It matters to mediamatters.com. And those of us who’ve lost relatives to Nazi death camps, regardless of the source of the information.
It matters to mediamatters.com. And those of us who’ve lost relatives to Nazi death camps, regardless of the source of the information.
I figured as a muckraking journalist you would oppose censorship, even when it comes to extreme symbology related to terrorism and genocide? Having lost relatives is a terrible thing, but it doesn’t justify banning Nazi memorabilia, nor the sale of Nazi collectibles for historical value. Its a fine line you tread when you imply that someone shouldn’t buy or read or have interest in a certain aspect of history because of emotional sensitivity to that particular topic.
There are those who buy these items because they are supporters of the twisted ideals propagated by the Nazis, but there will always be bad apples in a bunch, just like the few bad gun owners that cause the rest of us to suffer. You are making the same mistake the Brady campaign has made in their blanket judgment of all gun-owners.
I said that it matters. Not that I would censor it. Unless I ran the shoot. In which case I would.
This is why I’ve pretty much stopped going to gun shows. That crap is everywhere, and this isn’t the worst you can find by a long shot. I go to gun shows to have fun, not to rub elbows with criminal idiots.
Do they have the right to sell this shit in America? Absolutely. And the rest of us have the right to pay careful attention to where it is sold and who sells it, so we can understand who they are, what they are about, what they will stand for, and what they will not. So: This represents what the gun loons at Knob Creek stand for, evidently. Alrighty, then. Duly noted. Thanks for telling me exactly who you are, “gentlemen.”
To me, Germany made a big mistake in outlawing this garbage and every form of thought and literature associated with it. Some ideas are so incredibly stupid and evil that they should be kept on permanent display. I think the German government was motivated more by shame than by prevention.
Yet I never see anyone buying or wearing the Nazi merchandise.
I also found with interest that I found quite a bit of Nazi stuff in the CA gun show I attended and none in the NH gun show.
When I worked for a major firearms importer/distributor in South El Monte the Nazi Party Headquarters was just a few blocks away.
Fortunately they left us alone.
So: This represents what the gun loons at Knob Creek stand for, evidently. Alrighty, then. Duly noted. Thanks for telling me exactly who you are, “gentlemen.”
I swear if it wasn’t for logical fallacies Magoo wouldn’t have anything to say.
Magoo, we’re not always on the same page but you’re absolutely right on this.
I didn’t hear anyone talking about censorship until Dave H. brought it up, but a few points must be made here:
1. Denunciation is not censorship: the best cure for harmful speech from assholes is more free speech from decent folk.
2. Private businesses deciding what may and may not be sold on their premises is not censorship: it’s free enterprise.
3. Calling Nazism evil is not censorship, and neither is calling a Nazi an asshole: it’s just telling the truth.
4. Nobody buys new silk-screened Swastika t-shirts for their ‘historical value’ because they don’t have any.
As long as we roll out the welcome mat by allowing Adolf Hitler masturbation accessories to be sold at our guns shows, the rest of society is going to judge us by the company we keep.
I’ve said this here before, and I’ll say it again: if we want gun ownership and the shooting sports to go completely mainstream, we responsible shooters must make neo-Nazis unwelcome. Just because they like guns (they find them useful for exterminating blacks and jews and everybody else during their fantasy-league ‘race war’) doesn’t mean they’re on our side.
Ever.
Calling Nazism evil is not censorship, and neither is calling a Nazi an asshole: it’s just telling the truth.
Hear hear!! You said it perfectly Chris.
+1.
+1
Another +1.
Do these scumbags have a right to express their beliefs? Absolutely. Does this compel show organizers to provide them a soapbox on which to do so? Absolutely not, if they do it is purely their choice. If I see that crap at an event I will never go back.
I don’t mind the old WW2 nazi stuff so much since they are “collectible,” are part of history, and history should never be forgotten, but a place selling new t-shirts and things promoting nazis isn’t a place I’d likely give much time or money to. People have every right to buy and sell such things, but it is also the property owner’s rights to not allow those sales on their property.
btw, reminds me of Lemmy from Motorhead accused of being a nazi because he collects a lot of old nazi stuff. He says it’s not that he’s a nazi, it’s just that the bad guys always have the coolest-looking uniforms.
Thank Hugo Boss for that.
A friend of mine, who is a CIA case officer, used to wear a KGB golf shirt that he bought in Moscow at end of the Cold War. A few years after the wall came down he was at a Northern Virginia grocery store when a middle aged lady with thick Russian accent began to berate him for wearing the shirt of murders. He never wore the shirt again.
