the international community, how even a single shooting in China was a national story, republishes Chinese state-run media comments that the US has no right to criticize other countries for humans rights abuses (see Uyghur genocide) because people get shot here, ect. Basically, it does a fair deal to suggest the Chinese way of handling things is the correct one.

  2. Now that Chairman Xiden and his communist fellow travelers are in “power” they are hell bent, and bound, on doing the same thing here.

    • China is Dacian’s idea of a civilized socialist nation. Just ignore the lack of free medical care, social security, and pensions.

    • Thankfully for us, even Leftist Scum agree China is totalitarian and nothing to emulate…

      • That isn’t the message I’m getting from the progressives I hear in the MSM. They’re fully on board with all that totalitarian stuff. A softer tone than Xi’s, I admit, but still ultimately from the “barrel of a gun” only the government holds.

        • No, you are not hearing any such thing. You are making it up and listening only to what you want to hear.

          The anti-gun side is completely wrong in their thinking on gun ownership, but they sure as hell are not siding with Chinese communists or totalitarian regimes.

  4. “ Under the law, only a few groups of people are allowed to own guns, including law enforcement, security personnel, government-approved sports shooters and government-approved hunters.” – exactly the same as in socialist Israel.

        • They can’t even build a dam spillway without have a large chunk getting washed away by heavy rain.

          Look up Tofu Curd construction. Concrete that crumbles when squeezed with your hand. Steel rebar that can be bent by a person (if included in the construction at all). Buildings that spontaneously collapse.

          They think they can take over the world? Xi Jinping is making the big mistake of believing his own propaganda.

        • Who’s praising China? On the contrary, I am pointing out that all socialist countries have anti-freedom policies. Just as all socialist states in Amerika. They are not anti-gun, as long as the guns are controlled by the government; they are against individuals possessing guns, since that is a threat to the government. Israel does just that – only military, security, and special people have guns. Commoners are forbidden to touch them.

      • ^^^^^
        This

        Only the Chinese government is allowed to commit mass murder. Anybody who practices mass murder without a state approved mandate will be committing treason against the state. In China this is a more serious crime than the murder itself.

  5. Instead of looking where CNN points look where gutless CNN is with their silence on Afghanistan, biden incompetence, the border, the pipeline, the stock market, etc.

    CNN is as useful as wet toilet paper.

    • Yes.
      The far left dems are masters at diversionary tactics.
      Just like watching a magic act, ALWAYS watch the hand you assume is NOT doing anything. That’s where the grift is. 🤔
      All the chinavirus vax mandate and passport garbage is used to suck up oxygen and consume bandwidth, that way the REAL grifts DON’T get any airtime.
      This way the sheeple keep moving toward the slaughter house, blissfully unaware of the certain demise that awaits inside. Spending all their time attacking the members of the flock that don’t look or act like them.

      “Insert image of G.Soros and M.Bloomberg wringing their hands while muttering “excellent” like Montgomery Burns”

      As Twain once said, (paraphrased)…..”when you find yourself agreeing with the majority, it’s time to step back and assess the overall situation”.
      It’s too bad our schools have banned critical thinking over the last few decades.

  6. We may be polar opposites with China, but Xiden and the democrats want to change that. They say that they only want to ban modern sporting rifles (what they erroneously call assault rifles), but that’s just the start. Anytime a weapon is used in a “mass shooting”, there will be new calls to ban another firearm. We see this time and again. That, above all else, tells us the dangers of democrats in office.

    • Gun Control zealots are comfortable calling for bans following shootings because so called defenders of the Second Amendment have sat back and allowed the Second Amendment, Crime and Gun Control to be mixed together to form a confusing, tangled up ball of crap. That is why well meaning Gun Owners are all over the map swatting at flies trying to defend their rights.

      Once the ball of crap is untangled Gun Control is alone, out in the open where it can be crushed by its own weight.

      1) The Second Amendment is one thing.

      2) The criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, etc. is another thing.

      3) History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is a racist and nazi based Thing.

  7. I love it when “they” make the point for “us” but it still doesn’t seem to sink in for “them.”

    • It never does. The brainwashing is too thorough. I had a conversation with a woman about our local news and COVID reporting. According to her it was because Hearst was a Republican that the local news didn’t report negative COVID info but it was also because of all the negative COVID reporting on the local news that she felt she needed to wear two masks and gloves at all times.

      I tried fruitlessly to get her to reconcile the two concerns but her brainwashing just wouldn’t allow it.

