I don’t know if Laci the Dog over at mikeb302000 is Jewish. I’m not sure it even matters. It does to me. The fact that I’m a Jew, I mean. It matters to me. I’m not what you’d call devout (unless Sponge Bob’s declared Opposites Day). But my father was a Jewish labor camp survivor whose parents starved to death in a Nazi concentration camp. It may be second-hand info, but I know what happens to defenseless Jews. They’re slaughtered. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the pro-gun control blogger devotes an entire post to the proposition that armed self-defense wouldn’t have prevented the Holocaust. In fact, if German Jews had and exercised a right to keep and bear arms, it might have made things worse . . .

It hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.

So if German Jews had been armed in their own self-defense, if they’d used them against a government bent on genocide, the Nazi pogrom would have been what? More popular? More vicious? Arrived sooner?

In sociology, that kind of thinking is called blaming the victim—however theoretically or retroactively. At my house, it’s called unconscionable. A Jew with a firearm defending his life—or the lives of his loved ones and community—is a hero, not an impediment to a popular uprising against a fascist dictatorship.

More to the point, what uprising? Clearly, Laci understands that the Nazi’s persecution of Jews was less likely to foster a “popular” backlash against Hitler’s goons than a systematic campaign to murder the old, infirm and mentally ill amongst non-Jewish German natives. Which also did nothing to undermine the Nazi regime’s popular support.

So what, exactly, did the Jews have to lose by arming themselves? I know that oppression is a slow process; the bad guys don’t usually swoop down without first nibbling away at freedom and dignity. But the cold dead hands gun thing suggests itself.

Bottom line: German laws disarmed German Jews. Afterwards, they were defenseless, facing complete annihilation. Does Laci support the law that disarmed them? What would Laci have had the Jews do in their defense?

Judging from Laci’s subsequent analysis of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, nothing. The chronicle clearly implies that the Jews were doomed so what would have been point of gun ownership?

3,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 residents, most were captured and shipped to concentration and extermination camps, in particular to Treblinka.

Germans 17 killed and 93 wounded.

Sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns. And those who aren’t prepared to fight are just crushed.

Despite your giving firearms a godlike quality,they cannot protect you in all circumstances. A firearm is useless against an enemy that is better trained and equipped: especially if that equipment includes armour, artillery, guided missiles, drones, etcetera.

I’m not disputing Laci’s sub-point. The Warsaw Jews were starving, surrounded and out-gunned. Even if they’d been armed with TOW missiles, nothing they could have done would have stopped the German’s from their single-minded mission to wipe them off the face of the Earth. The same inevitable fate held true for Jews throughout Europe. Yes?

I’m not so sure. As we’ve seen in America’s most recent wars, a determined, relatively lightly armed populace can inflict serious damage on a fighting force with vastly superior firepower. If they can hold out long enough, if they can survive, they can live to see the day when their enemies withdraw.

Besides, who cares? If the Nazis were knocking on your door in the middle of the night to shepherd you and yours to the gas chamber, would you walk into that long good night thinking, oh well, we don’t have a chance, so we’ll go along willingly? Or would you want some firepower to do what you could to make the murderers pay for taking what doesn’t belong to them?

MikeB’s colleague makes a mistake common to gun grabbers: placing calculations about the collective good (or in this case evil) above the individual right to keep and bear arms. They value social planning and fantasies of collective security above personal freedom and self-defense. History tells us—again and again—that collective thinking puts society on the road to hell.

And once you’ve actually been to hell . . . The Jews who saw things that no human should have to endure, including my father, had a phrase that guided their actions after the fact: never again.

While most people think of the formation of the Jewish state when they hear this saying, take it from the son of a Holocaust survivor, it applies on individual level. You (the government) will not do this to me. My family. My community. My father was armed. So am I.

As far as I can tell, America’s Founding Fathers had a similar core belief: not on our patch. Not to me. In both cases, the individual right to keep and bear arms is considered a bulwark against tyranny, oppression and genocide. It may be the last line of defense, but it’s also the most important.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

115 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, if the Jews of Europe had the means to defend themselves, the Germans wouldn’t have wanted them merely dead, they’d have wanted them good and dead. And yet, those Jews who were able to arm themselves and join resistance groups in Hungary and Yugoslavia survived the war despite the fact that they possessed evil firearms. Wow, it must be wonderful to live in Laciland, where everyone has a room-temperature IQ and actually believes the bullshit that he/she/it is spewing.

    Scratch a gungrabber deeply enought and you will either find an antisemite, or a racist, or a statist with delusions of adequacy, or maybe just a major a$$hole. I’m not sure which one Laci is, but you can guess which one I’m leaning toward.

      • I’m replying here so people will see these stats. The actual German casualty lists for the Warsaw Uprising were 7-8,000 KIA, 7,000 MIA, 9,000 WIA and about 2,000 were captured.

        It would seem that Laci needs to learn a little bit about reliable scholarship. There was a Warsaw Rising in the Ghetto in 1943, and these are the numbers that Laci chose to quote. The actual Warsaw Uprising occurred in 1944. As proven by the numbers above, an uprising by under-equipped, divided and isolated, but determined, individuals can inflict heavy losses on a superior force. Laci simply chose to present the numbers which supported his argument, ignoring those numbers which were entirely correct, but not to his liking. If a professor discovered this type of flaw in a major paper, I would probably have ended up failing the class for not presenting the full truth and attempting to ignore historical fact.

