Whenever a politician, or anyone else, starts talking about regulating guns, it’s a safe bet that someone will bring up how Hitler supposedly outlawed guns in Germany, which supposedly enabled him to do all the mischief he did. As we’ve noted before, Adolf is a staple reference among propagandists. It’s become an automatic response to compare anyone you don’t like to Der Fuhrer, on the grounds that since he was evil incarnate, everything he ever said or did must also be evil. People have even been known to suggest that since he was a vegetarian, vegetarians are evil. It’s not surprising, then, that you often see this quote pop up:
“This year 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 into the future!” –Adolf Hitler, 1935
Trouble is, Hitler never made such a speech in 1935. Nor is there any record that he ever spoke these particular words at all. This little “speech” was obviously written for him, many years after his death, by someone who wanted you to believe that gun registration is Hitler-evil.
What he did say, seven years later, was this: “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.” So it’s fair to conclude that he believed “gun control” had its uses. But that’s quite a different thing from claiming that “gun control” was instrumental in the NAZI rise to power.
And the truth is that no gun law was passed in Germany in 1935. There was no need for one, since a gun registration program was already in effect in Germany; it was enacted in 1928, five years before Hitler’s ascendancy. But that law did not “outlaw” guns, it just restricted their possession to individuals who were considered law-abiding citizens, and who had a reason to own one. And there’s no reason to consider that law particularly significant, either; the NAZIs didn’t seize control of their own country with gunpowder. They used a much more potent weapon: propaganda.
Under their reign, Jews were prohibited from owning guns, just as they were prohibited from doing many things. And it has become an article of faith among the gun culture that had they been armed, the Holocaust would not have happened (that is, among those members of the gun culture who know that the Holocaust really did happen). But the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts. On American soil, its most glorious day in the sun has been perhaps Waco. And we all know how well that turned out.
The gun culture is right about one thing, however. Hitler really did enact a new gun law. But it was in 1938, not 1935 – well after the NAZIs already had the country in its iron grip. Furthermore, the new law in many ways LOOSENED gun restrictions. For example, it greatly expanded the numbers who were exempt, it lowered the legal age of possession from 20 to 18, and it completely lifted restriction on all guns except handguns, as well as on ammunition.
Given all of this, it’s pretty hard to make a case that “gun control” played a significant role in NAZI conquest. In fact, one might well say that when gun addicts brandish Hitler as a weapon, they are unwittingly arguing against their own cause.
(For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see More on the Myth of Hitler’s Gun Ban, Part 1 and More on the Myth of Hitler’s Gun Ban, Part 2.)
In 1935, under Hitler’s rule, prayers ceased to be obligatory in schools. In 1962, The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school prayer.
Hitler eliminated Christian holidays in the schools first by calling Christmas “Yuletide.” Most American public schools now call Christmas vacation a “winter break.”
Hitler took Easter out of schools and instead honored that time of year as the beginning of spring. It has likewise become common for schools in America to refer to time off at Easter as “spring break.”
Hitler controlled the church using intimidation and threats. A half-century ago, U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, promoted a bill that included an amendment to use the Internal Revenue Service to remove the non-profit status of a church that speaks against the election of any specific political candidate.
Hitler enticed thousands of pastors to promote paganism in their congregations. Neopaganism is one of the fastest growing religions in America, doubling every 18 months according to a June 2008 article in The Denver Post. Many American church-goers practice paganism such as “Christian” yoga, contemplative prayer, and walking a labyrinth. As evidence that church doors continue to open further to aberrant beliefs, a 2008 survey found that 57% of evangelicals do not believe Jesus Christ is the only way to God.
Hitler was an environmentalist and vegetarian. Marriages performed by the Nazi state frequently included blessings of “Mother Earth” and “Father Sky.” Today Americans increasingly accept radical environmentalism, pantheism, and the celebration of Earth Day.
Hitler was fascinated by eastern mysticism. Today an increasing number of American pastors encourage their followers to become “mystic warriors”.
Hitler believed in reincarnation. He even convinced SS officers that by murdering millions of Jews and other “undesirables” they were allowing them to get on with the reincarnation process and come back more quickly in an advanced status. Americans increasingly accept the idea of reincarnation as well as good and bad karma.
Hitler’s holocaust killed between 8 and 11 million Jews and non-Jews. Americans have killed an estimated 50 million babies since abortion was legalized through the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. According to a July 7, 2008 article on worldnetdaily.com “An abortionist who claims to have destroyed more than 20,000 unborn children and who once was Hillary Clinton’s OB-GYN says he is doing ‘God’s work’ when he terminates a pregnancy…He admits that abortion kills a human soul.”
Hitler killed 270,000 handicapped people through active euthanasia.[1] America and the courts are rushing toward the same with the murder of individuals such as Terri Schiavo. Oregon voters passed their Death with Dignity Act in 1994 and re-affirmed it in 1997. Washington state voters legalized doctor-assisted suicide on November 4, 2008. In December 2008, a Montana judge ruled terminally ill residents of that state have the right to physician-assisted suicide, and “death with dignity” is gaining acceptance in other states as well.
By 1938, all private schools were abolished by Hitler and all education placed under Nazi control. There is constant pressure from federal and many state education authorities to require that Christian schools use state-mandated, humanistic textbooks. The Home School Legal Defense Association is fighting numerous battles at any given time to prevent parents from loosing the right to educate their children as they see fit. In August 2008, a federal district court ruled that the state of California university system may choose not to recognize the diplomas-and thereby deny college entrance to-students who attended a school using textbooks that express a Biblical worldview in the areas of history and science (i.e., Christian schools). Hitler prevented dissenters from using radio to challenge his worldview. Many powerful liberals in America have made clear their intent to reintroduce the “Fairness Doctrine” that would require conservative and religious radio stations to offer equal time to anti-Christian, anti-conservative worldviews.
Pastors who spoke against Hitler’s worldview and his murderous regime found themselves on trial and frequently imprisoned for “Abuse of Pulpit.” In America, hate-crime legislation has the potential to criminalize Christians and pastors who speak out against the homosexual agenda.
Many Christians in Germany justified their allegiance to Hitler through a belief that “Their duty to God was spiritual; their duty to the state was political.”[2] Many American Christians now have bought the lie that their worldview can be divided between the secular and the sacred-the politician has one area of responsibility, the pastor another, and never shall the two meet. Yet the Bible teaches that all issues are fundamentally spiritual.
Hitler outlawed the cross and replaced it with the swastika. Today many churches, Christian colleges, and universities have willingly removed the cross from their buildings. Numerous court cases sponsored by the ACLU have required the removal of the cross from public grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted on public grounds for religious purposes.
Hitler was fascinated with Friedrich Nietzsche and distributed his writings to his inner circle. Nietzsche promoted Nihilism, the belief that life has no meaning, and he is best known for his position that “God is dead”. Nietzsche is presently one of the most widely read authors by American college students.
Hitler exploited the economic collapse of Germany to take over as dictator and usher in his brand of socialism. America’s financial crisis has given liberals in both political parties the opportunity to grow the size of government and implement freedom-robbing socialism at lightning speed.
Hitler was obsessed with globalism, and many of America’s most powerful political leaders are willing to subjugate American sovereignty to contemporary globalism.
Many Germans responded to Hitler by retreating into neutrality. Today most Americans prefer to remain neutral on moral issues that they think don’t affect them personally.
On trial after World War II, Hitler’s henchmen used the defense that they had not broken any laws. True, they had not defied the laws of Germany since those had been re-written to fit the goals and objectives of Hitler. The Nazi leaders were nevertheless found guilty because the courts at the time recognized a “law above the law.” Yet now the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the law of nature and nature’s God by claiming that as society evolves, morals evolve, and so the law, too, must evolve.
Calling upon Darwinian evolution, Hitler convinced the German people that purging millions of people was acceptable because of the need to create a pure race; also referred to as eugenics. American students across the board have been educated in Darwinian evolution because the Supreme Court has ruled that creation cannot be taught in our schools-even if both creation and evolution are taught side by side.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood in America became acquainted with the doctors and scientists that had worked with Nazi Germany’s eugenics program and had no quarrel with the euthanasia, sterilization, abortion, and infanticide programs of the early Reich.[3] Sanger even published several articles in Birth Control Review that reflected Hilter’s White Supremacist worldview. Planned Parenthood now grosses one billion per year.
In Germany, pastors often cited Romans 13:1-2 to encourage Christians to obey the Nazis. Today in America, many pastors have a false view of Romans 13:1-2 and have convinced millions that to disobey governing authorities is to disobey God. This poor training would facilitate Christians here doing just as the German Christians did if faced with similar challenges.
Germans accepted socialism to avoid pain. Today’s Americans are rejecting capitalism in exchange for government-sponsored “free” healthcare, education, and countless other government handouts.
Many Americans accept what I call, One World Spirituality. This is actually an amalgamation of the three worldviews of evolutionary humanism, Hindu pantheism, and occultism. I noted earlier that Hitler embraced all of these.
America is rushing toward government-sponsored, national healthcare. We already have a form of this in Medicare and Medicaid. Hitler, too, expanded and centralized Germany’s healthcare system. As Melchior Palyi explained, “The ill-famed Dr. Ley, boss of the Nazi labor front, did not fail to see that the social insurance system could be used for Nazi politics as a means of popular demagoguery, as a bastion of bureaucratic power, [and] as an instrument of regimentation.”
Holy crap. You appear to be a walking encyclopedia of misinformation. I won’t bother debunking all of this garbage here, as it would take a great deal of space, and most if not all of it will be addressed in my future posts, if they haven’t been addressed already. But your very first statement is quite typical of what follows it: your implication is that if prayers “ceased to be obligatory” under Hitler, that’s tantamount to “outlawing” prayer. But more important, you repeat the tired old myth that the U.S. Supreme Court itself “outlawed” prayer. Not so, of course. (http://voices.yahoo.com/legal-urban-legends-debunked-did-supreme-court-1951194.html) I truly feel a great deal of sympathy for anyone who believes ANY of the things you’ve said here – much less ALL of them!
In two landmark decisions, Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the US Supreme Court established what is now the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in schools.
One needn’t even be familiar with such rulings to spot your straw man. First you talk about outlawing school prayer. Then you substitute a ban on “state-sponsored prayer” in schools. A gargantuan difference.
Indeed environmentalism, paganism, evolution etc has been hijacked in the name of promoting nature above humans as a eugenicist control mechanism.
Anyone with an IQ over 50 that has looked into the facts knows that anthropogenic global warming is a complete scam with zero evidence to back it up and overwhelming evidence against it.
The globalists also want humanity to go vegetarian to weaken us. Meat promotes health, muscular strength, iron, aminos etc and is an important part of the diet, especially for the warrior caste. Yes some humans are born with strength and lots of fast twitch muscle, they are the ‘warriors and protectors’ if you will. The globalists want to undermine health/muscular development as much as possible in preparation for the future escalation of military interaction with the populace.
Vegetarians are also psychologically more predisposed to evil acts than meat eaters. They tend to eschew the animalistic vices, whereas meat eaters tend to be more sexual and animalistic, this mindset tends to go hand in hand with empathic animalistic kindness. People with fleshly vices like meat, sex, (and cigars.drink etc) tend to have the human empathic kind quality whereas the vegetarian clean-living types with no vices almost always tend to have one vice……..power.
This is not all vegetarians of course but a general tendency exists towards the afore-mentioned personality traits.
The globalist environmental anti-human religion gives the power hungry vegetarian types the chance to get some real power and have it pseudo-legitimised via the globalist ethos.
Please stop, my sides are absolutely splitting. Just mark me down as one of those vegetarian, environmentalist, evolutionist naturalists with an !Q below 50 who is very impressed by the mountain of solid “zero” evidence pointing to anthropogenic global warming. Oh, and I’ve also been an extremely healthy and active vegetarian for some 25 years, during which time I’ve seen my carnivorous friends and relatives drop like flies and develop a host of health problems. Wanna arm wrestle?
ok im a meat eater but i have to disagree with sabretruthiger, i have done research and ever time i look at the question of vegetarian vs meat eating i get meat is bad and so i looked for research to support and debunk it. i have found some of the most reputable clinics in the world doing research and they all same the same thing. National Institutes of Health-AARP says after a 10 yr study the find eating meat raises your chances of heart disease and cancer. also i did some research on anatomy and found by our very structure because we lack a protruding jaw we are actually designed to be vegetarians.
Genesis 9:4
But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Genesis 1:30
And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so
1 Corinthians 8:13
Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
so i am inclined to disagree please dont be blind, do your homework, just an FYI i am a texan who is a conservative republican party supporter. so i am very anti liberal socialist agenda but i dont believe in propaganda to pass my ideas on, that is in fact what Adolf Hitler did
I’ll just add a bit about vegetarianism. I have worked in fish processing. 112 hours a week for a season, until downtime, which could be 6 weeks or a month. I found that if the processor had a weight room onboard, I could keep my energy up by riding a stationary bike for an hour and lifting weights another hour. Meat slows you down. I switched to a veggie diet. I would eat a big mess of eggs and hashbrowns for my first meal, but no other meat. You can go without protein for a good long time. After a month or 2 I had my wife send me protein powder. But when you habitually eat meat then stop, you’ll find that protein keeps you fat. The workers who ate meat (everybody) were always tired and pissed off. A lot of them quit. I ate some meat 8 weeks into it. That shift, my joints and muscles were very sore. All I could think about was quitting. It took me four or so hours to work off the feeling. Also I had to drink more water than usual to process the meat I had just eaten, and I had to go to the bathroom a lot that shift. That isn’t good when you are trying not to get fired or sent to the slime line. Everyone thought I was crazy, because I was always “up” and smiling (I also had a bitchin’ physique). I outworked everyone around me and was very gung-ho. When I worked these crazy jobs, I would also cut out the coffee. I switched to tea, and drank a lot of Emergen-C and water, and I also took fiber pills and fish oil pills. I got to a point where I could lose a pound of weight per hour on the cardio in the weight room. Just something to think about–it’s my personal experience. If you work a lot and want to be really strong, you will minimize meat consumption. (I was in the navy too, went to a war, have an “E” ribbon for the .45 and Marksman for the M14 and M16. So spare me this bullcrap about a “warrior caste.” We are not a caste society (on paper, anyway!) We may honor the troops, but it’s not a free-thinker or American trait to fetishize them. God gave you the gift of a brain, you should look into using it. Also, someone who believes we have, or should have, a “warrior caste” is expressing an “anti-American” sentiment. So is someone who says something is “unAmerican” to describe free people. There’s no such thing as “unAmerican.” There is, however, such a thing as “Anti-American.” Like POP says, read the Federalist Papers. You might also want to check out some different books, other than Massad Ayoob or Soldier of Fortune.
P.O.P: I wish I knew who in person. From what I read here, I’m a big fan!
Hi, in response to concernedonlooker (not certain he/she will ever see this). I just wanted to correct your references. All three of your references from the bible were taken incorrectly, though I am grateful you were making an attempt.
First you reference Genesis 9:4 & what is being discussed here is that they were to not eat of anything living. Basically, if the animal’s heart was beating, they were to not eat of it.
Then you reference Genesis 1:30, and you are correct that at that time, they were given every green plant for food (at that time).
Lastly, you reference 1 Corinthians 8:13. In those days, Jews followed a certain law and they had restrictive diets that other cultures or people groups did not. So, here, Paul is telling his brothers in Christ to not partake in something that might hinder another brother’s walk. For instance, there are some who believe that all consumption of alcohol is wrong, so I would not ask them to consume with me and cause them to stumble. Nor would I discuss sex amidst those who are unmarried, lest I cause them to stumble. Here, he is specifically discussing meat as a stumbling block. To sum it up, we are not to provide a temptation for others.
