“Once, after I had written about gun control, a guy called to differ and said that had the Jews of Germany been armed, the Holocaust never would have happened. That assertion, so ahistorical as to be almost laughable, stopped me in my tracks because it went to the black heart of the gun-control debate: It’s not about guns. It’s about the government.” – Richard Cohen in The debacle of gun control [via washingtonpost.com]
“The first is the conviction that guns are needed to protect Americans from their own government. This fear — maybe paranoia is the better word —”
“— the belief that the government is either unwilling or unable to protect us. That this belief seems to have solidified at precisely a time when crime has diminished is both mysterious and frightening.”
“All this and nothing about the core problem, which is handguns. ”
“(You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater, but you can bring a gun into it.)”
Someday, somehow, somewhere, these guys will get what they deserve. It is quite saddening.
can’t happen soon enough.
So given this:
Maybe they can tell us again why more gun control is necessary?
I think people approach the “Nazi example” the wrong way – that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened – that the Warsaw Uprising would have been successful, etc.
Outcomes like that cannot be replayed with new facts to know one way or another.
What we do know is that any of us in that position would want the God-given, natural right to defend ourselves. Even if unto the death and ultimate defeat.
Better the Nazis had their own body count trying to wrestle arms from the Jews who died defending themselves rather than quietly getting on the cattle cars in an orderly fashion, only to later be ushered into the gas chambers or crematoria in an orderly fashion.
Focusing on success as the only goal in bearing tools of defense opens them up to the argument that if you cannot “prove” before-the-fact, or “demonstrate” historically after-the-fact, that you or they will/would have been successful then you don’t “neeeeeeeed” that gun. Hand it over.
It’s a replay of the “you don’t ‘neeeeeeed’ a gun/that gun” argument – on the one hand, you must demostrate an immediate “neeeeeeeed” in order to keep it. But the Holocaust example serves to prove that even if you can demonstrate an immediate “neeeeeed”, they will move the goalpost and demand you prove you can win in order to keep and bear arms.
It doesn’t guarantee victory. It changes the odds. And can result in a high cost of “doing business” for those who would do you and yours harm. Bunker Hill and the Alamo were technical defeats for us, and Pyrric victories for our adversaries.
As General Clinton remarked after Bunker Hill, “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.”
I can almost imagine an SS officer making a similar remark after house-to-house urban fighting, with heavy losses, to dislodge a better supplied and armed Warsaw Uprising.
Another goodie:
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. ”
-Winston Churchill
better to perish than to live as slaves
Civilization (State Society) has been annihilating “autonomous and sovereign” individuals of Egalitarian Non-State primitive societies for its whole 8,000 year existence.
Egalitarian means “no hierarchy,” or simply, “nobody lording-it-over others.”
Our founders tried to incorporate the egalitarian lifeways they observed in Indian tribal society into the 2A of the Bill of Rights.
Civilization (City-Statism) has now intensified in North America, to the point where such primitive Egalitarian lifeways must be completely eliminated.
Jefferson predicted this intensification of City-Statism.
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” – Thomas Jefferson
The Blue States are piled up with domesticated poodles. They’re going to gang up on the wild wolves they fear.
Submit to poodle-ization or die is the story of City-Statism (Civilization.)
Gun-culture is the new “savage”[3] Injuns to be tamed (domesticated) or slaughtered.
______________
[1] Christopher Boehm (1999) Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Harvard University Press.
[2] Service, Elman. (1975) Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. New York, NY: Norton.
[3] Jack Goody (1977) The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge University Press
Bendorey(I think that’s how it’s spelled) from JPFO basically said that we can’t know that it(gun ownership by Jews) would have stopped the holocaust, but we can say, “things would have been different.”
Germany was very heavily militarized and technologically advanced, relative to other European countries, at the start of WWII.
Poland was overrun so quickly because of its inferior military. It had a cavalry comprised of men with rifles, lances on horseback. They had no chance against the Germans. Poland had a small, inferior air force as well. Thus, the Germans were able to subdue the country through massive bombing.
I cannot speak to the extent of private gun ownership at the time, but if prevalent it likely comprised of shotguns and bolt action rifles – mostly for hunting.
Additionally, and while I’m at it: while Polish Jewery may have lived in concentrated groups (neighborhoods or entire towns) they were not sequestered from the rest of Polish society. Many held positions of prominence in their respective cities.
It was the Germans who rounded them up and confined them to Ghettos. Part and parcel of that process was deprivation of basic resources, never mind firearms.
So any talk of “if only the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had guns…” is nonsensical.
The wider populace in German was disarmed before the Nazis started to harass or round anyone up…..