  2. I’m Jewish, a proud U.S. Veteran, and fully armed.

    My theory is that the anti-gun, liberal population is essentially well-meaning, but ultimately this self-blame is a form of control. “If only WE do something different (i.e. disarm); If only WE do something different (ban guns, so-called assault weapons, etc.), then there will be world peace and harmony.” In other words, they subconsciously reason, it is US who are in charge of our destiny and We Can Do Something About It. It is a noble thought, but not grounded in reality. In the real world, there are, have been, and always will be – mean, vicious, random, psychopathic, killers – for no reason whatsoever. And the only way to stop them, the only language they understand – is force. Extreme force. Deadly force. This simple fact needs to be understood and accepted.

    I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out the Hitlers, Ghadafi’s, Bin Laden’s, or the terrorists the of the world – that is an exercise in futility – they are the way they are, we didn’t do anything to make them that way and there is nothing we can do to make them any different. I’d rather spend my time thinking about how to prevent them from harming my country, my family, and me.

    While I do believe that Schumer, Bloomberg, Boxer, Feinstein, etc., and other “anti-gun” people are well-meaning – they are unfortunately living in a dreamland. Why does Bloomberg want to disarm NY, but doesn’t go anywhere without a legion of his own armed bodyguards??? Is he entitled to protection that the rest of us peons are not?

    For more info, I recommend http://jpfo.org – Jews For The Preservation of Firearm Ownership. When we say, “Never Again” – we mean it.

    • I do believe that Schumer, Bloomberg, Boxer, Feinstein, etc. are well-meaning

      I don’t. I think they are Judas goats leading us to the slaughterhouse.

  3. I am reminded of a quote attributed to Alexander Solzhenitsyn
    “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

    • That is precisely why he wrote “Gulag Archipelago.” Only when he, an upstanding army officer, was freezing his butt off in Siberia did he understand that everything was not okay. Every American should read it.

  4. “Despite your giving firearms a godlike quality,they cannot protect you in all circumstances. A firearm is useless against an enemy that is better trained and equipped” I guess someone should have told the Sons of Liberty that they had no chance to defeat the Brits. They fought hard and many died and they still kicked the Sh!t out of the Brits and even if they had lost, at least they would have died fighting. If you’re going to die anyway, you might as well take as many of the lowlifes with you as possible. That scumbag Hitler and his goons diarmed the Jews and murdered them, and it’s tough to fight back when you’re unarmed.

    • Joe, The Jewish people in Europe were not just unarmed, they were oppressed. Oppressed people cannot effectively use guns or anything else to combat their oppressors. How many Meleanie Hains do you need to understand that.

      Laci’s main point is that you guys give a magical superstitious power to the idea of being armed. It’s self-justifying bullshit, in my humble opinion. And, of course you guys love that Warsaw-uprising deal, you know, fighting gloriously to the death against insurmountable odds.

      That one’s called grandiose victimism (I made that one up just for guys like you).

      • So what exactly SHOULD oppressed people use to combat their oppressors? The people of Zimbabwe would like to know.

      • Hmmm…. What exactly is it about oppressed people that prevents them from using firearms effectively? Were the folks in Libya “oppressed?” They’ve done a helluva job employing firearms effectively.

        • I guess we should count out the Polish Freedom fighters who accomplished many strikes against the Nazis and coordinated with the troops to bring about an end to the Nazi controlled area. Also screw all those Russians who fought to the bitter end to liberate their country. What did they do? Oh, like the Freedom Fighters, they liberated themselves. Good times. One would also ask how many of them were Jewish. The answer is many 😉

      • Mike,
        Would you physically confront me if I was armed?
        I would rather die on my feet fighting than my knees begging. I am of Hungarian Jewish background and I have branches of my family that are gone…taken away in the mid of day by a fascist regime for the better of man. I can tell you that my Grandfather in his efforts to get his young pregnant bride to the US during the Nazi’s courtship of Hungary was glad that he was armed and that it allowed a family to prosper here in the United States…Of course he decided to go back and fight the bastards but the US Marine corp thought he would be better served in the pacific…Go figure, its the government knowing what is best for you. He spoke french, german, english and magyar…when he was done with WWII he even spoke some Japanese…So Mikey, Would you physically confront me if you knew I maybe armed(and I am)?

        • No Mark, I wouldn’t, but what’s that got to do with anything. Your chances of fending off a murderer or rapist are miniscule. Much greater are the chances that you shoot someone unnecessarily, or that you have an “accident” with the gun, or that you go over the deep end yourself and do something stupid.

          So, it doesn’t sound too smart of you to even own that gun.

          • You are pulling a Krugman again. Try stratifying the shooting data by relevant socio-economic classifications. Most of the shootings you refer to take place under a set of socio-economic condition that don’t apply to most of the population. (Obama is trying his best to reduce the population to that level). So if you aren’t a single a mother with children from different, and sometimes unknown, fathers, a teenage gangbanger or live in the ‘hood you are unlikely to be a victim of any kind of shooting.

            For the rest of us gun ownership provides collective protection through reduced crime rates and sometimes, though rarely. through direct action.

          • Your chances of fending off a murderer or rapist are miniscule. Much greater are the chances that you shoot someone unnecessarily…

            Citations please. Otherwise one might think you are just in denial.

          • mikeb,
            The chances that something will happen to your house is miniscule but you carry insurance don’t you. Just like I carry a firearm…just in case.

      • “And, of course you guys love that Warsaw-uprising deal, you know, fighting gloriously to the death against insurmountable odds.”

        Where you prefer taken quietly to torture and certain death.