I also wanted to offer a reference of my own from Genesis 9:3 “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” This is following the flood. At this point, God offers everything that lives and moves for food to mankind.
I do believe that our bodies were originally intended for plants and not animals, but for whatever reason, be it the fact that we were now descending from Noah’s heritage and maybe he lacked the genes for a vegan only diet, God gave us all that lived and moved as our nourishment from the flood on.
Just thought I would help anyone who was wondering about where all of this came from. Thank you again concernedonlooker for trying to point everyone back to the Bible. It is a great place to look for answers!
God, I am so tired of you people. I wish all of you would just take your fundamentalist, gun-fetishist, right-wing paranoia and just go start your revolution already. Then we could be done with you.
Oh for Pete’s sake, if you’re gonna cite the Schempp decision, at least do the research and get your facts straight. Schempp was an ordained minister, who filed the suit because he felt that the public schools were interfering with the religious education he was trying to give his kids.
I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the school prayer that you’re talking about, but it wasn’t a simple “God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food” at the beginning of the day, at least it wasn’t where I grew up. In New Jersey it was like a little mini-service. You did the Pledge of Allegiance, a “flag song,” a reading from one of the Psalms (probably the 23rd), and then The Lord’s prayer. Now I was seven when all of this just quietly disappeared, so my memories are a little fuzzy on this, and there may have been more. But if you were Catholic it was the wrong version of The Lord’s Prayer, and if you were Jewish, you were screwed. It may have been a lot different and a lot more intense in Maryland, which is where I believe Schempp was.
Moreover, when the Schempp kids asked to be excused from the room during those exercises, they were regularly bullied and beaten up by the “good Christian kids” for being different.
Knowing that the suit was brought by a Christian sheds a whole different light on the case and the resulting decision.
Did you read the book “History through Obama’s eyes”?
Patrick,
Regarding Hitler and religion, it’s difficult to believe that Hitler was pushing any kind of (new) religiosity (or “paganism”) when he is making public speeches where he says things like this below to his followers who supposedly are hanging on his every word:
“National Socialism is not a cult-movement – a movement for worship; it is exclusively a ‘volkic’ political doctrine based upon racial principles. In its purpose there is no mystic cult, only the care and leadership of a people defined by a common blood-relationship. Therefore we have no rooms for worship, but only halls for the people – no open spaces for worship, but spaces for assemblies and parades. We have no religious retreats, but arenas for sports and playing-fields, and the characteristic feature of our places of assembly is not the mystical gloom of a cathedral, but the brightness and light of a room or hall which combines beauty with fitness for its purpose. In these halls no acts of worship are celebrated, they are exclusively devoted to gatherings of the people of the kind which we have come to know in the course of our long struggle; to such gatherings we have become accustomed and we wish to maintain them. We will not allow mystically-minded occult folk with a passion for exploring the secrets of the world beyond to steal into our Movement. Such folk are not National Socialists, but something else – in any case, something which has nothing to do with us. At the head of our program there stand no secret surmisings but clear-cut perception and straightforward profession of belief. But since we set as the central point of this perception and of this profession of belief the maintenance and hence the security for the future of a being formed by God, we thus serve the maintenance of a divine work and fulfill a divine will – not in the secret twilight of a new house of worship, but openly before the face of the Lord.
There were times when a half-light was the necessary condition for the effectiveness of certain teachings: we live in an age when light is for us the fundamental condition of successful action. It will be a sorry day when through the stealing in of obscure mystic elements the Movement or the State itself issues obscure commissions…. It is even dangerous to issue any commission for a so-called place of worship, for with the building will arise the necessity for thinking out so-called religious recreations or religious rites, which have nothing to do with National Socialism. Our worship is exclusively the cultivation of the natural, and for that reason, because natural, therefore God-willed. Our humility is the unconditional submission before the divine laws of existence so far as they are known to us men: it is to these we pay our respect. Our commandment is the courageous fulfillment of the duties arising from those laws. But for religious rites we are not the authorities, but the churches! If anyone should believe that these tasks of ours are not enough for him, that they do not correspond with his convictions, then it is for him to prove that God desires to use him to change things for the better. In no event can National Socialism or the National Socialist State give to German art other tasks than those which accord with our view of the world.” – Nuremberg Sept. 6, 1938
It sounds pretty secular, something like “If you want spirituality, go to church.”
Did it ever occur to you that Christ was apolitical, saying, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. He also commanded his disciples to spread the Gospel, and would you believe it? They thought that gatherings of believers were an ideal way to spread the Gospels! So now you are minimizing secular thinking because it expects believers to attend churches as the preferred way to absorb spiritual teachings. That’s a good one–almost as good as believing we have a “God given right to own guns.”
Whatever mystical beliefs Hitler may have had, it does not follow to conclude either that he sincerely understood them, or that none of them have any meaning because of his interests in them. It seem to me that he was also often seen around guns–sounds a little NRA to me!
What a bunch of garbage. Whoever you get your information from should have been in Hitler’s propaganda machine.
Hitler farted on a Tuesday in 1935. Obama farted on a Wednesday in 2010. One must be the reincarnation of the other.
This is quite honestly one of the best comments this post has received yet.
But did they save Hitler’s fart in a jar and store it alongside his brain?
‘Merica fuck yeah!
Thank you for saying that, I had several similar analogies running through my head but your’s is far better. Only thing I regret is the 5 minutes of my life I wasted reading that first comment. P.O.P. I’d like the IQ points back that he took from me for having read that (I’m really not sure what to call it).
Hitler was a Christian. A Catholic. He used his faith to propel himself to power. Don’t believe the tripe they’re giving you, buddy.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm
Hitler may have been a ‘christian’ according to man’s definition of what a ‘chrisitian’ is… but his ‘fruit’ says otherwise… murder of millions of people… thru death camps, firiing squads…? christian? NOT! ANTI CHRIST? oh most definately… a mere shadowing of the man that will come on the scene in the future… only thing.. this man will do it thru ‘peace’.. unlike Hitler.. who did it thru war… so Hitler being a ‘christian’… NOT… Jesus said you would ‘know them by their fruits’…
Are you suggesting that Christians have never slaughtered anyone?
Lets not forget Pope Pius XII who actually helped Hitler through his inaction. Pope Pius stood by and watched from Vatican City as the Germans rounded up the Jews. Christian?
P.O.P., everyone sins, except Christ, of course, though He was tempted to sin (in every way that we, too, are tempted), and did not, in order that we could all be made righteous through Him. So, yes, it is possible that one may have committed the sin of murder (all sins are equal, by the way) and still be/become a believer in Christ. However, what Travis is trying to say is that those who do so (slaughter another human being) in the “Name of Christ” are not truly a follower of Christ and if they were to pass away before casting their sins at the feet of Christ and trusting that God/Christ is the only one who can forgive them of their sins, then they would not find a home with Christ.
So, to sum it up, there are many who say they do things in the “Name of Christ”, but if what they are doing contradict what the Bible says, then you can count on the fact that they are certainly wrong.
Christians do sin, they are not a perfect being, however, you have to look at their life and determine whether they are living in sin (a continuous struggle that they do not give to Christ), or if their life is lived more abundantly in Christ with some hiccups along the road. If they are living in sin and do not bear the resemblance of Christ, they are more than likely not “Christians”.
It is very sad because many have been fooled by the enemy to believe that they are “Christians”, when, in fact, they have no more put their trust in Christ than I have in the weather man.
Hope this helps to differentiate.
Christians throughout history have shed oceans of blood in the name of Christ. If you choose not to call them true Christians, that’s your right. When they call themselves Christians, however, I don’t feel the need to dispute them.
P.O.P., please refer to my other posts found under your response to Patrick on May 17th 2012 at 7:34pm & also under Ken’s post on January 10, 2013 at 6:43pm. I am certain I am not doing this much justice, but I thought I would at least shed some light on the truth from the source of Christianity (the Bible, not me, clearly). And yes, it is not up to us who is truly a believer, but, if the question is going to be asked about what “makes” (using the quoted term loosely) a Christian, then we might as well get it from the source.
“murder of millions of people… thru death camps, firiing squads…? christian? ” This actually sounds pretty Christian
Most Christians forget that god order the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites via Joshua. It’s the same god that the Christians think is all loving. Well he’s a mass murderer. Sorry, it’s in your book.
If Hitler used the Catholic Church as a means to power, that is probably the reason why–because it helped catapulted him to power by providing a deceptive legitimacy to his views.
I have my own theological opinions, but I understand that just because someone claims to be Christian, that doesn’t mean that person really try to live a spiritual life. And whats more, is that many who genuinely consider themselves to be Christians do not always act in the most loving way to their fellow human beings. And by this I am including those of fundamentalist faiths.
The reason that we must not have a state approved or instituted religion, is not just to prevent the “wrong” faiths from being granted special status, it is also to prevent any faith from being exclusively used to justify the narrow minded opinion that any person who practices one specific faith, automatically has a monopoly on absolute truth. Those who believe so, are useless to argue with if they start with the assumption that they ” know it all.”
The Bible is a piece of literature with many beautiful and wise passages in it but that does not grant everything in it, the special status of being infallible knowledge. A case in point can be found in Exodus Chapter 31 verse 14–”You shall keep the Sabbath because it is Holy to you; Everyone who profanes it will be put to death.” And before anyone brings up theological hair splittings such as “It only means after death.” or, “it only means spiritual death without faith” etc, consider a phrase from the next verse (verse 15)–”Whoever Does work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.” Not only does this mean that if everything in the Bible is absolutely true, then we are committing crimes punishable by death whenever we mow the lawn on Sunday, or even Saturday, if you go the Orthodox route. and the words, “put to” death, definitely convey an air that human enforcement will police this transgression.
So obviously if you believe every word said there, then you would consider trying, and executing, anyone who raked the leaves on the Sabbath–but of course that is absolutely absurd!
Jesus himself said, when asked about the holiness of the Sabbath, “The Sabbath was made for man–not man for the Sabbath.” And this is definitely NOT at all the same sentiment.
I get tired of so many people who think that their particular faiths are completely infallible and the other guys aren’t. What seems more reasonable to me, it that the basic core teachings of most major faith are the same (in so many words) love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
I wish that religious fundamentalists who moan and fret about a society that should be based on religious faith—at least in the sense that Christians should be able to use any public venue desired to spread their beliefs, would realize how undemocratic it is to say, that free speech exists, but only my version i.e. my religion’s teachings are the right one!
It is far more likely that biblical injunctions against homosexuality and other examples of “abnormal” behavior come primarily from the aversion straight people have always felt towards a sexual orientation that seems so aberrant to them. Besides, it is obviously not true that some people chose to be that way out of some kind of sacrilegious defiance. This is no more true than that those who are very straight had to make a decision to be hetero. Both orientations are found in Nature and, therefore, under most religious doctrines must have been created by God.
The Bible has many wonderful passages and serves as a great source of love and inspiration to many of us. But every word ever written in it is not divinely ordained by God. I suspect human fault is responsible for many of the more questionable passages. If you disagree, turn yourself in to authorities next time you mow your lawn. Or admit that even the Taliban must have it right to believe in One True Way!
That also goes for any other major faith which negates or minimizes all the ethical content of faiths other than those believed by themselves!
I don’t expect all comenters to understand, but I am sure some of them will know what I mean!
Patrick, you are an idiot.
You are as full of Crap as a Christmas turkey. My mother attended Catholic School in Germany until 1944. I have pictures of her with the Nuns. Hitler had an agreement with the Catholic Church called the Condordat. He instituted a TAX that all must pay to the Church regardless of wether one atteneded or not. My made belonging to a Religious institution obligatory. HE himself was a Catholic. I dont know where you are getting your lies but they are lies nonetheless.
Snivel, whine. What, 2000 years of ruling the world, during which you started wars, killed heretics, and burned lonely old widows at the stake wasn’t good enough for you? All we ask is that you show other religions some measure of respect and not pretend that yours is the only faith in this country. That’s not anything like the mass murder Christians historically perpetrated against anyone who didn’t follow along. Get over yourselves… seriously.
You know, you look hard enough, you can find similarities between any 2 people. Did you know Margaret Thatcher ALSO supported goverment health care? And Ronald Reagan supported sensible gun laws and the ban on assault weapons?
So I stopped reading after you claimed the supreme court outlawed prayer in schools because I grew up in a public school where we prayed every day. The law is not banning prayer from school, only banning the force of making every single person pray, no matter what his/her religion. If your first paragraph isn’t legit, I doubt the rest is.
I’m a Bible believing Christian and disagree with almost everything that you say here. This knee jerk comparison to Hitler is beneath contempt and intellectually dishonest. Prayer is not outlawed in school. Officially sponsored prayer is and should be outlawed. What you are espousing and railing about has nothing to do with your faith but with how your conservative culture has hijacked the Christian faith and turned it into something which no longer resembles Christianity. There is no war on religion or Christianity in this country. The reason that people are turning to new age religion in this country is because they are sick of the misrepresented Christianity that people like you present. If you want to see people in our country respond positively to Christ, then you need to move away from your politically and culturally based syncretic cult that the right wing fundamentalists have created. You talk about Hitler and Germany — well, one of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ( who was put to death by Hitler ) colleagues, Eberhard Busch, visited church’s in our country in 2005 and this is what he said:
“To my regret I got the impression that among Christians the relation of church and state or the relation of what it means to be a child of God and to be an American has become confused. What is confessed by this: that in some churches in your country the American flag is erected? At Lancaster Theological Seminary I was asked what I think about Americanism, and I gave the answer: You may be grateful to God that you are allowed to be Americans. So many from this country are messengers of peace in their surroundings and for people far away. But Americanism? – this means violence! God preserve your country and the rest of humanity from that! (In Europe )There they had to learn that the church must be separated from the state, because the church had to ask again and again not what the state liked, what the nation liked, or what the people would like to hear, but what would proclaim and declare God … Today, we have to do with ‘American Christians’ who cannot separate nation from gospel, counting upon God to bless their crusades and praying to ‘Jesus, the warrior’ rather than to ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ To this, we speak a firm ‘No!’”
The problem with the American church is that it has become all American and leaves little room for Christianity.
My previous comment was in response to Patrick .. not the article.
What “American Church” are you talking about”? There is no such thing. My Church, Williamsburg Community Chapel, uses the revelation of God, the Bible, as an authority. What do you use?
There is no such thing as the “American Church”. It says so right in the 1st amendment of the US Constitution. Read it for once. Thomas Jefferson’s letter regarding the Treaty of Tripoli also reaffirms the fact that there is no official State endorsed religion. We have American interpretations of a particular faith. We have Americanized services. But we do NOT have an American Church. Never did. And if we do, then we will no longer be American.
I believe by american church is not a formal title of a national religion but the ideas that america and god in many churches throughout the country are intertwined in both prayer and thought. God bless america is a prime example of what is being described when in fact nationalism has absolutely no part in any core Christian belief. Or the fact that in many churches praying for soldiers is commonly done when murder in any shape or form is a mortal sin. So when in fact your praying for murderers, jesus would certainly not approve. I witnessed this last year in alabama where A small town’s ministry (about 5-7 people) at a fourth of july celebration decided to give speeches to the town about how religion belongs in school (their religion of course) and to pray to the men and women of the armed forces. While i personally believe the military is a necessary evil in this world i do not mix god/jesus/faith with them at all. To do so would be a perversion of my faith.