      • Just look at history. Many of the useful idiots continued to recite the “mantra”, even when on their knees beside a mass grave, taking their final breaths, with a cocked pistol pressed to the back of their head.
        Critical thinking and logical thought patterns are frightening to those who rely on others for their safety, liberty, and security. Too afraid of what they might discover about themselves if they begin to think for themselves. 🤔
        A good example is how racists see racism in EVERYTHING.
        It’s all an exercise in projection, keeps them distracted and incapable of admitting the shortcomings in themselves.
        A truly pathetic existence.

    • “I love it when “they” make the point for “us” ”

      “They” (CNN) didn’t make a point for us. “They” are celebrating how safe China is because of gun control.

      Note the statement, “For Communist Party leaders, weapons were a means of revolution…”. The lesson here is that gun owners are proto-revolutionaries (“Insurrectionists”), intending an armed take over of the US government at any moment. So, just as Mao feared revolution against communist rule, the US government is justified in controlling guns in order to prevent revolution.

  8. “But the severe, inflexible rules have also provoked controversy at times. In one notorious case, a 20-year-old man in Fujian province was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016 for buying replica guns online, unaware that even fake guns could be considered de facto firearms. His case sparked outcry and garnered sympathy among the public, and his sentence was reduced to seven years in 2018.”

    Here in America, in certain high violent crime areas controlled by a particular political party, someone who commits a crime with a real gun may not even have to post bail. Then they’ll get a slap on the wrist. You know it’s a propaganda piece when they pretend the only difference is the presence of guns here.

    • And how would we know what the violent crime rate (committed by government or non-government actors) in China is anyway? We can’t trust our own government to tell us the truth, and even now the US government is under far more constraints than the Chinese government.

  9. The Democrats (actually Neo Marxists) will continue to demand a ban on one type of firearm after another using their normal inflammatory language. While they continue to shoot our dogs, the consistent message to them needs to be: F0AD!

  11. The Chinese Communist Party, which is communist in name only, is like every other dictatorship. For the people who have clawed their way to the top, it’s all about the power to impose their personal agenda on the entire nation. Sadly, their are Americans with similar goals. In their minds, the Bill of Rights should be reduced to one sentence: You have the right to shut up and do as you are told.

  12. Most have no idea the Chinese Communists were aided by the US State Department while the American people were lead to believe we were helping the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. While Chiang was initially allied with the Communists he later broke with them, purging them from the party. Without aid from the United States the Communists would surely have lost. But then we were also giving the bulk of our war materials to the Soviets even over our own troops, leaving those trapped in the Philippines to their fate. We even gave Joe Stalin all the makings for the atomic bomb. All the while FDR had no clue, rather like today’s occupant of the White House.

  13. To seize more illegal gunms.
    How can that be,I guess their first or second size all illegal gunms didn’t get them all.

  16. ” Police destroyed 69,000 illegal guns last November; this May, the government announced it was launching yet another four-month campaign to seize illegal guns ”

    And the four-month campaign will seize another 69,000 illegal guns that flowed in to the vacuum create by the first campaign. And in six months they will seize the 69,000 illegal guns that flowed in the the vacuum created by the second campaign. And six months after that… well, you get the idea. Prohibition had a lot of hard lessons that nobody seems to have learned.

  17. That is usually the first step in autocratic Countries so the people cannot defend themselves.
    All one has to do is study the treatment the Colonist suffered under British rule for a very long time before they revolted and then you will understand why many of the Constitutional Articles and Amendments were approved. However, since we have people in this Country who don’t believe history is important for understanding the past to improve the future and try to erase it, they will never know why the First, Second and 4th Amendments in particular are so important in a free Country.

  18. many came here to avoid harsh control and the English class structure…we always had an independent streak that the other colonies did not share…a separation was probably inevitable at some point…

  20. Did I miss something? Where is CNN mentioned in this story other than the title? I’m all for throwing CNN under the bus, but I’d like to see an actual account of their malfeasance. Get your shit together.

    • @Mac
      You missed something.
      At the end of the article you will find a link in large blue letters. When clicked the link will take you to the original article which is being responded to.

  21. Fortunately my dad insisted that we attend private schools, never attended Base school
    Therefore due to that and his habit of asking telling him “why we did something we did that we knew was not allowed”
    He also believed in “spare the belt, spoil the child”
    When I was too big to spank, his method changed to grounding me.
    I’m grateful to my Daddy’s teaching me critical thinking skills!

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