      • ” Oppressed people cannot effectively use guns or anything else to combat their oppressors. ”

        Do not project your Euro-socialist doctrine of victimhood on all oppressed people.

      • I call “bullshit”. Had they been armed, it would have only increased the desire within the individual to fight back. The lack of arms may have been the key factor in extinquishing the flames of resistance.

  5. Laci has her history wrong. According to Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) the commander who put down the Warsaw Ghetto uprising more than likely lied about how many German soldiers were lost during the fighting.

    The Warsaw Ghetto was just a few city blocks, yet it took 4 weeks to clear. There is no way only 17 German soldiers were killed. House to house fighting is probably the worst when it comes to casualties for soldiers.

    Nice to know Laci is comfortable citing official Nazi figures while castigating Jews for defending themselves against the certain death of the gas chambers.

    I knew I should have read before writing. Anyway, I didn’t find an official cite of Nazi figures in Laci’s article.

    My bad.

  6. 1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future! …..take a guess who came up with this speech

  7. Thank god German laws didn’t disarm German Citizens. Otherwise, I’d be out a few excellent target rifles and drillings.

    The NSDAP defined citizenship by ethnicity. As such, Jews could never be truly German thus not own firearms. Hitler’s gun laws for German Citizens were actually a great improvement over the restrictive Weimar ones.

    I find it rather disconcerting that certain activists are trying to portay Hitler as a gun-grabbing socialist when he imprisoned Marxists and made gun ownership possible for the majority.

  8. I have often wondered about the claim that if Jews were armed it would have made a difference. Would many, if any more survive and would it had affected the war?

    Hate to say it, I really doubt it.

    Most people in America are not armed, even among those of us who live in free states. How many people here with arms, or Jews then in Europe who might have owned arms are ready to fight?

    I have no idea what that percentage is, especially if facing certain death for you and family should you do. Then it is not clear why one should resist.

    Only when it is obvious what the plan is for you and your family would you fight. The Nazis didn’t exactly lay out their plans for your family, like so many Japanese citizens in the US conformed to orders to pack up.

    Of course our Japanese citizens did not face what Jews did from the Nazis, but I believe the parallel is fair, in so far as rounding them up.

    Who then could imagine the horror then we today know as history.

    Don’t get me wrong, these are just questions I have in my mind and would liked to have read history different, at least some of us get a few more licks in.

    • Yamamoto thought that invading America would be pointless as Japan would find a rifle behind every blade of grass. The point of the 2nd amendment is to broadcast on all frequencies – don’t even think about it.

      As to whether or not it would have helped the Jews to be heavily armed in the Warsaw ghetto, my response is yes – a Nazi bloodbath would have been extremely helpful to deter future events – but in any case this is a utilitarian argument, not an argument of justice.

      Killin’ Nazis when they come to kill your family is a matter of justice, not utility. One ought to be wise and pick the right battle, but there are some fundamental and emergent matters of justice that have to be dealt with right now which cannot be managed after the fact.

      There is no appeal to a gas chamber. If they mean to kill you, take one of them with you. Maybe you’ll get to grab them by the scruff of the neck and throw him before the Just and Holy Judge and hear the verdict.

      • The Yamamoto quote:

        “. . this quote is unsubstantiated and almost certainly bogus, even though it has been repeated thousands of times in various Internet postings. There is no record of the commander in chief of Japan’s wartime fleet ever saying it.”
        http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/misquoting-yamamoto/

        “If ordered to fight, “I shall run wild considerably for the first six months or a year but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years.”

        Harry A. Gailey, The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, Presidio Press: 1995. p.68

        Seems to me Adm.Yamamoto really never expected to make it to the states and wanting to distance himself from the feasibility of invasion:

        “Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it would not be enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians (who speak so lightly of a Japanese-American war) have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices”
        Prange, At Dawn We Slept, p. 11

        “As to whether or not it would have helped the Jews to be heavily armed in the Warsaw ghetto, my response is yes – a Nazi bloodbath would have been extremely helpful to deter future events – but in any case this is a utilitarian argument, not an argument of justice.”

        I sincerely doubt a Nazi blood bath, unless they executed it. The outcome was inevitable.

        I hope nothing I write sounds like I would deny anybody any weapon needed for self defence. As it was under most difficult circumstances the Jews in Warsaw made a good report of themselves.

        “Killin’ Nazis when they come to kill your family is a matter of justice, not utility. One ought to be wise and pick the right battle, but there are some fundamental and emergent matters of justice that have to be dealt with right now which cannot be managed after the fact.”

        No argument there.
        Everything we write here is speculation, there is no way for any of us to say with certainty this or that would have happened.

        I simply maintain that when all is said and done, I don’t buy the claim the Holocaust would have been avoided if not for the gun laws of 1930’s Germany.

        More like wishful thinking.

    • There is no parallel between the Nazi extermination of Jews and America’s “roundup” of Japanese Americans. NO Japanese Americans were rounded up outside of the West coast — Japanese Americans on the east coast or elsewhere in the US, and there were plenty of them, were unaffected. The Japanese Americans in California and Hawaii knew this, so they also knew their fate would be to live in the camps for the duration. They were good people, innocent, horribly screwed over due to racism, but never faced execution in the camps.

      Jews throughout ALL of Nazi-controlled, occupied or dominated Eaurope were rounded up and shipped off to be murdered. Thee were no exceptions. Those who had access to weapons fought bravely in partisan groups throughout all of Eastern Europe — and survived. Those who had no means of self defense died along with their families.

      • I believe my parallels are valid in so far as people heard like sheep away from their homes.