I think that RC below was the only one who understood what I was trying to say, so perhaps I was not clear enough. Certainly there should be no such thing as a state church. The quote from Eberhard Busch above was addressing essentially what RC was saying .. there’s too much nationalism within our churches. Apart from the obvious presence of flags in our churches, there are the more subtle examples. In a church I recently attended, over the period of a year there were numerous outreach ministries in support of our troops and outreach to “first responders”. There’s nothing wrong about those things, but it was curious to me that the statement of appreciation to “those who serve the community” didn’t include teachers or those who don’t wear a uniform. The reason is fairly obvious to me. Within the evangelical church in America, there is a disproportionate number of people who push for an overwhelmingly strong military, who support gun rights, who see America as some sort of world savior. The problem is that, from a spiritual point of view, none of these issues are clear cut or resolved and there should be more heartfelt searching and questioning within the church. The church in America is far too much like the culture that it comes from … especially from the fringe right. People like Patrick can spout scripture but their views are simply their views and have much more to with how they were raised than the teachings of Jesus.
@James,
This is just my understanding of your clarification…
The hyper-nationalism within the Christian Right of America has become, in and of itself, its own religion. Their membership seems to prioritize the the Nationalism over the religious philosophy otherwise taught in the same denomination outside of US.
Is that what you meant?
Tracey, yes, exactly and it’s what Eberhard Busch was trying to say. My life is prioritized. God is first in my life, followed by my wife. My country is way down the list. God is not an American. In fact, while people like Patrick seem to think that America is a Christian nation ( or founded as one ), the truth is that nationalism is an impediment to genuine conversion. Syncretism is the mixture of various religions, and it’s my belief that what we’ve come to define as the evangelical church in this country has very little to do with Christianity. “Anonymous” below says that at his church they use the Bible as their authority. I do as well. To often though, many who say that they use the Bible as their authority, really don’t. They too often bend and misuse scripture to justify their own conservative, cultural beliefs. In fact, their true god is their cultural upbringing. There is little room left for God to be involved in their lives. The current debate over guns is a prime example of this. The vast majority of evangelicals support political parties which promote a knee jerk defense of weapons. I’m not addressing the politics of this or judging any individual Christian’s decision to own a gun. The issue is that there is NO debate within the majority of evangelical churches on this. Pastors may teach that it’s a sin to have long hair, or that life begins at conception or any number of other issues that are not clearly established in scripture, but they won’t even touch the issue of whether it’s a conflict for Christians to own guns ( much less promote them ). There are many more scriptures, and those scripture are much clearer, about the issue of guns ( swords, chariots, etc ) and God’s disdain for them. But, there is no real discussion. The reason is painfully obvious. For far too many Christians, this is an area of their lives which they have told God “You are not welcome to talk to me about this.” If all Christians would genuinely try to follow Jesus’ teachings, then the membership of the NRA would drop dramatically. I’m going to do all that I can to challenge and, if necessary, confront my brothers and sister on this false idol.
So what you’re really saying is Hitler was a brilliant man who was way ahead of his time?
Well, you sure wasted a lot of time on all that shit, didn’t you.
Hitler invented (at least was a major player) in the development and manufacturing of the VW!
And BMW made Hitler’s airplane parts. So you point is? Germany had many businesses that were built up by WWII. So did America. There would be no Jeep if it was not for WWII.
Christmas in Germany was always called Weinachten. Since the 12th century when Germany was mostly converted. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Weihnachten
The US interstate highway system is based on the German system that Hitler had built.
IBM was a major business partner with the Germans. In fact they built the “computer system” that was used to keep track of all the victims of the holocaust.
I will say this, America allowed this to happen and even financed him in the beginning as national socialism was much more appealing to big american business as was fascism in Spain defeating anarcho-syndicalism in their 1930s revolution, unlike the idea of bolshevism and a worker owned government in Russia, but we know how that ended anyway. This enabled a major boost in Germany’s economy though massive industrial advances as this was to give us another economic ally. It was to be their job to take down the People’s Revolution in Russia. While all this was happening, the British administration was covering up some of it’s own flaws that would soon turn into its own holocaust known as the Bengali Holocaust that killed approxamately 6-7 million Indians, hindu & muslim. This atrocity went well coverd up to much of the world as many still know nothing about it and such was trying to happen in Germany but could not go on as Hitler began engaging our allies and reached out and bombed London and we became financially obliged to them. This is the part that we, the Americans and British, had to play in it and it is just the beginning. This is all verifiable history and if you look at university websites instead of second hand information you will find the truth if you look hard enough that the nations we hold so dear have demonstrated acts more heinous than this, or at least as bad. In the time that Britain spent in India 1.8 billion Indians died from starvation or violence. Since we have entered Afghanistan there have been 5.6 million Afghan war related deaths. From 2003-2011 there were 2.7 million post-invasion Iraqi war related deaths. The numbers go on as these are the two places that are televised that the population is aware of. I say this just to say that not all men can be lumped into a category because they support guns. We have a government problem and a major one and have had for some time. We supported a government that commited the mass murder of Gandhi’s people. Now is not the time for gun control and or fathers would agree. Background checks? Sure. We need assault weapons and this is no time to take them. i believe in Thomas Jefferson. He saw the folley in the Massechusettes Rebellion and still said, “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.” If we don’t have assault weapons, how do you suppose we can keep our government in check, especially in a time when it keeps getting larger?
While such paranoia may get the old adrenalin racing and make one feel alive, it is dangerous to bandy about such falsehoods. To begin with, the US Supreme Court did not “outlaw” prayer in schools. In fact, it has held up the right for people to pray in school. And there are clubs all over the country that pray. In schools. We just do not have out gov’t sponsored schools, paid for by everyone’s tax money, supporting one religion over another. Sounds fair for everyone. Including Christians. Remember, the prayer you want in public schools may not be the kind of prayer that you want.
I am looking over the rest of your statement, and I am wondering which Christian colleges and universities have felt compelled to remove crosses from their buildings and grounds. Seems that our religious colleges here in the midwestern part of the country put up anything they want. Because they are private. My husband and I paid for our children to go to Catholic schools, and were glad that religion was a part of it. When they changed to public schools, we were equally glad that religion wasn’t a part of it, because we don’t want to see our freedoms melt away like that.
I don’t have the time or inclination to comment on all of your points. suffice it to say that some of your statements were more outlandish than those I refer to.
Although I am an atheist, I attended a Catholic high school simply because I could get a better education there, and there was a lot of violence and racism in the local public high school. They had a mandatory theology class, where you read and interepreted passages from the bible, more as literature and as a reflectioon of the times when the book was written, rather than as a religious focus. But when I began pointing out the obvious contradictions between different passages of biblical text, such as there are three completely different absolutely last and final words that Jesus supposedly ever spoke, I was exempted from further attendance in this mandatory class, because my questions might undo years of brainwashing–I mean careful teaching–of the Catholics in that school (by the way, Hollywood resolves the discerepancy between the three different last words by having Jesus say all three in quick succession). Unlike the most conservative of Protestants, they weren’t afraid to teach us science that contradicts the bible–we even did the Miller-Brown experiment where methane, ammonia, and water ina sterilized beaker, subjjected to electricity such as lightning, produces thick gobs of DNA, “proving” that no supernatural explanation is needed for how inanimante matter becomes life (their explantion was that this was merely the miraculous mechanism by which a deity created life).I was not the only atheist, and we also had two brothers in that school who were Jewish. Kids prayed in the school if and when they wanted to, there was no set time and no required prayer, there were crosses everywhere, but nobody was FORCED to participate in prayer.
Ed,
One simple correction the Miller brown experiment did not create DNA, just some amino acids. Important indeed, but not miraculous
Good God, I laughed my ass off reading this. Hahaha. Wow, it was so good I had to read it out to some others and they also had a good laugh.
Hitler was a Christian, and as far as replacing school prayer is concerned, he did so to enforce the citation of a declaration of loyalty to the Fuhrer, not because he was anti-Christian. Americans pledge allegiance to the flag, which is effectively the same thing. When you look up Nationalism in any country that is not Germany and the USA, you see Germany and the USA as prime examples of what that word means.
Any school that is not publicly funded, such as a Catholic school, is free to pray as much as they want as are they free to force unbelieving students to pray simply because their parents pay tuition.
PUBLIC schools are not allowed to pick favorite religions, or prayers, because the PUBLIC is made up of all denominations of Christianity, as well as every other religion (or lack thereof). Do you know what the Protestant parents would say if their children were instructed to say prayers of Catholic origin? It would be like the gays vs. hateful heterosexuals to the power of a thousand flaming suns of times long since passed! Baptists reading from the book of Mormon? Entertainment to last us until the rapture, whichever one you fancy!
THAT is why PUBLIC schools do not follow the gospel of any God or religion. Considering how much the American school system hates sex education, insisting that anything other than abstinence-only be taught at home by parents at their own discretion, it’s really quite hilarious when they try to complain and base fear mongering, insulting propaganda around their abused Christian roots. Next you will tell us that God sent the shooter to Newtown, who was personally flown in by Obama, and armed to the teeth by Clinton.
Go read a book. Like, a real book. One with facts and citations from accredited, peer reviewed sources. Until you are able to do just that, perhaps you should sit down, drink your juice box, and let the adults talk.
Oh, and Hitler and the Nazi regime were FIERCELY opposed to abortion. Jews and homosexuals, or the genetically defective, could easily be done away with – but to bring in the master race every child of German birth had to be brought into the world. Period.
I can’t stop laughing. Wow.
If Hitler was a ‘christian’.. his actions and fruit sure didnt show it !
Apparently, Patrick is a member of – or brother in arms to – the Westboro Baptist Church nutballs.
Maybe you’d better move to another country if you find it so awful here.
Or maybe we should take it back from the idiots who make it awful
Red Herring. Straw Man. Defelctor General. WHirledNutsDaily wacko.
I am tired of hearing that prayer is not banned from schools, only cannot be lead by school. This is not true. their have been many school kids who decided to pray on their own, such as a prayer before game, etc. and were told they cannot do this!! Teachers have been fired for wearing crosses! We Cannot say Merry Christmas, Happy Easter! don’t tell me things are banned!
Please document cases (State, School District and legal case file number) where teachers have been fired for wearing a cross. If such case ever really happened, there HAD to be more behind it than just the wearing of jewelery. I would like to see the legal case numbers on that because there is no way possible that incident would not be before the US Supreme Court.
Where do you live? I’m from upstate NY, I attended a public high school that allowed a group of students to pray around a flag pole and have a Bible study group after school on Thursdays. They weren’t directly associated with the school in any way, but no one in charge made any big to do about the whole thing.
I believe if the person is making a big deal about praying then yes the teacher or the school should make an issue. They really shouldn’t try to call attention to themselves during a prayer and it shouldn’t be made mandatory for all students to pray during a game because it violates the constitution. Besides the Bible also has a lot to say about people who show off their praying and their so-called devoutness.
Tracey
He is pulling shit out of his ass. There is no cases he can actually cite that would fit what he thinks is going on.
In fact there was a case here where a school had a rule against jewelry and gang colors. A student went in with Rosary in one of the local gang colors and he was sent home. He was told he could not return with it on. His mother refused to let him take it off so he was out of school for several weeks as she sued the school. The court ruled the school could not prevent him from wearing it in the school.
If you are reading this, please stop. You will want the time spent here back. Proceeding is only a waste of time. I promise you, you will learn nothing by continuing on.
People’s beliefs, viewpoints and comments are fascinating in a dualistic way – both interesting and outright ugly. This statement you just posted is kind of like scaring ants away from a picnic by pouring sugar on the ground.
Prescott Bush, father of Pres 41 and grandfather of Pres 43, wanted to overthrow the US government and join Hitler and Germany. There was an active community of people he was working with to try achieving that goal. He should have been executed for his crimes but Roosevelt was too kind to them.
The 1930s-1940s German government WAS NOT SOCIALIST! They were FASCISTS! You should learn the difference because, aside from everything else you posted, that make you sound stupid. People need to learn the difference between all the isms if they are going to speak about any of them.
You are proof that our education system needs fixing and if you are a product of home schooling or a religious school then you ruin a case that either should continue to be in existence.
Your post makes me recall an old guy (about my age) from the local VFW who “explained” to me during the recent election campaign that the Nazis were socialists–after all, they had the word “Socialist” right there in their name! IMHO, Hitler represented himself as whatever he thought would get people to follow him–hence his references to various beliefs/connections which he felt would win over segments of the German populace. The only belief I am sure he held was the belief that Germany could & would rule the world & that he, personally, could & would rule Germany and thus eventually the world. He was perhaps the most successful demagogue the world has ever seen, but there were very few individuals or groups to which he was loyal over time; and I would be very hesitant to state where his loyalties actually lay. In that regard, to me he epitomizes the quote, “The devil can cite scripture to suit his purpose.”
Hitler hated socialists and communists and stated so over and over in his tome “Mein Kampf” in 1933 one of the first things he did was OUTLAW the socialist and the communist parties alltogether. The SDP and the KPD were disbanded and their leaders jailed and their assets seized. The NSDAP had nothing in common with what we think of as socialist today. Along with outlawing the socialist parties the also outlawed trade unions. That is Fascist and more resembles the Republican party of the USA today with their anti union stances and passing laws to eliminate workers collective barganing rights.
JC H: I disagree with a couple of your points. First of all, the term “National Socialism,” used by Nazis and similar parties, did not refer in any way to what we think of as socialism. It was a term for the subjugation of individual rights to the good of the “nation,” i.e. Aryans.
Second, Hitler’s beliefs were set out clearly in Mein Kampf in the early 1920′s and changed very little from there to the day he died. Yes, he sometimes made alliances of convenience, but his underlying world view was remarkably consistent.
Ken, in reference to your last paragraph, are there any school systems that are up to par according to you? If so, what are your suggestions? Just curious. I was both in Public School & then transferred to homeschooling from 5th-12th & then back to a State school for College where I was also a student athlete. I have since then coached at a wide range of schools including private, public & home at many different levels. I feel I have a good idea of the base of each. However, I am always inclined to hearing more on this subject. Thank you in advance.
Wow, that is one hell of a reply and typo free to boot. My guess is that you cut and pasted that from somewhere else. It is good to have throw down propaganda like this, just in case.
Ah…so American Liberalism now equals extreme-right wing Nazism? Nice try. But you could drive trucks through those ridiculous argument. However, I will propose one analogy between modern-day America and Nazi Germany that proves apt. Nazism (and Fascism in general) is the merger of government and private industry. Washington D.C. today is no longer only hammered by the lobbyists of private industry (formerly known as the special interests), but has in fact completely merged with them. It is not even a question whether Coca-Cola and Exxon will be at the table; they’re always there, and government organizations such as the EPA are headed and staffed by former Oil company executives and representatives. There are indeed definite parallels between 1930′s Germany and the US in the 10′s, but it has nothing to do with the druidic subculture and social welfare programs.
The march towards American Fascism is even worse at the state level. There is now an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose stated purpose is to bring representatives of the business world and government together. What essentially happens in these get-togethers is that corporate bigwigs hand local legislators bills they have written, to bring home and put forth in their state senates, congresses, etc. The NRA, and America’s largest firearms merchant, Wal-Mart, are, of course, charter members.