+1
It’s frustrating (yet predictable) to see the double standard from the gun prohibition crowd. On one hand we’re told that the only criteria needed to justify gun restrictions is whether or not it saves even a single life. However, the facts surrounding guns used to prevent homicides almost never factor in that argument. Following their argument to the logical extreme, they would prohibit the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of instances (annually) where a gun was used to stop robbery, assault, rape, and/or murder even if only one person were murdered by firearm. If the criteria is really about saving lives, then there needs to be some logical consistency in evaluating the net effect firearms.
In the case of the holocaust, it’s debatable how many Jews could have saved themselves had they been allowed the means to defend themselves and/or escape. However, the gun grabbers need to be logically consistent here; if even one Jew could have been saved had they not been denied access to firearms equivalent to their government’s…..
Unarmed resisters were rounded up by the hundreds and thousands. Armed resisters were taken out one-by-one. Take some with you!!! In the face of tyranny, winning isn’t nearly as important as showing that people will stand up and quite literally fight to the death to stop it.
Why not use a more recent example?: Bosnia. UN put arms embargo and confiscated weapons so when the serbs came they could kill everyone, and I know had they been armed they would have survived. Because many of my friends who survived were armed.
Its almost frightening how out of touch the Urban community is from the rest of the country.
I live in the suburbs, the police have never responder faster than 10 mins. That is more than enough time to end up dead.
When I am at my families rural property in WI it has taken the cops more than an HOUR to respond to calls of unknown trespassers.
That is why I need guns because I realize that in my reality the police will always be too late to help.
I guess when you live in NYC or Washington DC where you have a cop on every corner its a different reality but these big city folk need to realize that the rest of us do not share that reality.
Second, even in big cities the Government cannot protect you. Case perfect point is Hurricane Katrina. The police force simply evaporated during and after the storm. You had days of lawlessness before the Police and National guard showed up.
Third, when the Police and National guard finally DID show up after Katrina they were more worried about the illegal confiscation of privately held firearms and shooting anyone they wished (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danziger_Bridge_shootings).
If more people had been armed and organized in localized militia units these gross violations of the constitution would not have been able to happen.
Paranoid? No sir I am a realist. Maybe if you came down from your Ivory white bread tower every now and again you would be too.
You don’t even need to have a local militia to deter looters. The fact that you and your neighbors are there and known to have guns is sufficient to keep the looters away.
And don’t assume that if you live in a big city the cops are seconds away. It still takes 10 minutes from the time 911 gets the call until the cops arrive.
My point was that people in urban communities, especially people who live in well off areas like most of the writes at the NYT, Washington Post etc have a perception of a rapid LEO responce due to the fact you can’t seem to go more than a block in Manhattan or the “Good” part of DC without seeing a cop.
The other point I was trying to make is while you might not need a orginized group of armed locals to deter looters, once you have in effect a local militia that is the only hopes of standing up to both looters AND an all out Katrina style gun grab.
Urban community vs Rural
The intensification of City-Statism (Civilization) has turned more primitive, conservative, rural White society into the new Indians to be either tamed or destroyed.
Constitutionalism is The White Man’s Ghost Dance.
Wovoka has spoken; expect another Trail of Tears at Wounded Knee, soon.
He is just saying that we are “fearful”.
Oh Wait, Obama said something like that, the NRA is trying to instill fear Oh no! Wait, Mr. President, we are not afraid of the NRA, we are afraid (at least I am) that you are going to try to take our guns away.
And then, I am afraid that you are going to want all of us to start addressing you as “Your Majesty”.
Civilization (State Society) is characterized by Class Structure (Hierarchy).
It is intensifying in North America now after a short 300 years into European-strength City-Statism (Civilization.)
I’m afraid the 200 year American experiment of trying to mix Egalitarian Non-State primitive society principles with Hierarchical State Society (Civilization) is failed.
The wolves are outnumbered by the domesticated Blue State Poodles. It happened to the last “savages” at Wounded Knee.
♫ Now.
You know.
This is what it feels like. ♪
~Nine Inch Nails — The Wretched
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkLhdklu1v0
The argument that I get tired of hearing is, the government has nuclear weapons and tanks and howitzers, so the average citizen with a gun is simply outgunned
To my thinking, that proves how valuable guns in citizen hands are since it now raises to level of violence that a tyrannical government must use to impose it’s will.
How many would continue to support an administration that deployed fighter jet and tank attacks against it’s own citizens?
I won’t even address the moronic notion of using nukes against any American target.