        If the Nazis made it clear what the final destination entailed no doubt there would have been constant resistance, guns or not. Never seen anywhere the Nazi regime advertising their plans for the Jews. Wasn’t like there was a free press reporting there. Even the allied forces kept the secret from the great unwashed.

    • Natvan.com is the website of the National Alliance, a white supremacist/neo-Nazi organization. Since they also declared Hitler to be the “greatest man of the era”, using them as a reference for anything related to German politics of the Nazi era is probably flawed.

      I’m going to give Jim the benefit of the doubt for now and assume he isn’t a white supremacist and just got some bad information.

  10. “… that armed self-defense wouldn’t have prevented the Holocaust”. Because particular measures not taken at the time could not and would not possibly change the outcome those at the time neither lived to survive, nor knew what exactly they either were, or were not about to survive, or surviving, would later realize the magnitude of the horror which missed them, it’s obvious now and should have been obvious then, then those slaughtered by the Nazis obviously were happy to be defenseless. Have I got it right?

  11. “Would many…more survive …I really doubt it.” Citations…?
    “Most people … not armed” Statistics…?
    “How many people…are ready to fight?” Definition of ‘ready to fight’…?
    “it is not clear why one should resist” To whom is it “not clear”?
    “Only when .. obvious what … plan is …would you fight. ” How do you know what others would do…?
    (Havegun, do not take my questions personally. But I think speculation carries no argument, no butters any parsnips.)

    • “Would many…more survive …I really doubt it.” Citations…?”

      I have no citations. It is based on how I perceive people react depending what decisions they must make when making a decision as to what to do.

      I maintain that overall people react in their best interests. Given the fact the Nazis lied to Jews, making them believe they were simply being relocated, much like America did with citizens of Japanese decent, they would not have resisted.

      “Most people … not armed” Statistics…?”

      “there are 250 – 280 million firearms in the US
      40 – 50% of US homes own a firearm, that’s 120 – 150 million people ”
      http://www.americanfirearms.org/statistics.php#5

      You can argue that if you want, good luck.

      “How many people…are ready to fight?” Definition of ‘ready to fight’…?”

      Sorry if it wasn’t clear from context.

      “it is not clear why one should resist” To whom is it “not clear”?

      Apparently YOU!

      “Only when .. obvious what … plan is …would you fight. ” How do you know what others would do…?”

      I consulted my Crystal Ball.

      Really though, of course I cannot predict individual behaviour. Just figured most people act in their best interests.

      Pulling a weapon against your government authority is a huge step, one in any country at any time in history can carry the most dire consequences.

      • To be brutally honest – what should one do in the case like that after Hurricane Katrina, when gun-grabbing “law enforcement” ran around confiscating guns?

        I actually like cops, and appreciate what they are doing. I have no idea what I would do if a squad showed up for no other thing than to take my firearms. I don’t want to harm anyone, not the least of which is a police officer.

        By the time there is a nationwide policy of firearm confiscation, I think it is too late. Perhaps this is why we need to come unglued when crap like the gun confiscation post-Katrina happens.

        • “To be brutally honest – what should one do in the case like that after Hurricane Katrina, when gun-grabbing “law enforcement” ran around confiscating guns?”

          I’ve given that a lot of thought before my first reply here.

          Same thing if I lived in Greensburg,KS when a tornado flattened the whole town and cops went around confiscating weapons.

          #1 I wouldn’t shoot the law enforcement officer.

          There is no #2.

          It is a risk benefit situation.
          The benefit of shooting a law enforcement officer and
          keeping my firearms.
          vs.
          The certainty of spending the rest of my life in prison.

          Fortunately we have a very pro 2A legislature/governor in Topeka and that kind of stupid on the spot confiscation was quickly outlawed.

      • True – the japanese-americans were told they were only being relocated. Also true – they were escorted out of their homes by soldiers with fixed bayonets.

  12. “If the Nazis were knocking on your door in the middle of the night to shepherd you and yours to the gas chamber, would you go into that long good night thinking, oh well, we don’t have a chance, so we’ll go along willingly? Or would you want some firepower to do what you could to make the murderers pay for taking what doesn’t belong to them?”

    Bingo. Why give it up for free? Yeah, so you will be dead. So what? At least you die with dignity instead of walking into the gas chamber on your own feet or being worked to death to support some evil regime. Everybody dies sooner or later, so you might as well take some of the bastards with you. If “there is nothing worth dying for” then how can you claim your life has any value? Why do you think the Founders pledged their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” unless they believed freedom was the highest human value? If your freedom isn’t worth your life, then you might as well admit that you are a slave.

    Sam Adams called it in his speech on August 1, 1776: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom – go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

    • “Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!”

      Ouch –

    • “If the Nazis were knocking on your door in the middle of the night to shepherd you and yours to the gas chamber, would you go into that long good night thinking, oh well, we don’t have a chance, so we’ll go along willingly?”

      Not if I knew murder of me and my family was the plan.

      Japanese Americans read the newspapers, notices etc., just packed their stuff and reported at the train station, not unlike so many Jews in Europe.

  13. I’m half-Jewish. I live in an area with a LARGE Jewish population. I find it stunning and sad that MOST Jews I know are vehemently anti-gun. How can that be???

      • Wow… can you be more vacuous?

        PS… I have a post-graduate degree. I didn’t get where I am by letting “emotions” get the best of me.

      • That’s the best one I’ve heard from you Mike. You, who runs from a debate about facts (including statistics), who uses anecdotes like a cudgel, accuse a gun rights advocate of substituting emotions for reason?