Some points are good, but some are making correlations that are not there. I am a vegetarian, enviromentalist and believe in love between all humans. At the same time I am against corrupt governments, totalitarian regimes and capitalism. Yes I am against capitalism, the system you appear to embrace so much? Why? Check the children of Capitalism: Monsanto (oh look a monstrous non-government corporation) that the US government protects and even hired some of their ex-executives/employees into the FDA who will later rejoin Monsanto. Monsanto’s plans? Global control of food supply, everyone is subject to Monsanto’s control. Sounds like socialism doesnt it? Capitalism and what you call socialism (which is not real socialism) are the same thing. Whoever controls supply and money controls the world and establishes his own rules and its Capitalists. The banking system of FIAT money and DEBT RAISING FOR GROWTH are born from capitalism. Open economic textbooks and read. They are a farse. They teach capitalism as the ultimate system where profitability promotes competition and is creates motive to improve wealth and quality of life. Bullshit. How many examples do we have where corporations have influence over governments to promote their interests? How many examples do we have where offering the best solution is less profitable and hence not offered to the public? How many examples do we get where every day of products that are harmful? We could have had free energy decades ago but we dont. It doesnt go well with the interests of businessmen and the elite who got their power thanks to capitalism. We still use oil which ensures our dependence and pollutes the environment. Lets move further. The FED, financial/banking system. All of which are results of the current capitalistic system and they are the forces that work behind governments and the economic system to enslave you.Why do you thing the Bielderberg group is consisted of the most rich and successful people in Businessmen. Capitalists. Supporters of free trade. Supporters of globalization. We have corporate controlled media and media controlled by governments that handshake together to satisfy their interests to further establish globalizatio. We read and listen to the media and we are all in awe of technological enhancements and trade than in reality slowly enslave us. We in the developed world are in awe by looking at those beautiful growth numbers and we enjoy those beautiful products and services. Products that they would have never been existed if poor countries did not exist to exploit for lower costs. Countries who are often enslaved the capitalistic system. Their people never enjoy the goods and services they produce. hey get paid peanuts while the big businessmen get a big chunck into their pockets. Guatemala for example enjoys some of the highest growths in the world while at the same time has one of the most serious hunger problems in the world. Thanks to the IMF and corporate invasion to their country they lost their economic dependency. The government is not controlled by its people anymore. They produce for others instead for their country. Their government is in essence controlled by tools of capitalism.
Who do you think funded the Nazi’s? Wasnt it the foreign banking system? Does Prescott Bush ring a bell? Whose grand and great grand children became presidents? Why are former CEO and businessmen taking control of your government and the courthouses?Is it because of socialism? No. Socialism doesnt exist to begin with. They slowly establish a system THEY call socialism, and then they use their propaganda to create confusion as to what socialism really is. Because capitalism is NOT about free choice. It only gives enough choice to create the illusion of freedom. Its a system with loopholes where the 1% globally can exploit to gain control of the rest 99%. Its a system that does propaganda and convinces that everyone has equal opportunity and has free choice and it goes hand in hand with democracy. But its far from the truth
Secret services are controlled by big bankers. Banks and corporations create and hire private armies which commit to war crimes and not only. The government hires these private armies too….besides…when you ve got politicians with tides to corporations they will make decisions or create false flag attacks that benefit the pockets of their “freinds” and theirselves. The government does wars to support the war industry. Good stuff for businessmen and investors in that area too. The owner of the twin towers knew exactly what was going to happen. BOOM he made a nice special insurance some time before the attack and he got some pretty big amount of money. Capitalism sells successfully the impression that we freed ourselves from monarchs and oligarchs. We never did. Entertainment, misinformation and false hope that by working 10+ hours a day will eventually pay off, while we forget our fellow humans, we forget our humanity, our families, our development, we compete each other and live in constant stress.We forget the NOW. We are in a constant battle to be like the false “perfect looking supposedly successful happy celebrities and businessmen” because they fill our brains with conflicts, fear and dreamy lives that dont exist. This is what the elite wants.
There many people like me who feel the same….now tell me…do these ideas fall in line with Nazi’s/socialists/elite plans? Or against???
People like us believe in religious identity which should be maintained while at the same time we believe that we show understanding for all other religions and we study as much as we can from all to discover ourselves, not through dogmas (which the government and capitalists use to brainwash and control us) but through personal search for truth. I believe in a system where authority are the people and not a body of few who control the majority which Capitalisms promotes. I believe in an autonomous system where people get educated to search inside and discover who they are in order to eliminate conflict and show more compassion. I believe in an autonomous system where people’s motivations are not money but the real motive is to improve society through social offer and personal care. The opposite of what capitalism is. Our governments are going slowly against the common good not because we are transforming into what you call socialism. Its because capitalism allows this and whoever controls money, controls the world.
All power structures have the ability to be abused. Even a totalitarian government, headed by one supreme leader, has the capacity to be fair and altruistic – it rarely or never happens but you get my point.
Capitalism itself is not inherently evil – people abusing the system make it so. The same can be said of socialism. I believe a proper application of both can work. I don’t believe a pile of babies in a pond of bathwater is a solution to anything – in essence, don’t outright demonize anything. Everything has the capacity for “good and evil”.
I totally agree but will add that “Capitalism” and “Communism” are two 20th century constructs that are no longer relevant to our World. I believe that Capitalism died out about the same time as Communism (during the 1980s). What we have now is the ILLUSION of a rational economic system but in reality is a rigged game that benefits only the 1%. Dante is right, it is the system that is the problem, not the particular politicians and individuals who make it up.
I stopped as soon as I started because I realized that you as many others that oppose capitalism probably have not taken the time to read the Wealth of Nations. I will begin by saying that what you call Capitalism is not capitalism. Adam Smith strictly speaks against government involment in economics and corporate involement in the state. He also speaks against corporatism. All that is wrong with capitalism makes it no longer true capitalism. This is State capitalism, much like any other Statist government of old (Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Imerial Britain, Socialist Cuba, post-revolution) is shit, and is what we all want to fight. The FED is also not a result of a capitalist system, it is a result of centralized government and its people having lost their power to fight against the government or at least the perception of such. Adam Smith also taught that cometition would occour naturally and drive the price of commodities down which it does. What you are talking about is slavery and Adam Smith, the man we call the father of capitalism, also said that this should be fought. I don’t know what text books you’re reading but you should really go read the actual literature for yourself because this is something so far from capitalism and I don’t agree with it any more than you do, but I also don’t agree with changing the system of government which we have established here which we would have to do if we went to something like anarcho-syndicalism. This country has a beautiful constitution and some of the founders had such beautiful visions for this place and I believe that this place can be saved from the hands of the monsters here through taking back some power trough direct action and imposing legislation that would seperate coporation from state and some others.
Dante, if a government is protecting Monsanto, you can rest assured that is not the fault of capitalism, it is business hijacking government to protect it. Capitalism itself can’t be expected to cure the woes of society, nor the nature of man. It is an economic philosophy and cannot act for itself. Errors and crimes are committed by people; protecting against them is likewise done by people.
If any systematic problem exists, it would be in our legal system. Yet, this legal system is also the product of people seeking their own interests by government force, and not the product capitalism.
I like Mike’s post on Feb 26. Thanks, Mike!
I agree, Mike, we do have a beautiful Constitution. Our laws should mimic the constitution by creating a playing field where no party is promised a win by the government when there is no legitimate right tied to that win. Privileges for companies should not exist. If this were done, men could honestly pursue their own economic interests in true style without stepping on other people’s rights (real capitalism).
Paul Avery,
Just like those who use money and influence to control our laws in America’s Capitalist economy, bad eggs and power seekers have always attempted to have influence over the ways that society and its laws work in Communist States. The ideal has never been reached under either system because of the greed and power trips of our leaders. Personally, I think, the attempt to create a society in which all people are equal and have equal influence over their opportunities, is much more impossible to obtain under Communist ideology than under Capitalism.
Although we can possibly level the playing field in our American business world, it is doubtful that even this, will happen overnight. Especially since Those seeking power and influence, are always adept at entrenching their positions of power in ways not easily remedied.
We will probably never rid ourselves completely the philosophical malady which asserts that, “All pigs are created equal, but some are more equal than others.” In the meantime we can support social justice and compassionate laws as best we can–greatfull for the warnings that were so prophetically written on the wall by George Orwell and others like him!
Hitler was a Catholic.
Let us remember the wise words of Nietzsche in denouncing this horrible man:
“I condemn Christianity. I bring against it the most terrible of accusations that ever an accuser put into words. It is to me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions […] It has left nothing untouched by its depravity. It has made a worthlessness out of every value, a lie out of every truth, a sin out of everything straightforward, healthy and honest. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessing! To do away with pain and woe is contrary to its principles. It lives by pain and woe: it has created pain and woe in order to perpetuate itself.
“It invented the idea of original sin. Invented ‘the equality of souls before God’ – that cover for all the rancor of the useless and base. It has bred the art of self-violation – repugnance and contempt for all good and cleanly instincts. Parasitism is its praxis. It combats all good red-blood, all love and all hope for life, with its anemic ideal of holiness. It sets up ‘the other world’ as a negation of every reality.
“The cross is the rallying post for a conspiracy against health beauty, well-being, courage, intellect, benevolence – against life itself. The eternal accusation I shall write upon all walls: I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, mean! I call it the one immortal shame and blemish upon the human race!”
Duh – Hitler talked exactly like Nietzsche, because he was heavily influenced by Nietzsche! You don’t know that?!?!! Actually, he used Christianity to gain power, but believed in ruthlessness & the iron will, like Nietzsche, when it came down to it. He promoted what he called “positive Christianity”, which took out the Jewish and pacifistic elements & replaced them with ideals of nationalism and “strength”. He believed in “Providence” & reincarnation. He called real Christianity flabby & weak:
Adolf Hitler, in a speech delivered April 12, 1922, and published in his My New Order:
My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice …
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.
[Quoted in Freethought Today April 1990.]
Once Hitler had gained power, he began to see Christianity as a threat to the National Socialists’ domination of Germany. After 1935 his speeches and writings became more and more virulently anti-Christian; he argued that Christian worship was a sign of weakness, and that it should be replaced by reverence for the nation and the state, and of course for the National Socialist Party. However, he retained his belief in reincarnation, and his conviction that there was some supreme creative force whose will he was enacting.
The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity … The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity.
I’ll make these damned parsons feel the power of the state in a way they would have never believed possible. For the moment, I am just keeping my eye upon them: if I ever have the slightest suspicion that they are getting dangerous, I will shoot the lot of them. This filthy reptile raises its head whenever there is a sign of weakness in the State, and therefore it must be stamped on. We have no sort of use for a fairy story invented by the Jews.
[Quoted from Hitler's "Table Talks" with Bormann,
in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Allan Bullock.]
I LOVE YOU!and pray for you! I don ‘t care what you say,God wrote a program so to speak.He gave it life and yes laws to go by and fallow.Trees,animals,oceans,earth,echo systems that take care of them selves.etc.Yes during history there are things done in Gods name that he never endorsed(free will they did it not him!!)All My God did was make the program lay out the law for man to follow,He wrote it and you and I are in the game.Play it how you want,But my God told me to love they nieghbor as thy self.what you do unto them you do to me.I’m not perfact at all I try but I fail sometimes.alot! but I have faith and it all works out I don’t know how or why but He said it will work out.and he wrote the program so I just try my best to be a good guy in life.John 3:16 thats the code or down load in his program he gave us all.It’s an upgrade called the “word”that was written in the program from the very beginning.there are signs and hints of this upgrade to come and without it down loaded into the program that God created all would be lost!!even the back up program.No one would win,No not one!For God so loved this creation of his that he sent HIS ONLY CYPHER (JESUS)that who so ever believeth in him(that means any one,even YOU!) shall not perish but have ever lasting life! That means you’ll be written in the new creation He’s going to make this time he’ll be there to answer questions for you.in this creation.He’ll be there with you.The other program was currupted when it was first down loaded to run because the operating system he used didn’t want to accept the new program he wrote.All fun aside he wrote it.you try your best to play while it’s running like any game you play in it’s parameters do what your not suppose to you get lost and have to find your way back to get more points or better options to last longer in the game.you can’t dictate your own way or do what you want.there are paths to take to win!He can deleate your player any time the program wants.God created the game your in it like it or not!He’s the creator your the creation.Mock out who you want,put down every thing,be the one every one hates because you want them too.either way it’s his creation your in it deal with it how you will.Fighting every one and every thing will only make it harder for your character to make it threw the game enjoying every thing in it that is there to see and experience,love,and touch.Your choice,Read the bible don’t just take from it what you don’t understand or have been told by others.
Wow, A great quote from Nietzsche!
I agree that all of our major religions have mostly failed to create many truly loving human being.nor, bring true compassion into our world, but I think the actual founders of most of our major faiths, would not approve of how their words are used to create advantages biases and rationalizations among leaders who are usually grossly riddled with sins of their own!
However, love is a goal and a valued emotion among Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and/or atheists who cherish human dignity and the spirit of compassion.
The freedom riders during the 1960′s battle for civil rights, involved many brave and dedicated people willing to be beaten because they desired a world which would include real justice. All of them rallied around their cause by singing religiously themed songs like, “WE SHALL OVERCOME, and, KUMBAYA. This fact makes me believe that many religious people, or spiritual people (if you prefer) really find a sense of strength and courage by relying on faith. Unfortunately we human beings seldom acknowledge the ideals of love and faith that our Religious founders have always wanted to transmit to us.
The words of Nietzsche are unfortunately, often true. But, I would not want to deny the many dedicated and beautiful people of faith who only want to act with love and compassion towards their fellow human beings. While we are posting our dueling opinions online, many of them are risking their lives to provide food, shelter and medicine to the victims and refugees who have faced virtual extinction, genocide and torture, for way too many years!
There is some truth to all stereotypes and also some untruths in all of them. All of us who really attempt to love and forgive others, should receive credit for doing so, whether Hindu, Communist, atheist, or Jews etc. Let’s not create unnecessary stereotypes when we generalize about any group, or category, in our human race! We really aren’t all bad!
GOD BLESS YOU PATRICK! You get it.The guy or professor of hitler lovers.Just changed words and formatted his agenda to beat really hard around the bush.Every one just wikipedia Gun politics in germany.You’ll see the people he wanted to eradicate in the 1938 revisions of the gun laws.This law effectively deprived all jews of the possession of firearms or other weapons.also persons whose trustworthiness was in question by the german government were restricted from possessing a firearm.So yes he banned weapons to his foes to take them out.And people who reply against what you wrote only pick one thing to argue out of the list of facts you display.even than they twist their untruth to sound factual.people please…. just search the facts for your self!!Don’t even trust me!look it up,Our constitution is under attack NOW. because people believe what they are told!As the professor says it’s propaganda and he’s spreading his.REPEAT A LIE LONG ENOUGH IT BECOMES TRUTH TO THOSE WANTING TO BELIEVE IT.Check facts,check more than one source,wikipedia,info on,look at the federalist papers on line from our founding fathers to see there original intent and meanning for our constitutional rights.
In other words,if people don’t agree with ‘your’ viewpoint,they’re evil,you sir are the evil one, there is no god,there are no gods, get over it and move on…
Patrick, have you ever spoken with anyone who actually was present at the time Hitler came to power in 1933? Ask them: your very bald and plain world view of how and why Hitler came to power is very different from what actually happened. I feel very sorry for you being so very confused and set in your ignorance.