My question is why do condemn the display of Nazi paraphenalia and not treat Communist paraphenalia with the same disdain. The Communists are responsible for an order a magnitude more attrocities then the Nazis and the Communists are still at it. Remember that when you see some pogue wearing a Che or Mao tee shirt. He is no different then Nazi sympathizer and should be treated with the same scorn.
+1
Your point is interesting, but there is really no equivalency here. Nazism was founded on the principles of genocidal racist hatred, and those that sell/wear/promote Nazism intentionally associate themselves with those principles. Though Stalin was obviously a mass murderer on the scale of Hitler, USSR, China, etc were not founded on genocidal principles nor was their entire history dominated by the perpetration of large scale slaughter. The USSR and Communist China were obviously constantly repressive and often very violent but were they that much worse than the regimes that they replaced? The Khmer Rouge managed to wipe out half the population of Cambodia in 3 years, but I don’t think anybody ironically wears Khmer Rouge clothing. Lumping kids who wear Che shirts in with Nazi sympathizers is offensive to the millions that died at the Nazis hands’ and to common sense itself.
I don’t know why anyone would want to own that crap, but you’ll always find some moron who thinks that shit is cool. I wish some group would buy up all that garbage and destroy it forever.
I too lost (distant) relatives to the Nazis. I see some “actual” Nazi items (they appear to date from WWII) for sale at almost every gun show and have no objection to them.
I’ve yet to see the new crap that’s in the video for sale anywhere. It does bother me a little. If the same seller also had a Garand in perfect condition for sale for $250, I wouldn’t give him my money.
There’s a big difference between Nazi items sold in a historical context and Nazi items being peddled to supremacists and such. I see the former at many gun shows, usually right next to historical items from the Allies. The latter I’ve only seen at one gun show and that was several years ago. The claim that white supremacy items are prevalent at all or most gun shows is dishonest, in my opinion.
I own Nazi marked firearms and hope to procure more, for historical reasons and also as a reminder that we won, they lost, and fuck ’em. As for the Nazi pictures, posters and similar crap, they make wonderful targets for my Mosin-Nagant 91/30. A Russian gun blowing up Nazi shit is just like old times.
Yeah except the the Nazis and Soviets were allies from August 1939 until June of 1941. No Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, no Holocaust
Holocaust delayed, not denied. And if it wasn’t for the Russians liberating camp after camp in the east and actually treating the inmates with kindness, even more would have died. The Commies were scumbags for sure, but on this issue they don’t look too bad.
Not true.
The Polish campaign would not have ended in three weeks without the Soviet stab in the back. Germany would have suffered more casualties and would have required a larger garrison force. Without Communist antiwar agitation France might have even fulfilled their treaty obligations and Germany would have been finished right at the start. Short of that France certainly would have been better prepared for a spring 1940 campaign.
Germany could not have gone west in the Spring of 1940 with the forces available to them after subtracting the units required to garrison the Eastern frontier. Time was not on Germany’s side. By the Fall the French and British mobilization would have been complete. The Allies would have had at least air parity if not outright superiority (the British out produced Germany during the Battle of Britain) and the French Mechanized forces would have been equal to the Germans. At best the Germans would have beaten France at very high cost but the most likely outcome would have been a stalemate which Stalin would have been happy to break. Germany would not have survived past 1943.
having some non-jewish nazi admiring friends has been insightful. it has been too many years — it is hard for people to _get_ the holocaust.. they see nazi’s as an accomplished military entity and are completely dissociated from the horrors of one of the greater acts of human evil. but, not being jewish or knowing many jewish people, it is easy to adopt antisemitic mindsets — just an outside group about which there are many jokes/stereotypes.
indeed, Im seeing more jewish jokes in mainstream media.. funny, playing on stereotypes.. It’s been too many years. how long before the jokes are no longer intended as “shocking funny” but instead are intended as persuasive funny..
too many years… apparently it takes about 60 for men to forget the past.
I think the worst is seeing the mix at the end with fine American unit patches beneath the nazi b.s.! Freedom of speech-yes, but I wish I’d been there… Always wondered too, why don’t those kind drool over the uniforms of the murdering japanese from that era?
Because “those kind” are racists and don’t like Asians, Africans, Jews, Catholics or anyone who doesn’t fit their mold.
I can see dealing in authentic memorabilia from the period. Personally, I wouldn’t touch the stuff, but I wouldn’t suggest that it should be destroyed or eradicated from memory. That is indeed censorship.
However, I cannot help but think that people who deal in reproductions or Nazi-themed paraphernalia (T-shirts, etc.) are anything but modern purveyors of the ideology. They are pukes.
from what i could see the nazi merchandise filmed in this video looks like it was made months or weeks prior to this event, the display looks almost like they were college or athletic wear display at shorts authority, sick.
See, they all use the ‘for historical significance’ banner to hide under. It’s bullshit. Save for a tiny few, they’re all Nazi sympathizers.