          • It’s funny (in the “not-ha-ha” kind of way) how every time you say something racist / sexist / otherwise discriminatory and you get called on it, it immediately becomes a “joke”.

            Convenient, that.

      • Jews are intelligent people?That’s like saying Blacks have natural rhythm.
        You have revealed yourself as a stereotype believing fool.
        I’m Jewish,a Vietnam War veteran,a retired LE officer,and I’ve carried firearms for 47 years.
        I know some dirt stupid Jews-Jews are just f**kin’ people like everyone else.
        I recall that the Yugoslavs gave the Germans an unending hard time during the occupation because they were armed.
        The Schumers and Boxers are fools-and not innocuous fools,either-they think they can convince those who would exterminate them to not do so by appealing to their better nature.
        Those kind of scum don’t have a better nature.
        My entire family(interracially and religiously very mixed -including Blacks,Hispanics,Native American,Anglo Saxon and CauCasian Jews)is armed and competent with firearms.
        I love it when the midget megalomaniac Bloomberg barks about guns surrounded by a phalanx of armed security.
        I don’t concern myself with whether my family could defeat Nazi Redux-we could put a hurt on them though.

      • Yeah, us unintelligent members of the great unwashed don’t know what we are talking about. When the day arrives you’ll find our doors locked as you run through the street . The unarmed make a much easier prey you see.

      • “You gun rights guys really have to stop letting your emotions run wild.”

        That tends to be a problem with the anti-gun folks, not the pro-gun people.

    • Yeah-I’m Jewish-my wife is Hispanic and we always puzzle over some of these educated fools.BTW my half-Jewish daughter teaches college and owns a Ruger GP100.My son owns three or four handguns and is a hell of a good shot.

    • racer88-

      I don’t want to shamelessly plug my blog, (and Robert should delete this post if I’ve overstepped), but I have begun to try to address this very question on my blog in a series of posts. I have probably not done a good job, but if the question really fascinates you it may be a place to start.

  14. Robert:

    The reason that the lightly armed insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan have been so effective is Rules of Engagement. If we used Nazi or Communist ROEs the problem would have been solved by now.

    Jewish armed resistance would not have stopped the Holocaust but it would have exacted a significant toll on the SS goons sent to carry it out.

    • Jewish armed resistance would not have stopped the Holocaust but it would have exacted a significant toll on the SS goons sent to carry it out

      Exactly. And tying-up some of the best trained and highly motivated German soldiers would have made the job of the Allies a lot easier as they tackled Fortress Europe. It might have ended the war six months earlier, which would have saved a million lives or more.

    • We kill too many non-combatants with our own rules of engagement. In fact, if we really adhered to the primary ROE we wouldn’t be there and the current problem wouldn’t exist. Yes there would be other problems but not of our making.

      • Phil:

        Ever since the introduction of indirect fire Non-combatants have gotten killed regardless of the ROE. In Combat the second rule of gun safety doesn’t apply. You seldom are completely sure of what the target is and you certainly don’t care what’s behind it. We probably killed more French civilians in 1944 than the Germans did in 1940.

  15. “What if” is worthless. Watching history repeat itself is key. When the US translates German gun laws and makes them US laws, then the warning flags go up. And those flags have been up since 1968.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Control_Act

    http://shop.jpfo.org/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=24

    If you haven’t guessed, I believe JPFO.org that the number murdered by gun-control is closer to 172,000,000 than 56,000,000.

    http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm#chart

    Word of the day: democide

    http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP2.HTM

    “Never again.” Yeah, that works for me.

  16. I too am a son of a survivor of the holocaust. My father, by the grace of G-d and a lot of shear luck, survived along with his immediate family. Of my grandfather’s 9 brothers and sisters, only one other made it through the war.

    Arming my self is a critical part of truly living “Never Again”. I would rather die defending my loved ones than be defenseless.

    I wish more Jews had this point of view, yet most buy into the liberal argument that guns do not belong in the average citizen’s hands.

  17. I’ll resort to brevity and unintellectual over-simplification; my life and the lives of my family are simply worth fighting for, and damn those who would deny me the most effective means of survival.

  18. Shabat shalom to all! For all the Jews and friends of Jews who chimed in, please feel free to stop by http://jewishmarksmanship.blogspot.com and if you are a competitive shooter (even a complete club amateur) please consider letting me profile you.

    As to this mikeb302000’s, keep in mind his G-d is the State. In fact for all “progressives,” the State is the Almighty. Once one grasps that fundamental truth about progressives, it becomes easy to understand why they believe what they do, including why they believe only the State should have arms, or why only the State should be allowed to use force. Once one grasps that human beings are drawn to false idols, like the State, then you understand how even Hitler rose to power–the Germans of the day worshiped at the altar of the State.

    In his world, the State and its Laws are never wrong. The State comforts and protects him. That which would or could challenge the power of the State is a demon, a child of Satan. Human life is secondary to the will, power, vitality and necessity of the State. That is why progressives fight so vigorously to wipe any reference to the Judeo-Christian G-d from the Pledge of Allegiance, our currency, etc. The State is G-d and there can be no other.

    That is why logic and reason are useless with his lot. An armed populace implies the State is not all powerful. It implies that us unclean ones can check the State’s absolute power. In his mind, cops and soldiers are not men–they are Angels of the State, on a higher plane of existence. When us nothings have guns, it leads his mind toward questions, and although the light sometimes shines on the Truth, that the State is a creature of the people, he turns away from the light to the warmth and comfort of the false idea of an omnipresent State unbeholden to men. His emotions rule–not his mind or logic, and certainly not his soul. That is why he is so twisted to think, even today, that the Jews of Germany should not have been armed or tried to defend themselves.