Hitler is a Darling of the racist wing of the GOP. Naziism is a extreme right wing political philosophy his propaganda operation was very much like today’s tea party-republicans he used lies not guns to enslave the German people I could list true information and rebut your true misinformation but I don’t have to folks are becoming aware of the falsehoods of your wing-nut views and you should put down the cool-aid and crack a history book a real and credible one not an Bill O’Reilly book
You are one of them! The very people P.O.P was talking about! Wow! How does it feel to be you?
Hitler got Germany’s Economy going again in 1933. Bill Clinton got the U.S. Economy going again in 1992. OMG Bill Clinton is just like Hitler!
Well Pat…the answer is clear…we need to round up all these vegitarian pagan environmentalist into some sort of holding camps so they cant hurt us good god fearing americans! Only by doing so can we save our country from a hitler like…oh wait…
POP, just in love with your debunking and humor, keep on truckin….
Many thanks be unto thee.
lets just keep it at this…. If jews were allowed to have guns…. The holocaust wouldnt have happend. Their has never been a single goverment that didnt ban guns that didnt come back to massacre it’s people…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2OwM2XNGdU
Sorry, but I see no reason to believe that the Jews in Germany, with what weapons they had available, would have staved off a much better equipped NAZI army, particularly given that they (the Jews) were rather pacifistic. It could have resulted in a great deal more bloodshed, but that doesn’t mean it would have resulted in a Jewish victory. The notion that armed citizens are likely to fend off an oppressive government is mostly just another fantasy bubble surrounding the heads of gun fanatics.
Of course you don’t your a brainwashed liberal
What is it with reactionary responses and bad spelling/grammar? Is there a school where you learn all of this at once?
That is not the point. An armed populace causes problems for an army, the army will win but many will die and the government will have destroyed it’s economic base and some of it’s infrastructure. The ultimate scenario for a tyrannical government is to have a submissive helpless populace and selectively kill those that it wants with a minimum of miltary loss.
Perhaps. But the final result is generally the same. It’s just the body count that varies.
I don’t think the necessity was that the Jews had to “win” anything by being armed and resisting being herded into a ghetto and then stuffed into cattle cars headed for butchery.
An armed,serious resistance would have been impossible for the rest of the world to act as if it had no idea there was anything going on.And that’s exactly what WE here in the U.S. did.Because it was politically expedient at the time,we pretended to know nothing.
And if the rest of the world is to be believed,NO ONE really knew the full extent of the obscenity that was NAZI Germany.Why,even the Polish farmers living within yards of the camps,the same people who daily had to brush strangely oily ash from their equipment,well they swore they didn’t know anything about it either.Clear up the logic in this for me,I’m not following this.A govt. which has long blamed its economic failures on a specific group of citizens,a group some people even today characterize as “relatively pacifistic” is singled out as ineligible to own firearms for the good of the people.That makes some sense to you? People you don’t believe capable of defending themselves need to be denied arms? which side of the mouth do we listen to here?
You know why the Nazis denied Jews the right to own firearms? Not because the Wehrmacht feared losing any type of armed conflict with them,but because they knew it would attract worldwide attention.And attention to the siege of Warsaw at that time was the last thing Hitler,Goebbels,Himmler or any of Dolph’s other merry band of brothers wanted.The “silent nations”,primarily the U.S. would not have been able to play Sgt. Schultz the way we did for 3-4 years until Japan finally forced us off the fence.
Sorry,I know you like to feel superior to everyone who disagrees with you,or even anyone who may not totally agree,but if you honestly believe that any Nazi policy specifically singling out Jews for separate treatment from the “average citizen” was anything less than part of its plan for extermination,your intellectual disconnect is either sad,or disingenuous.
Feel free to attack my grammar,I’ll admit now that I didn’t graduate from college.
Ironically though,there’s a term in the vernacular that’s generally applied to those who do that in attacking an opinion.
I’ve never said that the Jews SHOULD NOT have been permitted to own firearms; merely that I doubt it would have made a difference in the long run. And I stick by that assessment, despite your point about the message it would have sent to the rest of the world — which, incidentally, is a very interesting observation.
And it isn’t my style to attack people’s spelling and grammatical errors — we all make them, including me. I made a tongue-in-cheek exception just to emphasize how ridiculous the poster’s personal attack on me was. You’ll notice that his comment didn’t really give me anything of substance to respond to.
Sorry to interrupt here, but there is a discussion within the Holocaust Studies community which is often boiled down to the following question: “If the Gestapo had been met at Jewish homes by men willing to shoot one Gestapo agent, before he was killed, would the Gestapo have eventually given up?” Those who pose this question wonder if the passivity with which Europe’s Jews met the Nazis made their deaths too cheap. There is no question, of course, that the Nazis could have killed anyone and everyone. It should also be noted that Saddam Hussein forced Iraqis to keep AK-47s in their homes in order to make them fear one another.
Interesting question and interesting debate. There’s no doubt that the Jews could have put up more of a fight, especially if they’d been allowed easy access to weapons. Would it have made a difference in the final result? I don’t see any evidence that it would. It would have made the whole process a lot messier, for sure.
“If the Gestapo had been met at Jewish homes by men willing to shoot one Gestapo agent, before he was killed, would the Gestapo have eventually given up?”
This question bothers me because it suggests that the Gestapo wouldn’t have changed their tactic to avoid being shot themselves. Further, why would they have eventually given up if only one of them was getting shot. I know it’s fun to think that groups of people we don’t like are also completely stupid, but it has no real world application.
Good observation.
So, you’re saying that if only black folks had more guns in the South the KKK would never have bombed their churches and lynched them from trees?
While I do not have any care in the world to argue what Hitler said or didn’t say… I will reply to your above comment that citizens with guns would not have prevented the holocaust.
Perhaps not. It would have made it more difficult on the other hand. Waco has nothing to do with a national effort as it was a single group. You can push your agenda all you like and be content that you can convince yourself. But I would rather die with pride in an attempt to ensure my children inherit the same freedoms previous generations provided me. I would do the same with any right. That’s what it means to me to be an American.
gern you missed telling p.o.p. to go back and watch dancing with the stars.
I would remind the gun nuts that many citizens in Rwanda did own guns, but over a million of them were rounded up and hacked with machettes while the rest of the world watched and did nothing. The government weapon of choice, as it was for Hitler, was propaganda, in this case telling people on the radio to go hack their neighbors to bits. Guns make little difference against the overwhelming, outnumbering force of a brutal totalitarian government armed with the power of propaganda. Can you not see that the gun manufacturers are using propaganda to make us want our teachers to be armed to the teeth, to majke schools even more of a war zone, so they can sell more guns and make more profits, even though thety know MORE guns in circulation won’t make us any safer? Nobody in the gun lobby is propsoing ANY solution to the increasing violence — such as restoring the budgets for after-school programs as another way for students to spend their time and channel their energies besides joining violent gangs and participating in drive-by shootings — no gun lobbyist is suiggesting creating better-paying jobs so parents don’t have to work 2 or 3 jiobs just to put food on the table and would be able to actually spend time raising their kids to be good citizens — the gun lobby’s ONLY solution to violence is selling even more guns and increasing their profits. And calling everyone with a better idea another Hitler.
Somewhat true, there were more than a few Jewish families who were armed, including veterans of the first world war. I’m not aware of much armed resistance being enacted in Germany however due to the lack of knowing what was coming, indeed some Jews supported the party in the days prior to their incarceration, and given the feelings running rampant some were delighted to be removed, believing they would be assisted in leaving the country for Israel or somewhere else safe from anti-Semitic attacks (which ironically at the time didn’t really exist anywhere in the world as the Jews had bad reputations for a variety of reasons mostly undeserved).
However calling it a NAZI army is very insulting overall.
While some of the Wehrmacht were staunch members of the NSDAP a far larger amount were not members at all. The Gestapo (Secret State Police which eventually were merged into the SS) were not military by any means, and the SS or Schutzstaffel were a paramilitary group from the 1920s and absorbed the German police, and got formed into military units as well, which were called the Waffen-SS.
Now in theory the SS were formed of party members BUT and these are facts a lot of people ignore or are ignorant of due to education, there were a lot of foreign nationals in the Waffen-SS and many Nazis actually supported the party because Hitler’s policies (please note the systemic eradication of Jews and other undesirables [including Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and others) was never a public policy) were seen as the best way to save their countries from the depression that occurred after the first world war, many families across the continent were starving and the push of the NSDAP truly was remedying this in Germany and as a result strengthening her neighbours prior to the second world war.
Two words. Warsaw Ghetto. Read about it.
9 words: Read about it. And how did it turn out? (Sometimes truth takes a few more words, but the intellectual strain is worth the effort.)
I would disagree that the army would win. I have no idea where you all went to school but do they not teach world history anymore? I don’t understand the need for the gun fanatics name calling. For one with probably only idealism and no practice, that is a lot of conviction. Further more, being a former infantry marine I feel I can say with certainty there are a lot of us that are well trained in the art of war that do not agree with the Statist way government is going and if this civil war mobilizes will gladly fight along side civilians and so will those that are active duty right now. Anyway, I will agree with one point. If all Jews were armed, they probably would still have been killed. You also have to think that he still didn’t have that much money or men when all this started, not until just before he started to invade Poland.
On to my second point. Really? Have you never read of common people defeating a government? How nialistic are you people? What kind of world do you want to live in? When I was growing up the people that I called my heros were those who stood up and fought with their life for their freedom. Ernesto “Che” Guevara? They won by force and the gun. The French revolution of 1789? They won and won freedom from an oppressive monarchical religious state. The Bolshevik revolution? The won and for ever destroyed the czarist system in Russia. Sadly, the workers lost control to a Statist government. These are just three examples of many in which the people have defeted their own governments army.
I agree with you, but you do say you disagree that an army would win. What we see with our modern warfare is, after a military victory, the army settles into an occupation and enforces a status quo. If it needs to, it will escalate force to put down an uprising, but it never “gets the job done” to the extent that it can just leave, without years of wrangling over timetables. Spreading democracy is a liberal notion, but we spread it as far as we have to to exploit the country as long as possible, and no further than that. It goes double for comparing the US to Afghanistan. A “concerned group of deer hunters” is not going to stand up to military force. Furthermore, we are already so comfortable and cowed by our government, it doesn’t need to physically fight us. It has won a propaganda victory over us, and, just like in Afghanistan, voices that bring up a conversation that’s not officially sanctioned will find themselves put down forcefully, whether in the media and psychologically through misdirection and ridicule or militarily. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Do you really think that the Jews were the first or the only people put into camps or exterminated by the Nazi regime. Hitler started putting his political enemies into forced labor camps YEARS before he rounded up the Jews. My Grandfather was put in a camp for not saluting and being a member of the real socialist party in Germany the SPD. Hitler incarcerated people to provide free labor for the corporations the Socialists and Communists, members of the Freemasons and also people who were members of Freethinkers clubs (atheists) from the time he took office in 1933. Kristalnacht, the beginning of the genocide of the Jewish people didnt happen until 1938. In fact most of the Jews he killed were killed OUTSIDE of Germany. While the others he worked to death were INSIDE Germany years before he started his invasions of other nations.
This is true, the former Chancellor of Austria was placed in Dachu (I can’t spell that properly) for a while before it became a death camp. I took care of a man who escaped Germany thanks to the Communist party, which also helped his mother hide, who was also held in Dachu until mid 1939. Of course the conditions weren’t much better than they were when it became a death camp and they didn’t care much for keeping Kosher.
Are you actually the idiot you profess yourself to be, spouting such crap? Even if you were to take an extremely large figure such as 6,000,000 Jews with submachine guns, what chance would they have against Hitler’s tanks, artillery, warplanes, 500 pound bombs, etc?
Jim, are you saying that if you know you cannot win, you should never fight? I mean this about life in general. I would like to know your stance on this. I understand you are speaking of the Jews vs Hitler’s reign, however, I am curious as to whether, or not, you would also take this and attest to it in the majority of your life and worldview as well.
Sorry Patrick, you’re so blinded by the bible crap you just can’t make any sort of rational conclusion. You exist to hate and you can’t understand why you are the way you are. It eats you up. People like you beat the bible on the table and at the same time hold up your guns to show you are powerful. Your entire life is against what your Jesus stood for. He would no sooner shoot an intruder than he would recognize the modern day church. I feel sorry for you. A life of ignorance.
Well said Mask, my mother and I have been saying the very same thing. People who latch on to the Bible and call themselves Christians, yet INSIST on having firearms to “protect” themselves, obviously do not know Jesus Christ or ANY of his teachings, or just choose to live in the Old Testament. I put my FAITH in God, and when it is my time to leave this Earth, there will be NOTHING that I can do about it, as it is part of the Plan that God has put in place for me. I was raised a Lutheran, went to elementary school in the Lutheran church, and I cannot ever remember being taught such hate and bitterness as I see from so many that call themselves Christians, in my mind, the Holy Trinity is some where shaking their heads in disgust.
If only the Jews had been as well armed as the Polish army…
If the Gestapo knocked on the doors of Jews only to be met with gunfire…by the time they got to the third door, they would’ve stopped knocking and just started shooting.
Touche.
Patrick, the Jews in Warsaw DID have guns. The Nazis had more and bigger guns.
You really are a fountain of BS, Patrick.
Talk about an overly simplistic view of what happened to the Jewish people. You are obviously NOT Jewish, so you do not understand all of the things that transpired during WWII against the Jewish people. It was way more than removing their access to guns. They lost their property, businesses, bank accounts, family heirlooms, right to assemble, right to practice their religion, right to move around in cities, let alone Country.
There have been plenty of civilizations that massacred others without taking away guns. Any larger Army has the potential to out perform another. Americans defeated the Brits twice with smaller forces.
To say the Holocaust would never have happened shows a glaring minimization of the event. Until you understand it better, please stop using it as proof of your position.
Patrick, you are a fool with a computer.
Lets start by remembering there were Jewish people with guns fighting a resistance, as there were people in France fighting a resistance. They were not very successful because they were far out gunned. Their weapons were nothing compared to the German war machine. They held the Germans off but would never have been able to hold out forever had England, The US and Russia not been there backing them up with military equipment.
If they had been better armed from the beginning it would have allowed Hitler to call them terrorists, traitors or a host of other things and they would have lost the PR battle from the word “go.” They would have just been there trying to “overthrow a dully elected government” and we would have stood back and let Hitler deal with his criminal elements. How much longer would it have taken before we would have acknowledged the crimes he committed?
So, how come the Japanese-Americans dod not resist the camps? America did not have gun control then.
While I have qualms about recommending a Roman Polanski film, “The Pianist” graphically illustrates the point P.O.P is making: an armed group of civilians has little chance against an army. The Jews in the Prague ghetto had guns and made a stand; the Germans responded with tanks. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who prevailed. And don’t presume to respond with the argument that if the Jews had tanks the outcome would have been any different.
You cannot make a comparison of the Jews in a ghetto to Americans today. It is a tactcal folley, a complete mistake. There are to many of us. I don’t care if you brougt tanks. It would take too long to work your way across America and by that time we could have support from another country in here. There are not large countries that would support us, but large enough. Again, what about the Mujahideen in Afghanistan defeating the Russian army in the ’80s? A perfect example of how an armed group of civilians has a chance against a modern army.
Joseph DePue–
Tanks? Really? And having to drive them across the country? It may have escaped your notice that there are military bases and armories in pretty much every state, and that the US government has many weapons that would be more efficient and effective than tanks: if they wanted to, they could be going drone on your ass right now. As for the mujahadeen, it’s not realistic to compare a largely indigenous guerrilla group fighting an outside force unfamiliar with the terrain–and having little personally at stake on the outcome–with a widely separated, loosely (if at all) organized group of paranoiacs/conspiracy theorists who are as likely to turn on each other as to advance on Washington. And if you expect Wayne LaPierre to lead you into battle, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed: he’ll be busy counting his money & denying any responsibility for the chaos he helped enable.