A large enough population with small arms can hold off most any modern army, just look at Afghanistan, Vietnam, Palistine, etc. Unless the oppressing army goes to full nuclear war, insurectionist guerrilla fighting is just about impossible to defeat. Oh there will be lots of casualties, and death, but just like in the Palestine/Isreali conflict, for every one killed, 2 more are inspired to join the fight. The same thing happened in northern Ireland. The US gubmint can call an event like Waco an unfortunate incident, but when they start killing US citizens by the hundreds or thousands to enforce compliance, instead of a few dozen here and there, the tide will shift quickly. Resistance may be futile for one or two people, but dedicated resistance of many can break the will of the oppressors. Ask Ho Chi Minh.
How many would continue to support an administration that deployed fighter jet and tank attacks against it’s own citizens?
It has happened before, tanks and chemical weapons were used against 43,000 people in Washington DC in 1932 by Maj. Patton, Gen. MacArthur and Gen. Eisenhower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Air strikes utilizing explosive and chemical weapons were used against 15,000 people in West Virginia in 1921 by Gen. Mitchell.
http://www.hurherald.com/cgi-bin/db_scripts/articles?Action=user_view&db=hurheral_articles&id=33861
Please keep these events in mind the next time Veteran’s Day rolls around and you have people telling you how they’re fighting for your freedom.
The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were ridiculously outgunned, and yet they tied down thousands of Nazi troops for over threee months.
Richard Cohen is nobody to claim ahistoricity. He knows less about Judaism and Jewish history than a janitor at the Vatican. Or, he knows and doesn’t card.
For an example of his “reliability”, see, e.g., http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_13740.htm
If and when people start giving out Piers Morgan awards for intellectual dishonesty, he will be one of the first nominees. Or would it be the Walter Duranty award. Or perhaps not, since nobody takes him seriously outside of the little of circle of elitist leftists he so much wants to be accepted in.
The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were not only out-gunned, they were absurdly out-gunned.
They had like, oh, eight guns.
And, according to a story in my tradition, when the first German was hit by gunfire from the ghetto resistance, an officer run out screaming hysterically : “The Jews have guns. The Jews have guns.”
While Cohen can’t understand it, the Nazis understood it very well. One of their first acts was to confiscate all guns in Jewish hands.
Interestingly, one of the arguments in the infamous Dred Scott decision against recognizing the citizenship of blacks in the US, even emancipated ones, was that then they would be entitled to carry guns. And obviously, that’s ridiculous: lowlifes carrying guns???! Sounds like what is coming out of Washington and MSM these days.
From the decision:
[I]t cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.
Ayup, disarm everybody so as not to cause unrest among the slaves of New York, Chicago…
“… it now raises to level of violence that a tyrannical government must use to impose its will.”
That’s actually really good, and I never thought of it that way. The “nuclear bombs & tanks” argument is actually one of my favorite anti-gun arguments, for two reasons. First, because it’s often one of the first arguments they go to, and second, because it’s so easy to argue against, with near-irrefutable logic. Usually I go the route of “arms vs. ordnance” and “weapon of the common soldier at the time.” This just provides another leg for the stool. Everyone knows the saying, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” By extension, “In the land of the disarmed, the man with a revolver is king.”
What if, what if….
It all comes down to the fundamental human right to choose how to defend ourselves or even whether to defend ourselves.
How’s this for a what if?
What if the US never got involved in the Great War, WWI? Maybe they would have just kept slugging it out until they were motivated to come to a truce that didn’t economically cripple Germany. It’s possible that WWII might never have happened. It’s possible that the “Final Solution” would never have been thought of much less implemented. Of course, all of Europe might now be part of the USSR but nevermind that, don’t you see? The US is obviously responsible for the Holocaust because we jumped into WWI.
Now that’s a totally wierd “what if”. Can you top it? Oh wait, Richard Cohen already did.
Let me sum up: You don’t need guns because government will never try to massacre you… but, if government does ever try to massacre you, you don’t need guns because it would be impossible to win.
Thanks for that gem, smartguy.
During WW2 Richard Cohen would have been known as a “KAPO.”
That’s the smartest thing I’ve read this week.
“Yes” more Jews owning weapons would have made more of an impact but maybe not for the reasons people on both sides tend to think. A people group that arms up during peace time tends to fight back more when the SHTF. In this way guns are symbols, statements, and expressions of souls that contain more “chutzpah”.
This guy would’ve been the first traitor manning the gas chambers. And he might here too.
I hope one day he finds himself in need of a gun and without one.
I know a serpent when I run across one, and Meester Cohen is one.
“It’s not about guns. It’s about the government.”
No sh!t Sherlock.
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