    Judeo-Christian philosophy emphasizes human free will and responsibility, notwithstanding G-d’s omnipotence. Your actions have consequences. You can and will sin and you will be held responsibility. Adhering to Judeo-Christian beliefs, ethics and morals is a heavy yoke. There are days you will not feel good about yourself and your actions. There are times you will struggle against sin. But we view that struggle as a gift from G-d. Not so with progressive Statist philosophy. Right and wrong are determined by the State. So long as you do not break a law of the State, you need never feel guilty. The State is the arbiter of all right and wrong. For him the State and its Laws are happiness and bliss.

    And it does not escape notice that traditional Jewish thought often attributes the core source of anti-Semitism in the world directly to the fact that we Jews started the idea that men answer to a higher power than the State. (Don’t misunderstand, even the Torah (Old Testament) instructs us to form a political structure with leaders…but to always be leery of them) That is why the dictators and monarchs, no matter where you find them, have always hated the Jews–we don’t bow to their will and will die first. Sooo, when one hears mikeb302000 suggest the Jews should not have been armed to defend themselves from the gas chambers, it reeks of traditional anti-Semitism. His love of the power of the State goes hand in hand, traditionally, with those views. I don’t know enough to judge him, but I don’t like what I’ve read on his blog so far.

    You are wasting your time trying to convince mikeb302000 using logic and reason to change his views on gun control. His type insist on absolute power for the State. All arguments and all facts will be skewed in his mind to support that desire.

    The first step is to save his soul.

    • Thank you JM. May your aim always be true, as it is here, and may your heart and soul always remain strong and resolute. I trust that it will. And may your children heed well the words and spirit of their father.

      It’s just my opinion, of course, that Mikey’s soul is completely beyond redemption. But then, the Vichy have no soul, so I suppose that it’s a moot point.

  19. Blood dancers bother me. I consider them to be the lowest of the low. What bothers me even more than the typical blood dancer is the degree to which those like mikeb will exploit anything, even the murder of millions by the almighty state, to advance their cause. God willing, there will be a special place in hell reserved for all of them.

      • “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom – go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!” – Sam Adams, August 1, 1776

  20. This whole thread was a continuation of this thread…..

    “The Destruction of Blair Mountain”

    http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6314891743204395487&postID=7357477548923437179

    And my pointing out that LtCC was a giant sack of hypocrite (and lawyer though I am being redundant) bemoaning the the desisting of an “historical site”, that revolved around individual gun ownership.

    Later, Laci actually had the nerve to post this

    Laci The Dog said…

    Wow, that’s some seriously tired and inaccurate stuff there.

    Most of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming in something called World War II. No gun control there.

    Most of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming in something called World War II. No gun control there.

    most of the six million jews did not go down kicking and screaming, imagine how different it might have been had 40% been armed and unregistered…

    KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK,

    “Hey JEW!!!! OFF TO THE BOXCAR WITH YOU!!!!!”, BLAMM!!!! ”

    “Sorry I am not interested in traveling at this time.”

    and that is OK by you, since they had their guns taken away by law and did not have the means to defend themselves.

    Statist whore, thy name is Laci.

  21. I’ll keep my hardware just the same. . Mike B can trust his overlords, first for security then for their compassion. He and the rest are what were referred to as useful idiots some years ago.

  22. She also outs Laci the Chinese Crested as a concealed carry gun owner,

    And while I think there ARE people who do – I would include Laci in that group, because he works with sometimes dangerous criminals as a criminal defense attorney – I do not think most people need one. Even Laci rarely carries, rather like me, relying instead on his powers of observation, and his ability to handle the hazards he encounters.

    Guns for me, but not for thee. That’s the mantra over at Mikeb’s little cesspool.

    • Why am I not surprised to hear that a dirtbag wannabe-dictator like Laci is a criminal defense attorney?

      At least now we know why he’s so anti-gun; if people started defending themselves, he wouldn’t have any clients.

  23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_for_the_Preservation_of_Firearms_Ownership

    “The JPFO is probably most noted for its claim that the Gun Control Act of 1968, passed under the leadership of then-Senator Thomas J. Dodd, was lifted, almost in its entirety, from Nazi legislation.[7] The German Weapons Law, which existed before the Nazis came to power in 1933, was altered on 18 March 1938 by the Nazi Government. The JPFO’s claim is based in part by the fact that the 1968 GCA introduces the “sporting purpose” test to distinguish different types of weapons, similar to the “sporting purpose” test that existed in the German law in question. Senator Thomas Dodd was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials and had reviewed copies of the Nazi Germany firearms laws.”

    In case you wonder where American gun controls derive from…

    Like father, like son. Two festering sphincters, those Dodd senators.

    • Obviously, you’ve never even read the link you provided here. It actually debunks your claim. There is absolutely no connection between the 1968 Gun Control Act and any Nazi legal codes. The story was bullshit propaganda made up in Texas in the 1980s and was disproven beyond any doubt years ago. Jeez, you could at least know the origins of the malarkey you are picking up and spreading around.

      • I am not one to take anything on wikipedia at face value if there is a political component to the issue (they have a leftist bias). But readers are free to google around to find their own information.

        Maybe you should read the actual words that I wrote (rather than what I quoted), instead of what you imagine that I wrote, hm?

        What do you say, old timer?