I am curious, however, as to what “big enough” countries you expect to join your gun-nut revolution: please enlighten me–all that comes to mind initially are the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
Excuse me if my criticism is a little on the harsh side: I’ve been reading a book on the apparent increase in psychopathic personalities, and coming to this discussion right afterward is quite an illustration of the phenomenon.
First of all you used the idea of tanks on Jews so I responded to such. Secondly, again, I am no gun nut and the use of this name calling just goes to show that there are as many on one side that are as ill as there are on the other. If you want to have an intelligent conversation and accomplish things, that is not the way to do it. Next, I’m not going to name countries at this time as it doesn’t matter, but if you had any sense of world political climate you would realise that there are those that would see us return to a much more laisse faire foriegn policy, to a more real capitalistic economy and to a more democratic society. They have been pleading for something to happen and for us, the people, to do something. I also don’t give two craps about LaPierre minus the fact he is the only voice in debate for reasonable gun control. This “paranoia” has nothing to do with gun control, it started much before this and the “left” used to be on our side, if none of you remember. Now that the issue is gun control, the neo-liberals have started this “gun-nut” name calling and buying in to this idea and forgetting about the rest of the issues that are just as dangerous and that this is where we, the classical liberals, want to draw the line. The idea that we cannot defeat our own army, I believe, is a poor, nialistic perseption forced upon people by a statist nation. You have seen this in societies past. No one ever thought it would be possible. The French countrymen and peasants didn’t think that they would be able to defeat a real army, but they did. So did the Bolsheviks and the Cubans. In history we have learned, that missles and bombs, unless nuclear, mean nothing without ground troops. They will have to fight us one on one and there are enough of us that are prior infantry and those active duty that would quit the infanrty before killing americans. They can drop bombs all they want but they don’t own the ground until they put men on the ground nor are we really “dead” until they prove it by doing a battle damage assesment. Check into the Bosnian bombings. The UN dropped bombs for weeks then they went in and they were still met with a massive resistance. It would be obvious that any revolutionary group that hoped to return this country to its original principals would have to employ guerilla tactics and call to an established nation, probably that has sufferd at the hands of these neo-liberal foriegn policies this century, as the Mujahideen did to the americans and had given to them diferent weapons to engage helicopters. It is in no way impossible thoug and anyone who argues otherwise argues soley out of idealism, not practice.
By many accounts, one of the nations with the lowest rate of private gun ownership is Tunisia. Odd that they were able to bring down their government (and touch off the whole “Arab Spring” with NO Second Amedment!
The American Revolution began in a dispute over gun control when British Redcoats marched toward Lexington….. you do realize that the reason.. they won was because they fought… right. Also Gun fanatics….. really… what is so fanatical about protecting yourself and fearing goverment…. When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Supposedly written By Thomas Jefferson..(doesnt matter if he said it or not.. it’s true).. Why would you trust a goverment to protect you if that goverment doesnt trust you enough to protect yourself…
The American Revolution, like most successful revolutions, wasn’t fought by just a group of armed citizens. It was fought by a trained and organized army on its home turf. There is nothing fanatical about protecting yourself or (within reason) fearing the government. Gun fanatics are not just people who own guns. They’re people who are OBSESSED with owning guns and with finding an excuse to use them – even if they have to manufacture such excuses. (And no, the revolution was not fought over “gun control”.)
“The notion that armed citizens are likely to fend off an oppressive government is mostly just another fantasy bubble surrounding the heads of gun fanatics” Thats the most Unamerican thing Ive ever heard. Not sure if your American or not so don’t take that to heart. When I was a child some 60 years ago I remember people like your type complaining about the Allies helping… If you are Not american. You would be speaking German right now son. What are you going to do when it happens again. Ive been around long enough to understand how it works. Educate yourself.
Thank you for providing me with an opportunity to refer readers back to my post on flag-waving: http://propagandaprofessor.net/2011/01/09/propaganda-prop-2-flag-waving/
As a gun owner, it disgusts me that you–a left-wing liberal–stereotype all gun owners as “obsessed with owning guns.” I own guns for different reasons: to hunt, sport shooting, and to defend myself, but I’m not obsessed with owning them. I’m thankful we have a Constitution to keep people like you from completely robbing us of our rights, but it’s frightening to me that educated people like you ignore the data! The bans on guns have little to do with crime, and every thing to do with the Government putting its people in check. The assault weapons ban had no impact on reducing violent crime, yet liberals want to do it again; this time permanently. In Chicago and D.C. where it is illegal to carry a handgun, violent crime is rampant. This is because when you take guns out of law-abiding citizens hands, the only ones left with guns are the criminals, and I know liberals are smart enough to realize this, so why do they still wish to STRIP American people of their 2nd Amendment right???
Wow. I counted 6 misguided and/or irrelevant catch phrases in your brief comment: (1) “left-wing liberal”, (2) “stereotype all gun owners”, (3) “robbing us of our rights”, (4) “Government putting its people in check”, (5) “when you take guns out of law-abiding citizens hands, the only ones left with guns are the criminals”, (6) “2nd Amendment right”. I’m impressed.
I guess I could use this opportunity to tell you to “educate yourself”,or try and pick nits about grammar or spelling,but that’s sort of bush league.When presented with opinions that I don’t agree with I’d rather deal with them honestly rather than hide behind a post made entirely of “You don’t know the difference between there and their”.In plain English,that’s crap.
So,how about this instead?
In 1776,the only “trained and organized army” on this continent was the British army.”We” didn’t have one,”we” weren’t a country.”We” were a baker’s dozen loosely allied colonies whose govts were loyal only to themselves.
There were some state militias,but “trained and organized’ would have been a laughable description of them.Their only practical experience,the only reason that they actually existed,was to fight indians.And they were only marginally effective at that.
I suppose you believe that it was some grand,trained and organized army that led to Pakenham’s retreat from New Orleans in 1815 as well.Nope.While we did in fact have a trained army by that time,the majority of Jackson’s command were civilians who bore arms under the right granted them by the second amendment.
The colonists did indeed organize and train an army. It took some time for them to get it together, but if they hadn’t, we all might be pledging allegiance to the Queen today.
Patrick asks “what is fanatical about protecting yourself and fearing government?” He answers his own question with the word “fear”. Fear is exactly the problem, as when we are ruled by fear we make irrational choices, including choices that fail to protect us against what we fear. Children who fear a monster in the closet hide under the covers instinctively, and it makes them feel safer but would offer absolutely no protection whatsoever against any monster worthy of the name. And a gun is even more useless against the state than blankets are against monsters.
It’s true that we ought to be vigilant against the state, but for now, at least, Americans still live in a country of “laws not men”, and the state is fundamentally a creature of law. Gun fanatics have it exactly backwards: your guns do not protect your 2nd Amendment rights; the 2nd Amendment protects your guns. And the 2nd Amendment is… a LAW. Engage with law, engage with political debate, vote and volunteer; THAT is how you protect yourself against the abuses of state power, by wielding the law instead of violence.
I don’t have a problem with confident, secure adults owning guns. But frightened people? People ruled by fear are dangerous, and more so when they have guns.
Precisely. The gun culture is built upon twin pillars: lead and fear. Both equally deadly.
Yes, the American Revolution was fought by a “trained and organized army” – and it took time to train the Continental Army from a rabble in arms to an effective fighting force. We constantly forget and ignore that it was the intervention of the French Army and Navy that made the ultimate victory possible. The majority of the allied forces that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown were French and not American. It was the Dutch and French who supplied the Americans with arms and powder and that foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the British Empire made it possible for Washington’s army to survive long enough to see Cornwallis surrender.
Oh come on, we all know how un-Amurrcan them Frenchies are.
They forget that many in the NE were well worn soldiers who spent years fighting. Washington and many of his men fought in the French-Indian war. They were continually fighting as they moved west. They were not simpleton farmers. They knew how to fight wars. Several in NY even went back to France and fought their revolution. I live near many important battle fields around the Hudson river so history is my backyard. My family fought and built this country since the 17th century so I spend a lot of time reading history.
One thing these nut jobs miss is the push for “gun regulations” as mentioned in the Second Amendment not an all out ban.
“A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
How many of them are active in a militia? and weekend warrior, paranoid groups do not count.
First, it was not fought by a trained militia and you should not fear your government, I don’t know where you’re from but here in the founding documents and in the letters from Thomas Jefferson you will find that government should fear its people and not the other way around. That is when the government start to encroach on its people
Patrick, you might want to go back to school and review some history, because the American Revolution was not about gun control, it was about gaining our freedom and stopping the tyranny of England against our economy. Gun control, for crying out loud. You did attend school when you were growing up right?
Rich people convincing poor people to fight for them so they can make more money.
235 years and nothing changes.
Some of it had to do with religion also. There was a big break with the Church of England at that time. That is why we have the Church/State Amendment.
We “Gun Nuts” are as passionate about our guns as you are about your grammar. It seems that y’all think that I am endangering your lives with my guns. I would never harm anyone who didn’t try to harm me or my family. I’ve done nothing wrong…Commited no crime…but for some reason the current Goverment is wanting to limit how many rounds my gun can hold. You guys are right, I don’t need 30 rounds in my gun, just like I don’t need a car to go over 55. Its hard for me to understand the thinking of Disarmament of the Law-abiding citizen no matter Race, Religon, or Sex. However I do think that if y’all people as smart as you seem to be, would focus more on how to get the Guns out of the hands of criminals As much as you are trying to get’em out of mine. WE all be a lot better off.
@Gunnut I’m going to answer a couple of your points. You don’t need 30 rounds in your magazine, having them so easily available to people who wish to commit mass murders seems silly since even gun nuts admit its not needed. Taking the guns off the street, pretty much every single gun used in a crime is bought legally, or “stolen” from gun dealers who seem to have all the guns they buy “stolen”.
The government is prohibited from even questioning gun dealers about their inventory. Gun manufacturers are making 50 dollar throwaway guns and flooding the market with them do you honestly believe that the millions of guns made and sold this way are meant for “responsible gun owners”?
No. It did not. Please reread American History. The American Revolution began because the British levied excessive taxes on imports and forced the Colonies to buy those imports exclusively from the East India Trading Company. The Colonies were tired of bearing the burden of supporting King George’s and the rest of the British Nobility’s lavish lifestyle with no input on the laws they were forced to live under.
There was no dispute over gun control BEFORE the War began, there were efforts by the Redcoats to remove muskets and rifles from areas they controlled, but not on a widespread basis. Read the Federalist Papers. Read Samuel Adams. Read Thomas Paine.
Rich people convincing poor people to fight for them so they can make more money.
235 years and nothing changes.
Some of it had to do with religion also. There was a big break with the Church of England at that time. That is why we have the Church/State Amendment.
Ken: Of course there was a big break with the Church of England at the time. Relationships were souring and the soon-to-be Americans were becoming more and more bitter about being under British rule, so such a thing isn’t exactly a surprise. But anti-British sentiment fueled the split with the Church of England, not the other way around, although many people used religion to further their political leanings and made it into a religious argument (it’s a pretty effective method of spreading propaganda). However, the Brits themselves weren’t overly anal about how the colonists worshipped and didn’t pay that much attention to the relationship of their church and local government.
While the existence of the Church of England was a reason for the concept of separation of church and state, it was not really a reason for revolution. It was more along the lines of “hey, Britain’s whole state-sponsored religion thing has got some obvious drawbacks, so let’s not do that, okay?” Also, “separation of church and state” is not an amendment, or even anywhere in the Constitution, but came from the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
You are absurd! The American Revolution was NOT fought because of the British wanting to “take away our guns”, it was fought because the Colonies were tired of being TAXED without REPRESENTATION, hence the Boston Tea Party and many other acts to show their disgust in the matter. There were others that tried first to get the United Kingdom to give us representation, but it was to no avail. Then they decided to organize and defend themselves when they refused to pay the exorbitant taxes forced on them. It was at that time that some of the leaders of the Colonies realized that there was no other way to end this dispute other than to revolt and become their own nation, however, those few had to CONVINCE the others that it was necessary, and that was not an easy task. Also as a “radical” Christian, you of all people should not be quoting Thomas Jefferson, as he was not a Christian, do your research, and quit spouting the propaganda that you have been fed and so readily ate up because it suited your insecurities.
Actually, he is partially correct about the Revolutionary War starting because the British wanted to take our guns. The overall cause (‘stated’ cause, many historians believe it was simple greed that caused the Founding Fathers to revolt, and the vote vs tax was just a ruse) was because we didn’t feel we were being represented, but the first actual battle of the war was fought when the British came to take our guns (because they knew a revolt was imminent). However, the 2nd Amendment itself was most assuredly crafted because of the Revolutionary War–they wanted to insure the ability of the people to fight a tyrannical government if one developed.
Futhermore the entire reason the gun statement was put as the second amendment was becasue the goverment of that time was confiscating them so that they couldn’t resist. The entire reason the goverment came was to enforce taxes. However, it wasnt untill they marched to take up guns did the spark the set off the American Revolution start. The 2nd amendment isn’t their for sportsplay. Guns or dangerous things. I have one and havent fired it in over 30 something odd years. Im tired, I feel sorry for your generation.
Once again, you’re misinformed about several things – including apparently my “generation”. (I am, alas, not as young as you seem to suppose. But thanks for the compliment.)
ha, your welcome
You mean to say “The 2nd amendment isn’t there for sportsplay.” Not “their” because that is possessive. When making points I believe it is in your best interest to use proper grammar for the sake of having others take you seriously.
Patrick, like all right wing gun nuts, you seem to be utterly ignorant of the history of the second amendment. I suggest at the very least that you read Alexander Hamilton’s comments about the nature of a “well regulated militia” in Federalist Paper #29, before you continue to spread completely false ideas about something you know nothing about.
I’ll just leave you with this Green Eagle, supposing that you can read, because I know you’ve never read any part of the Federalist Papers: http://kryo.com/2ndAmen/Quotes.htm
RC, since we are trading blog posts here, I will just leave you with the following one of mine, the latest in a number of comments over the years about the second amendment:
http://largegreenbird.blogspot.com/2012/12/about-that-second-amendment.html
It quotes rather extensively from the Federalist papers. I really don’t give a damn whether you have the intellectual capacity to comprehend eighteenth century English, but I do rather resent your claim that I have never read the Federalist papers. It’s just one more example of a wingnut shooting his mouth off about something he doesn’t understand in the least.
The second amendment was written for “well regulated militias” Like the kind of Militia that put down Shay’s Rebellion and some of the other attempts to overthrow the early Revolutionery Government. It was to Protect the US government from it’s own citizens who would have liked to take the reins of power by force. At that time the US government did not provide arms to its militia members, they were supposed to provide their own muskets and ammo.
Thank you, Heidi, for the Shay’s Rebellion reference. It seems most “2nd Amendment” worshipers have no idea that our Constitution came out of that experience- in response to the rebels against our duly constituted confederation- strengthening the central federal government, which our constituted federation today. In short, the Supreme Court got the “original intention” wrong.
No, it was meant to enable citezens to assist the pretty much non existant army in case of invasions. Hardly what we need in the age of nuclear weapons.
That is why many towns had Armories. They kept everything in one place and opened them up as they needed them.
North America is a continent rich in resources. The British government’s interest in the Americas wasn’t simply to collect taxes from colonists.