You know what? I love guns. Love shooting them, owning them and bearing them. But I don’t like Nazi sympathizers, and frankly seeing that shit at a gun show or anywhere else is vomitous. Now if you own all of the rifles of the second world war, and just need one that was used by the third reich, that’s one thing. But nooooo, every time I’ve ever seen this stuff, it’s not being bought or sold by those people. It’s being bought by people who are A-OK with the Nazi party and what they stood for.
Rightly so does the rest of the world view those who would associate with events where Nazi paraphernalia is sold with those that would buy Nazi paraphernalia. You don’t see anyone cheering on Stalin or Pol Pot eh? Or anyone proclaiming the social policies of Nathan Bedford Forrest?
Censorship is a bullshit polemic stick used to stick one’s head in the sand when it comes to matters morally repugnant. Yes, they have a right to make it, sell it, and let others buy it. But you have the right to shun those sorts of people, along with everyone else in society who would lay claim to the title ‘decent human being’. But no, we don’t say anything, let alone do anything.
Our father’s fathers fought and died opposing Nazis for good reason. Don’t let their effort be in vain. Sure, wearing a t-shirt with a swastika isn’t working people to death in a forced labor camp, but it’s saying ‘I’m A-OK with the people that did those things’. How would you let such a thing stand and still claim to be a decent human being?
Evil only prevails when good men do nothing.
Should have figured they would show up at any function with the word “knob” in it…
Geez…. all the crap goin to in the world but hey if people want to devote their time and money to bitch about Nazi memorabilia being sold at a gun event… oh well, unfortunately the Nazis made history in many ways, conquering Europe in a blitzkrieg that the morons in charge were not ready for, the most advanced armaments of that era, the Autobahn, torturing/killing ANYONE(not just Jews) that disagreed with them…
Well, then we need to get rid of anything related to them, so throw away your legally owned nazi stuff, your German Hipowers, P38s, MG42s(which are bring tens of thousands of dollars in the Class3 market and are legal to own in a lot of the USA) , oh wait… the M60 was based on the MG 42 and the FG42 german weapons so throw them away too, any HK or Cetme because they were derived from the STG44, your VW Bug because it was derived from a German military vehicle..
I mean get real. This like the whole argument against anything related to the Confederates States of America(you know… those damn rebs). Everyone needs to quit nosing into everyone else’s business.. Political Correctness is the same thing as “enemy, foreign or domestic” in the U.S.Constitution as far as I’m concerned.
Unless someone is a threat to someone else’s life, people need to mind their own damn business.
I respect your opinion, but to me the point is that 1) I see American unit patches mixed in, and as a 3 service vet I have the right to wish I’d been there and 2) many of those items were SS runes-those directly responsible for murder. In example, I’d be happy to remove Charlie Manson’s forehead swastika. As for the M60’s predecessor-I see your point-but the weapon didn’t kill innocents, and, by the way, defenseless American POW’s, like the nazis did.
Have any of you been to a gun show in the South? I haven’t been to one since probably 1998 but all of the ones I went to in Fayetteville and Charlotte NC featured not just Confederate – themed merchandise, but overtly racist crap, too: Like T-shirts featuring a heroic picture of a cross-burning klansman with the logo “The Original Boys In The Hood” and bumper stickers that read “If I’d known this would happen I would have picked my own cotton.” Books like “The Turner Diaries” and such, and more covert stuff like KKK logos without any words, pictures of Nathan Bedford Forrest (Confederate guerilla leader and founder of the KKK) were also widley available.
Honestly, I was embarrassed to be a part of a group associated with that stuff. It’s unfortunate but true that we are judged by the company we keep.
I’ve only seen this type of stuff at one of the gun shows I’ve been to here in northwest Arkansas, and that was a few years ago. I usually go to 2 or 3 a year. Also I try to hit up the Wannamacher show (billed as the World’s largest) in Tulsa once a year. I don’t ever recall seeing anything like that there, although I certainly wasn’t able to stop at each booth either.
I’m sure other parts of the South are a lot worse, but I think it is a bit dishonest to paint the entire region as racists.
I wander how the third reading is going today in Illinois Gerneral Assembly. Does anyone have any info?
The only Nazi relics I would ever want to own would be blood-stained with .30 or .45 caliber holes in them.
The historical value of the World War 2 items Axis or Allied is Priceless!!! The new Neo-Nazi stuff should be delt with just like the “Che” and “Moe” stuff!!! If you love Democracy and Freedom, Remember “Freedom is NOT FREE”. God bless the people who remember!!! “War dosen’t have winners, just survivers!!!”. P.S. “Only the dead know the end of WAR!!!”.
Comments are closed.