        • I read what you wrote. As I said, baloney. You have no idea what you are talking about. Your argument is recycled garbage that was debunked years ago and if you read your own links, you would know that. Next.

  24. Doggone’s logic about dogs is just like Hollywood stars and politicians who have the luxury of body guards to defend them.

    I have two large dogs as well. Indeed, it is as if my family has our own private secret service detail. My wife walks our German Shepherd, who is the sweetest dog you will ever meet, but certain folks cross to the other side of the street when they see him. Our other dog guards our house dutifully as well. I share Doggone’s view that large dogs, aside from all the other joy they bring to a house, are superb deterrents of violence. Humans have known this for centuries.

    But not everyone can own dogs (just like some of us can’t afford Oprah’s private security detail), and frankly, bad dog owners are more common and more dangerous than bad gun owners. And you can’t take your dogs everywhere with you, nor should you.

    And who watches the watchers? One of the reasons I carry when walking my dogs is to protect them from a loose dog or rabid racoon.

  25. @MikeB302000
    I’ve studied the military history of the Second World War probably from before you were born. Your dismissal of the just defiance of any and all peoples against the Nazi genocide is truly sickening. You accuse many of the blog responders of being too emotional. Well, I would say that you must be emotionally dead inside (and lacking a moral compass) if you do not get upset over the murder of millions of people!

    It’s okay in your mind though, since you are all to willing to generate the very same conditions to actually allow it to happen again. I wonder how individuals such as yourself that are so dismissive of our inherent right of self-defense and the damning evidence of history can be so casual about your desire to disarm us. Nay, to feel morally justified in doing so. Not on my watch, MikeB302000.

    Regarding the Warsaw ghetto uprising, hmm…a handful of starved Jews against the vaunted German military and they held them off for a while is amazing. So yes, we venerate their sacrifice and their opposition to evil and they do demonstrate the value of firearms against oppression. The truth hurts, doesn’t it?

    Some pertinent slogans: “Never Again!” and “Molon Labe!”

  26. I am a Jew living in Oklahoma. On Sept 11, 2001 me and my okie neighbors retrieved our guns from our safes, pulled out our lawn chairs, and waited for those terrorists to dare to come down our street.

    My cold dead hands….

  27. For those with interest in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising I would suggest reading the best selling novel Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Fiction, but extremely well researched fiction.

    jd

  28. Guys, stop responding to mikeB. We all know he’s really pro-gun, which is the only way to account for his ridiculous posts since he’s trying to make gun-grabbers as a whole look bad.

    As for the article itself, what is there to say? Same fool, different day. This has nothing to do with how many Nazis or Jews would’ve died in an uprising or how successful Jews would’ve been if armed. It’s all wasteful speculation; no one knows. At the heart of it, this is about cowards and fools projecting their fears and inadequacies on Jews to make themselves feel more justified.

    It’s about people who would gladly walk off to the gas chamber versus people who would die standing their ground. No glory about it, no romance, simply defying oppression.

  29. Mike and Lacy’s fable is about today, not the 1940’s. Their message is that Jews in Israel should put down their weapons and submit to a second Holocaust. These so-called progressives are the new neo-Nazis. They see the so-called Palestinians as an instrument to murder another 6 million Jews. After all, the Arabs supported the Nazis and their goal of exterminating the Jews. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was Yassar Arafat’s uncle, spent the war propagandizing for Hitler and recruiting Muslim SS units in the Balkans. Hitler himself was an admirer of Islam.

    So here is a hearty Seig Heil for Mike and his merry band.

  30. On the old Saturday Night Live (the OLD one with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) there was a recurring sketch called “What if?” It featured a panel discussing historical events and a “what if” question that was always posed by a ~12 year old boy. The one that jumps to mind is the panel seriously discussing the question “What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the battle of Waterloo?” That’s kind of what this discussion reminds me of.

    Very few of us know what it’s like to live in a brutal, oppressive totalitarian state (and thank God for that.) Our freedoms are like the air we breathe, something we are rarely conscious of. To ask the question “what if the Jews of Nazi Germany had firearms?” is to engage in the wildest kind of fantasy speculation – you might as well ask “what if the Jews of Nazi Germany had the internet?” or “what if they had cell phones?”

    The Jews in Nazi Germany could not have had firearms because the Nazis were evil, not stupid. They knew that large numbers of guns in private hands are anathema to any totalitarian state.

    Not that they had anything against guns – oppressive regimes love guns – they just always make sure those guns are in the hands of people they can trust.

    So there’s really no realistic scenario in which any oppressive, totalitarian state allows for the widespread, private ownership of weapons. It would mean their downfall and they know it.

    Which to me, is the best reason to support and defend the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA.) Not to protect us against a totalitarian state, but because as long as the RKBA exists, the neccessary conditions for the formation of a totalitarian state do not.

    • Well put. Simple, yet deceptive in its simplicity, since there will always be those who believe such conditions could never happen…until they do. Like being mugged or such.

  31. The entire middle east fears Israel because they know that todays Jews (not all) refuse to be good lil sheep and die without a fight. It also doesn’t hurt that Israel has enough nukes to turn that silly wasteland into a barren desert. Ralph’s on the right track about finding a special place for these morons, but HELL is much to good a place for these lowlife scum. (I sure hope this isn’t flaming cuz I’m trying to be as nice as possible considering the idiots we’re dealing with.) I don’t even really care if this gets deleted, but at least I got to say how I really feel about these fools.

  32. “A firearm is useless against an enemy that is better trained and equipped: especially if that equipment includes armour, artillery, guided missiles, drones, etcetera”

    … You sure? Perhaps taking a look through a history book (or two) will change your mind, particularly the pages around April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County.