I’ve tried to find some evidence of your claim that the spark that set of the Revolution was the British taking American guns (I’m assuming that’s what you meant). The closest thing I can find or think of was the attempt to seize American gunpowder at Lexington and Concord, but this occurred AFTER the rebellion had already started, and isn’t precisely that brazen of an act. In actuality, there was no one “spark” that set off the War of Independence. While many point to the Tea Act (and others like the Stamp Act) and the rallying cry of “No Taxation Without Representation” as the reason we declared independence, in actuality, it probably had more to do with the fact that we were already governing ourselves nearly independently, and were beginning to view ourselves as a separate nation (and at the time of the Declaration, only about 1/3 of the colonies really wanted independence. 1/3 were still loyal to the Crown, and the rest were neutral).
You know what’s really funny? As much as we squawk about “taxation without representation” we do the very same thing to our protectorates today.
You are right, the second Amendment is not there for sport’s play, it was put in the AMENDMENTS to the BILL OF RIGHTS, which by the way is NOT the Constitution of the United States, as a way to readily form a state/national militia in order to protect the nation from attacks from outside forces. The second amendment for the most part became null and void with the establishment of the National Guard, but remains to this day as it is twice as hard to rescind an amendment than it is to create one. If anything your right to own a gun comes more under the Declaration of Independence and the line “that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” I for one am not saying that our government should go into people’s homes and take their guns away from them, however, I am saying that the gun show loop hole should be closed up so that those “whacko nut jobs, or criminals” cannot just walk in off the street and purchase said weapons without any background checks or waiting period. I also do NOT believe that John Q. Public has a need or use for automatic weapons unless they are hunting humans, which the last time I checked is against most World Nations laws, and God’s law. The ONLY people who should posses said weapons are the military, and police and other such law enforcing agencies. Criminals could not get said weapons as easily if they were not allowed to be sold to the public AND not allowed to be sold at a gun show with no system of checks. They would have to go through an illegal dealer, which is easier for law enforcement to ferret out if there is no legal source for such weapons to be sold. I am just asking for some reason and logic on the issue. It was not until the Luby’s incident in Killeen, that most people knew there was a weapon that would fire 20 plus rounds without reloading. If you think about it, ever since then the rise of mass shootings as gone up because of the knowledge of just such weapons. Mass shooters do not take .45′s of .357′s with them to preform their massacres, they would not suit the job as they would only be able to shoot AT 6 people before reloading and we all know that when you have to reload you are at your most vulnerable, and therefore easier to take out. I want public places to be safe again and continuing the allowance of automatic weapons to be sold to the public will not help in doing so, at least not to my beliefs.
Patrick the USC refers to the government that our founding fathers created, you are saying that our founding fathers new government was the one taking guns? Some type of gun control DOES NOT EQUAL OUTLAWING ALL GUNS! Maybe you are old and hard of hearing so I felt the need to CAPS for you!
If our founders could see the power of guns these days they might not agree with allowing ALL TYPES of arms. In their day they had freaking one shot muskets for crying out loud and 30,000 americans were not dying each year from muskets brandished by fellow americans.
look foward to following you
This patrick person is full of misinformation and known debunked lies spread by those in America who want to portray Hitler as non Christian when both prior to worldwar 2 and during it many American pastors said Hitler was fighting for the lord and the US should ally with him against Communism..
Hitler didn’t ban prayer at all. Prayer was in fact mandated by the Nazis. The Nazis were a Catholic organization that considered Christianity to be the bedrock of the Aryan culture.
This Patrick Person is also 60 years + and pretty much believes he knows everything already. My favorite part of his post’s are the parts where he tells others to educate themselves, after he has just finished trying to state opinion as fact. I love that there are so many people out there that truly don’t understand the difference between fact and opinion. It’s hard I know but you know I guess it’s better than speaking German….. For the record, I believe gun control is important for many reasons, however is also a tool many governments use to keep their citizens docile. I also dislike Germans. Thank you.
“I also dislike Germans” 1) Hitler was Austrian, not German, 2) not every German was a Nazi, 3) Lots of Nazis were Polish etc and not German, 4) Fascism was invented in Italy by Mussolini, and Hitler (an Austrian) adopted his ideas, so it wasn’t even a German idea. 5) Jews in Germany considered themselves good German citizens to their dying day, and many had served honorably and well in the German army in WW I. My (Jewish) grandfather was awarded an iron cross as a physician in the German army in WW I but he was tossed in a concentration camp in 1939. It was only because he had friends int he US that he was allowed to leave Germany, but not before frostbite in the camp had damaged his fingers severely enough that he could never perform surgery after that (he became a general practioner in a small town in NY State).
@Ed Hass And there were more than a few foreigners who were active members of the Nazi party, there were several units in the Waffen-SS that contained volunteers from other nations. I used to know a Dutch member, but as he’d tell you honestly the biggest reason many supported the NSDAP was because it was seen to be saving Germany from the disasters caused by the treaty of Versaille (and it’s followers) and the great depression.
And the story of WWI veterans getting mistreated like that was not uncommon, at first they were all invited to return and then treated as criminals at best. I’m glad your grandfather was one who got away.
There is considerable lack of knowledge regarding the lead up to the second world war, and general ignorance as to what went on. It took years of personal research to learn as much as I do as little was taught beyond incidents such as the night of the long knives. Which were a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.
Hitler was a NOT a christian. He can declare himself any religion, and what’s better than to hide under a false image of being christian and “pretend” to be doing the work of God. Violating all ten commandments and calling yourself a christian is the same as eating meat and calling yourself vegetarian.
Don’t believe everything you hear and take them as facts please.
Do you consider yourself qualified to determine who is a Christian and who is not?
When someone claims to be a mathematician and cannot add two plus two, then the claim is, most certainly, false. Hitler certainly was not a Christian because he was not a follower of Christ. His actions revealed his true nature and it doesn’t take miraculous insight to know this fact.
Who gets to decide what constitutes being a Christian and what does not?
Hitler self-identified as a Christian, that’s good enough for me.
I know plenty of preachers and priests who call themselves Christian and their followers call them Christian but when they molest little boys they arent following the teaching of Christ. I do believe that that is called sinning and Christ asked “Who among you is without sin” So evidntly no matter what your sin happens to be you can still remain a Christian. That includes Hitler.
Slave owners who beat their slaves daily, also proclaimed their Christianity loudly and often, and “good honest Christain preachers” defended slavery from the pulpit every Sunday. Lynch mobs, good Christians all, burned crosses on the lawns of terrified neighbors, dragged them out of their houses for looking at a white woman funny, convicted them without trial, and hung them from trees, and these lynch mobs were considered the pilars of good Christian communities. The purpose of the Crusades was to inflict genocide on Moslems–it backfired, as the Crusaders brought back Arab scientific and matehmatical writings and art, and sparked the Renaissance–without which the Protestant Reformation and Europe’s Industrial Revolution would never have occurred. The Catholic priest Tormquimada had Jews and gypsies and others stretched on racks and used thumbnails to force their convesrions to Catholicism. lest one think only Catholics commitetd abuses, remmeger that slave owners and lynch mobs were Protestants. Also, the witch trials, conducted by Protestants, were patrticularly fiendish – anyone could accuse anyone they disliked of being a witch, and the mere accusation was pretty much proof of guilt and an automatic death sentence–toss the accused in a lake. If she swims, it is because she is a witch and the devil is saving her life, so burn her at the stake. If she drowns, well she may have been innocent but she’s just as dead. The conductors of these witch trials all believed themselves to be good Christians. Hitler claimed he was just continuing these cherished brutal Christian traditions. Are youi saying they weren’t Christians, either–none of them? The history of Christianity is riddled with examples of cruelty and violence.
Hitler could claim to be Christian his whole life, do what he did and on his deathbed ask Jesus for forgiveness and go to Heaven.
Yup he was Christian for sure.
According to SOME living amongst us, all you have to do is stand in a church! Bingo! Instant Christian! And be sure to wave an American flag when you do! Really helps to have photographic proof. (Doesn’t matter what you do later- spit on the sidewalk, molest a child, set up a phoney ‘charity’ and rake in the bucks, dishonor the military dead, attempt to prevent someone from voting…) You’re a CHRISTIAN!
Of course Hitler wasn’t a Christian. So few Christians really are. Didn’t stop him from claiming it.
Last time I checked, the only ‘requirement’ to being a Christian is to accept the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ/Messiah. ‘Accepting Jesus as your Savior’ makes you a Christian; following his teachings appears to be optional.
Just as an aside, the Ten Commandments are not a Christian construct; they are part of the so-called Old Testament. That would be the same set of writings that many people who claim to be Christians insist were ‘wiped out’ and replaced by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. (A claim that they seem to conveniently ignore when looking at the requirements of Leviticus, where they seem to cherry-pick which admonitions they wish to follow.)
People, I am lovingly coming to you to let you know that just because someone claims to be a “Christian” does not make them a follower of Christ. There is a difference between a “religion” & one who seeks Christ’s forgiveness, redemption, & love wholeheartedly.
Religion is what you are speaking of when you speak of those who do wrongfully in the “Name of Christ”. Religion is man doing what he/she thinks they can do to reach God (or, at times, “become God”), whereas, God has offered His redemption freely to all who truly believe.
Here is a better explanation : John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
To graciously refute a previous response, quoted from JustMyWords – “Last time I checked, the only ‘requirement’ to being a Christian is to accept the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ/Messiah. ‘Accepting Jesus as your Savior’ makes you a Christian; following his teachings appears to be optional.”
This is what the teachings of Christ say: James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”
You are correct about the religious nature of the Nazi regime.
Hitler a Christian? He was raised Catholic, as was Himmler, but they both had long since rejected any form of Christianity by the time the Nazi party existed – ever heard of the Ahnenerbe? That was basically the Nazi “bureau of the occult”. What form of Christianity (except modern hillbilly American neo-nazis who call themselves “Christian”) had any teaching remotely like the Aryan race?? The stories of Atlantis, were they from the Bible? Was the swastika ever a Christian symbol? The beginnings of Nazism were largely rooted in the Thule Society, a totally anti-Christian occult secret society. How about the Runes used by the SS – Christian? Totally occult. Hitler also promoted the old Germanic, Teutonic gods in place of Christianity, saying that the latter was weak. You people really believe Hitler was Christian?? Come on!! Just because Hitler may have USED a claim to being Christian, to be accepted by a nation of mostly nominal Christians, doesn’t mean he had anything to do with being any sort of Christian in reality.
Regarding Hitler being Christian. I suggest you acutally read Mein Kampf and see his references to his avid belief in Christianity. What some researcher wants to make up about the SS is no more proof of their UNbelief in Chrisitianity than what the Masons do in their rituals. Just remember that the German Army’s Motto was “Gott Mit Uns”
you can take shots at Hitler all you want but Europe would be in better shape today and not on the verge of becoming an Islamic republic if his vision had succeeded. Bet they wish they had a strong leader like him now.
“Take shots” is an interesting choice of words. Unfortunately, you may be right. There are people out there (in more countries than one) who wish they had a “strong” leader just like him. Hmmmm…. let’s see, NAZI regime or “Islamic republic”? For my part, I’m glad the choices aren’t limited to the two.
You lose the bet. Most of us are sane, you know.
And the claim about Europe being on the verge of becoming an Islamic republic is so ludicrous I have difficulty believing it was meant seriously. How exactly would that happen?
Sorry, but do you even know what Europe is? You certainly seem to have never been here.
Tony probably never left Little Italy and could not find Europe on a map.
If you frequent British news sites, and read their comments sections, you’ll see Tony’s kind of attitude everywhere. There is a rather prevalent belief that Muslims are “taking over” the UK (very similar to the attitudes towards “Mexicans” here in the US). And that’s not even touching the kinds of things people say at football/soccer matches. As an American dragged into their world in the past couple of years (my fiance is English) I was absolutely shocked how blatantly racist and specifically anti-Muslim Brits can be, and just how many racists there are. We have a stereotype about Brits being polite people who wouldn’t dream of saying anything offensive, but they’re not too far removed from their colonial days. So Tony’s comment? Yeah, until I re-read it and realized he said “they”, I assumed he was British.
Of course, this doesn’t make his comment any less ludicrous, but it also doesn’t mean he’s never been to Europe.
It’s not even unique to the UK as far as Europe goes Renee. Anders Breivik’s 2011 massacre in Norway was part of his protest against perceived Muslim influence in Europe amongst other things.
Wow, Tony. You’re even stupider than Patrick.
Wow, racist much? You must have an IQ in the negatives, because you’re absolutely full of crap.
No doubt, Tony is one of the same ones who say “foreigners should just keep their mouths shut about Uhmarica!”
@Tony
Shots at Hitler? Strong leader?
St. Peter’s hairy toes!
Are you even a compassionate human being to make such an absurd statement?? Or are you just a religion based, Fear mongering propagandist?
I’m not claiming the more loose gun laws would have stopped the mass murder of Jews, but this article does leave out important facts. In the updated 1938 German gun laws, a Jew was totally prohibited from owning a weapon. While the laws on Germans were loose, the same cannot be said about the main victims of the German regime, the Jews.
True, and I did point out that Jews were prohibited from owning guns under NAZI rule. But as I’ve stated elsewhere, I don’t believe this was a key in the development of the Holocaust, or that anyone could have prevented it merely by having more citizens (Jewish or otherwise) own guns.
I understand your opinion, but obviously Hitler himself had a different opinion of the situation than you did. This is proven by his statements in the above article. Historical precedents do tell us something. There is a reason why totalitarian regimes remove guns from their enemies, a quite simple one. People who have no means to defend themselves can usually be pushed around more easily and more comfortably.
On a side note, in my opinion, the title of your article is misleading. There is no actual “myth” in regards to Hitler’s gun ban. He actualy DID take away guns from a particular group of people. And whether you agree that it “enabled” (Although, I’m not really sure what kind of definition of enabled you are using in this particular instance) him or not, it really cant be argued that it didn’t make it easier.
I would say that the main reason totalitarian regimes often remove guns from their enemies is because they can. Jews weren’t just prohibited from owning guns; they were prohibited from doing a lot of things. The notion that Hitler enacted a gun ban is itself misleading, to say the least. For Jews, the prohibition from gun ownership was just part of a total package of oppression; it wasn’t something that was singled out as being particularly vital to maintaining that oppression. Regardless what Hitler said on the topic, it appears that he didn’t consider it terribly crucial, or else he would have imposed (as many people believe he did, hence the word myth) a gun ban on ALL citizens. Does prohibiting citizens from owning guns make it easier to control them? I doubt if it does to any significant degree — it just prevents adding more blood to the mix. Successful rebellions are generally carried out not by just armed citizens but by armies (although admittedly the distinction may be slight in some circumstances.) It seems to be the latter to which Hitler referred, since he mentioned “conquered Eastern peoples” rather than the citizens of his own nation.
James, we have the most well-armed populace in the world, yet they do their master’s bidding out of fear and propaganda. They are “pushed around” quite nicely to support the upper crust in charge. It’s called “usueful idiots.”
James, the “myth” is that Hitler was allowed to get as powerful as he was because he took guns away, not just from Jews, but from everyone in the country; that the reason he wasn’t stopped was because no one (no one AT ALL) had any means to fight back, despite an eagerness to rebel, and if only they were allowed to keep their guns, they would’ve fought against him. That’s simply not the case. We have this image of a populace living in complete fear, like 1984 or V for Vendetta, who would stand up if only they had the power to do so, but that’s not really how it happened. It was more like when you’re on the highway going a little faster than you should and a cop pulls up beside you. You become afraid for a moment but only because you’re worried about getting caught doing something wrong. This was what life was for most Germans. Hitler’s tyranny wasn’t a reality in their world, and his government was pretty much like any other to them.