  33. Martin Albright is correct. “What if” is a form of mental masturbation. Here’s what I know, without wondering. The Nazis did not disarm the Jews of Europe. The Nazis disarmed the Jews (and dissidents) of Germany and Austria. The rest of Europe had disarmed all Jews generations before. Russia was the worst offender. That country confined Jews to ghettos in the so-called “Pale of Settlement,” prohibited their entry into professions and universities, and of couse prohibited them from owning guns.

    I can’t tell anyone that the Holocaust could have been completely avoided if Jews had been armed. However, I’m pretty sure that at least one more person would have survived if that person was armed. Just one single person doesn’t sound like much given the millions that died, but wouldn’t it have been worth it?

    From the Talmud: Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

    Mikey and his ilk will never acknowledge that, since it interferes with their agenda.

  34. I mostly agree about the views above on the utility of “what if” discussions. However, I counter with the idea that we should learn from history. It seems every successful genocide or severe governmental repression is enabled by the victim group having been disarmed. I’m talking up to the present day, not just 1940s Germany. That is one valuable take away message from the discussion of armed resistance against tyranny.

  35. I seem to recall the Bielskis didn’t do so badly against the Nazis in occupied Poland. You know, with lots and lots of captured guns.

    The Ghetto uprising argument is a pretty silly one– armed persons don’t allow themselves to be put in a ghetto to begin with.

  36. Hot topic. Seems a lot of dead horse beating on the part of MikeB, LaciD, FWM et al. at MikeB’s blog. The serious issue is not lawlessness, insurrection or rebellion. It’s the abuse of authority. Nearly all the bloodshed past and present is the result of abuse of authority. Appears they prefer accusing, lecturing or making victims to pursuing perpetrators.

  37. Is defenselessness a good idea? Is there some game theory that shows it winning? The following is topical:

    During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”

    This seems a bit hypocritical in that Ghandhi by his hunger strikes against the British was in fact using the threat of violence, the pandemonium that would have erupted should the British have let him die, as leverage.

    Because he viewed many pacifists as specialists in evading unpleasant truths, George Orwell did admire Gandhi’s unflinching honesty with regard to the Holocaust: When asked about resistance to the Nazis, Gandhi argued that the Jews should have prepared en masse to sacrifice their lives in nonviolence — something Orwell regarded as “collective suicide” — in order to “arouse the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.”

    Gandhi was betting, hypothetically, that there were enough Germans who were as decent as the British; that organized, dramatic nonviolent protests would have caught the world’s attention and compelled its conscience in a way that rumor, firsthand testimony, and intelligence of the Holocaust did not; that the moral imperative of saving a broadly stigmatized and scapegoated people would have trumped other strategic considerations; and so on. What Gandhi can be convicted of is totalitarian idealism. In an ironic way, he had a hammer so the whole world was a nail.

    Totalitarian indeed. An individual’s life is not for their own pursuits but rather just to be a pawn in someone else’s idealistic statistic.

    Nonviolence is an idea too pure for this world, so you’d better believe in the next one.

    from AmbivaBlog

  38. Donna Donna- a Yiddish song written in the 1940s
    This is a rough translation.

    On a wagon bound for market
    There’s a calf with a mournful eye.
    High above him there’s a swallow
    Winging swiftly through the sky.

    How the winds are laughing
    They laugh with all their might
    Laugh and laugh the whole day through
    And half the summer’s night.
    Dona, dona, dona, dona,
    Dona, dona, dona, do,
    Dona, dona, dona, dona,
    Dona, dona, dona, do.

    “Stop complaining,” said the farmer,
    “Who told you a calf to be?
    Why don’t you have wings to fly with
    Like the swallow so proud and free?”

    How the winds are laughing …

    Calves are easily bound and slaughtered
    Never knowing the reason why.
    But whoever treasures freedom,
    Like the swallow has learned to fly.

  39. Ghandi was a good lil sheep who didn’t have a clue about the real world or how evil people could be to others. Silly pasifists like Ghandi make for great victims in the real world. He would have been a good lil TROLL on TTAG.

  40. Chaz, I don’t know about Treblinka, but at Sobibor the Jews actually won. A few days later the Nazis closed the death camp and planted the site with grass.
    For those who think a few weapons in the right hands couldn’t have made a difference please explain Sobibor.

    jd

  42. One last thought here-the “professional Jews”in the ADL,American Jewish Congress,American Jewish Comittee,etc have the absoulte gall to suggest that they speak for Jews in general-I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.Why?Because they all whine about gun control like it is some magic bullet(sarcasm intended_that’ll keep them “safe”.It’s a ghettoized herd mentality-my wife has the same opinion of turds like La Raza thinking they can speak for Hispanics on immigration-she doesn’t believe in bilingual services at the registry-her logic?Road signs are in English.
    Ethnic pimps abound in the USA and they ALL suck.
    I spent most of my life in places and occupations where there weren’t all that many Jews,so I have a little different perspective.

  43. I find Laci’s premise to be horribly akin to Goebels thought processes, wholey without merit, compassion or humanity.

  44. those that say they were poorly armed and untrained didnt have a chance are mistaken and i would venture that al quaieda and the afgani fighters are a perfect example of their force fighting against the might of the usa and for the most part fighting the usa to a standstill in most cases

  45. Jews need to be more prepared than the general population (considering their tragic history). Unfortunately, most are not only ill prepared, but completely complacent regarding the risks that surround them!

Comments are closed.