Jews are no “victim” of anything except their own greed and wish to subjugate European people to their whims and their fake gods. Germans have never had any duty to even allow jews to live in their country, and sure have no duty to allow jews to rule them or run their finances.
No comment, Bob. Just letting you hang yourself with your own verbal noose.
Oh, isn’t this lovely? A jew-hating freak. Do the whole world a huge favor, Bob and kill yourself. And do not under any circumstances, reproduce. I find it hard to believe that a woman would go anywhere near you anyway, so I’m not too worried about that. Women are repulsed by bigots.
And the Bob Fairlane’s of the world are just ticked off that the Jewish people consistently rebuild and have a long history of surviving after devastating oppression. That the Jewish people refuse to just roll over and take their bigoted and racist beliefs.
Why were jews in Germany? So many white people cry about the “holocaust” (the deportation and work encampment of jews and other slags exploiting Germans), but why are they so sympathetic to non-European, anti-white people who have time and again, and even now, declared that whites, especially Germans, are “goyim” or cattle to serve them?
No comment Bob. Just letting you hang yourself with your own verbal noose.
I agree with you that even with guns in every household Jews would not have been able to stay their deportations, but I also don’t believe Hitler was a gun-grabber.
Now Dianne Feinstein…there’s a gun-grabber, and *not* a “nazi” – as far as I know
See reply to Bob.
I re-read your reply to Bob…
But nowhere in it do you explain why the Germans had individual muffles installed at Auschwitz.
You watched and examined and weighed the evidence in the videos I recommended, and yet you still support the standard Holocaust “narrative” in its’ entirety?
Including Irene Zisblatt and her story of defecating diamonds?
Of her escape from inside Auschwitz’ “gas chamber”?
Do you approve of what Congressman Tom Lantos did in misleading the American people into war in 1991?
As a veteran of that time I don’t take that escapade lightly. You did watch “The Last Days of the Big Lie”, right? And saw what Lantos did?
The cremation industry even today says it takes 1 hour for every 45 kilos of body weight. (referenced in the first video) so…
…were the Germans somehow able to override the laws of physics and thermodynamics during the war?
It’s hard for me to take Holocaust deniers seriously, and those videos have already been thoroughly debunked. But maybe I’ll have a go at them myself in a future column.
P.O.P….it’s bad enough that you have all these misinformed right wing trolls infesting your board. Must you allow these vile, disgusting, sub-human anti-Semites to post their filth as well?
My initial attitude was that even they deserve to have their say. But after opening the door to them invited an avalanche, I decided to put a lid on it.
You are a vile, disgusting animal. Bob. You are not even human. You are just a steaming pile of hate.
No Jew or Jewish text has EVER declared that ANYONE is “cattle to serve them”. The word “goyim” does not mean “cattle”. It means NATION. Even in the bible, God refers to the Jewish people as a “goy gadem”…a great nation. Goyim mean nation, you idiot. You get your “information” from propaganda hate sites and phony propaganda versions of the Talmud. Either you are a liar or you are incredibly stupid. Likely both.
@Bob Fairlane
Invest in an actual translation dictionary of a language before trying to state what a word means. Or you could try asking a person that speaks the language before assuming you ‘understand’ the meaning of words.
What a shame. Hitler took the rights away from a group of people. These rights included bearing arms… Then they were slaughtered. Anyone who thinks that guns wouldn’t have made a diffrence needs to think about this… what if the Jews had guns… and the Nazi’s didn’t… and the Nazi’s pulled that shit… what would have happend… would it have made a diffrence? Of course it would… Never trust a goverment to protect you who doesnt trust you enough to allow you to protect yourself!
Again, you seem to be conflating an armed citizenry with an organized, trained and well-equipped military force. I am not aware of any evidence to support the assumption that armed citizens can effectively resist an oppressive government. I have seen, however, a great deal of evidence to the contrary. Many Americans want to believe that owning guns makes them invincible. It doesn’t. There’s always somebody with a bigger gun.
The redcoats were a well trained armed military force… they lost
Yes. They were defeated by another army. Not by just peasants and bankers packing handguns and hunting rifles.
Patrick I would like to note that the “rag-tag bunch of plow shears wielding good guys vs. red coats” fantasy you have of the American Revolution, is one of just that, fantasy. Be sure to thank the French next time you celebrate your freedom from Britain.
P.O.P. im sorry but i have to step in on your last comment.In the battle of Lexington and battle of Concord they (the Colonists) were just armed citizens.All of history tells us that a determined people will eventually win out.(forgive any grammer errors Im not collage trained)
My impression was that a major reason for the British army’s loss in America was their absurdly long supply lines, added to the British government’s insistence in running the war from London. When marching orders and basic supplies are months in transit, you’re somewhat at a disadvantage against an opponent who can re-supply themselves locally.
I have a question. When we talk about Jews being able to arm themselves, I am assuming this is would be the period between 1932 and 1940? Has anyone looked at what kind of guns, availabilty and cost. In other words whether or not Hitler did or didn’t allow them to have guns, would there have been an availability that was affordable to actually make a difference. I assert that you can’t compare it just as a yes or no argument.
Someone has seen ‘The Patriot’ too many times. If Mel Gibson says it’s true, then it is, isn’t it?
I would like to make a comment about the notion, repeated often here that “The redcoats were a well trained armed military force… they lost”
After 75 years of fruitless war against each other, the English and the French had essentially devastated their own armies, and severely damaged their economies. In this circumstance, the Americans took the opportunity to strike against a moribund fighting force, and the French people crushed their own government. This is so often the case with revolutions. The Russian revolution took place after the Russian army had been mangled during World War I, the Irish revolution came after World War I had done the same to the British army, and the Chinese revolution came after World War II had effectively destroyed the Chinese army.
Absent the special circumstances, I do not believe the American revolution would ever have succeeded. The British military of 1725 or 1825 would have won easily. The savaged British army of 1775 lost.
By many accounts, one of the nations with the lowest rate of private gun ownership is Tunisia. Odd that they were able to bring down their government (and touch off the whole “Arab Spring” with NO Second Amedment!
If gun laws didnt make a diffrence… why did hitler take them away from the Jews?
As I’ve said before, it was just part of a broad package of oppression. Why single it out? Jews also were prohibited from holding public office, and eventually from practicing any profession. Why not focus on that instead? As far as gun-toting citizens, there was at least one famous example of a German Jew taking up arms against NAZIs. It led to a little thing called Kristallnacht — which, far from impeding the holocaust, accelerated it.
That’s right: the killing of the German diplomat in Paris by Grynszpan is what set off the uproar Nov. 9, of ’38. You’d be amazed how often that isn’t mentioned when the story of “Kristallnacht” is reported upon. Wonder why…
But the Paris shooting was the second 1930′s incident of gun violence by a Jew upon a German political figure:
Gustloff was shot in Switzerland by Frankfurter in 1936.
Grynszpan -whose actions in ’38 precipitated “Kristallnacht”- is rumored to have survived the war.
You assume that the Jews or any others in Germany had closets full of arms and boxes of bullets to take. In the 1930′s in the depths of the depression most people would have sold any unnecessary possesions long ago just to get something to eat. My mother told me stories of them selling the drapes, glasswear, clothes, basically everything they had to keep from starving to death. If there were any guns TO confiscate they would have been few and far between.
The Nazis took the guns from the Bolshevik commies. Patriotic Germans kept their guns.
If Hitler hated Jews, then why were there Je2wish Nazis?
Hey guys!
While you argue with one another our government is gaining tyrannical momentum. You can deny that liberals are trying to gain a stronghold by protesting everything that freedom is, but it does nothing but help them tighten their grip. It does not matter whether Hitler said these things or not, it is the philosophy he used as do others. “What Luck for Rulers That Men Do Not Think” is a truism no matter who said it first and it also explains why every great civilization has been conquered. The belief that something unimaginable cannot happen is exactly why it does. The signs are all around us and history is screaming warnings at us.
Wake up …. you are being boiled like a frog!
The pendulum needs to swing the other way NOW,
I’ve already noted that Hitler’s most potent weapon was neither the bullet nor the ballot — nor the suppression of either. It was propaganda. And the rhetoric his accomplices spouted was eerily similar to that being spouted by today’s right-wing polemicists demonizing “liberals” (as in effect the NAZIs did). That’s not an observation I make lightly; I long ago grew weary of people conjuring up the specter of Hitler every time they encountered someone they didn’t like; I’ve already devoted an article to that topic. But it’s hard to ignore how Limbaugh, Beck, et al seem intent on mimicking Goebbels. And their words in turn are obediently parroted by the masses. If indeed there are frogs being boiled, that’s the oil they’re stewing in.
As an information security engineer, I’m going to give you these points to think about.
1) If we allow to operate powerful tool such as vehicle, why not firearms. vehicles can do just as much damage or perhaps even more than firearms if you are creative enough. If anything, I would make everyone go through real driving school with booklet record tracking and spend literally 4 figures before getting just a license. Make it like Germany today. Wouldn’t that be safer for society? Go figure.
2) Power hungry people likes to take away power from honest people. Government workers are people too. They are not more or less capable than normal civilian like us. A fat cat that feeds with green by their own authority means power that is evil.
3) We don’t need a government this size to automate or efficiently improve and reassure our infrastructure and safety. LADWP hired High School grad with 0 electronics background to work in Water and Power. What a great example, go figure. Don’t argue that they’re private company, they are subsidized by the government running monopoly for the government.
4) Guns kill way less people than cigarettes and car accidents. Sure you’re tire of hearing this, but u don’t seem to get it.
5) Bad guys never respect the law. If you think that sweeping guns out of street including walking every single home and start sweeping all the firearms from civilians will stop criminals from importing other true “assault rifles” (select fire weapon), which civilian never have in the first place, will make it a safer place, then you are delusional. Just because the government wants to tie people’s hand doesn’t mean the criminals will give you their wrist to cuff them.
6) If you are uncomfortable and do not understand firearms really well in a free country where 2nd amendment is clear, then it is your own problem, irresponsibility that you have not to learn about it. Just because you’re uncomfortable and believing in mythical facts doesn’t mean that you can infringe others’ freedom. That’s right!
7) Swiss seems to have a good no criminal record compare to us. If anything, we need to educate our children better, which public school should not be funded by government, but should allow competition for kids to compete by getting into a quality school. This will make tuition cheaper, cheaper books, better quality teachers, and enrich this country where people are sitting on their ass too much relying on government to do practically EVERYTHING. You perhaps maybe forget how to breath right now as we speak.
8) Government suppose to be peace keeper and service its people, not the other way around. When you have to be fear for the police and what the government is doing to you, that’s when you know that country is running by the largest Mafia. Look at all unconstitutional war that we were in, everyone of them after the WW II. U.S. government is also the largest arms dealer. They don’t know how to sell anything else better either. Is that all justified?
9) Last but not least, you assume that people owning guns are not civilize to believe that owning guns will increase injuries and death. If anything, it is bunch of “durb durb” that intoxicated their mind with any kind of substance and operate machinery such as firearms and vehicles that causes these tragic events. I’m not going to blame criminals because that’s what they are and it is our job to put them away.
With all this said, you should really understand the world better before screaming out loud saying that I’m not young and I know what had happened. Of course you don’t because you believe in the government so much that you are so blinded by the real facts that we are all humans, and humans make all kinds of mistakes. Some even make evil decisions. Take more time to think about things before you go “ANTI” gun to people.
Hoo boy. Don’t people EVER get tired of regurgitating the same soundbites over and over? All the bits of misinformation you’ve churned out here have already been addressed in these pages. I, for one, don’t intend to repeat myself ad nauseam.
I point and laugh at people like Al.
Same here, and I live in Canada where civilians aren’t allowed to own military grade weapons. Our rate of gun related homicide has been steadily decreasing the past few years. In 2011 it was 87 gun related homicides nationally. We have gun registries, even if PM Harper is talking about removing the long gun (rifle) registry currently. My entire region of BC (the Thompson/Okanagan/Shuswap or Central Interior if you wish) has had only 2 shootings the past few years.
So hmm, over 11 thousand gun related homicides or 87 gun related homicides. Which sounds better?
P.O.P. so as not to repeat yourself ‘ad nauseam’ you’re invited to leave this board. Additionally, your ‘I’ve got an answer for everything’ said here approach to rebuttal is annoying and ridiculous. And furthermore you accuse posters here of many many things that you yourself are in violation of. Primarily in this late post of yours where you employ the typical ‘liberal (socialist)’ tactic of accusing your opposition of doing the very thing you (they) do. As exemplified in this statement you made above, ” ‘the rhetoric his accomplices spouted was eerily similar to that being spouted by today’s right-wing polemicists demonizing “liberals”….I long ago grew weary of people conjuring up the specter of Hitler every time they encountered someone they didn’t like;’ ” When you don’t agree and want to discredit someone simply accuse them of being ‘right-wing polemicists’ who demonize “liberals”, as if liberals need demonizing (they don’t need to be demonized as they do a fine job on their own of being demonic).
Must be fun being you.
Anyway, you may go now! Bye. I’m sure there are at least a thousand other boards you can write on to make a nuisance of yourself, troll that you are.
Well, my posts, and particularly this one, have elicited some curious comments, but none so strange as the suggestion that I forgo being a “troll” on my own blog! In any case, if you’ve read any of the material I’ve written in these pages at all, you know that I never attempt to discredit anyone by just referring to them as “right-wing polemicists”; I discredit them by presenting solid facts that contradict their claims. The fact that they might be considered “right-wing polemicists” isn’t what makes them wrong; it’s just a motivation for their choice to believe in fallacious arguments. You’re on the right track by pointing out it’s a common propaganda tactic to accuse others of what one does oneself (I’ll be discussing that in the future), but it isn’t primarily “liberals” who do it. (And if you really do equate “liberalism” with “socialism” then there’s probably not much point in even trying to reason with you.) Yes, I really am tired of people playing the Hitler card; and yes, I can’t help noticing that many people who do employ some of the same rhetorical tactics that the Third Reich propagandists did; this is not the same as saying that they are themselves like NAZIs — which is the kind of thing they often say about “liberals”. It’s irony. Look it up.
It is ridiculous when people claim Hitler was a Christian. That is about the same as saying Satan is a Christian. How ill informed can you be to the doctrine of Christ. Let’s find out: Christ said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”, and the Bible refers to the Jews as “God’s chosen people”, so if Hitler was a Christian why did he not only ignore Christ’s words, but also fight against God’s people. Toattempt to use pictures of Christmas trees and church officials in the same room with Hitler to make the case that he was a Christian really becomes problematic when you look at his actions. Call him just about anything you want, but he wasn’t a Christian my friend.
You may have a different concept of what constitutes a Christian than Hitler did. And it’s difficult to say how sincere or committed he was to Christian beliefs. But he did have them. And he was not,as many people claim, an atheist.
Would you kindly provide a link to your articles which blast the Hitler card being played endlessly against GW Bush? I am no fan of either of these two men but am curious as to your balance of opinion.
The Hitler card is being played endlessly against Bush? Really? I rarely see it at all these days. It did happen with a fair amount of frequency when he was in office. (“The difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected”, etc.) But that was before this blog was launched. But I’ve touched on it here, noting that the comparison was also overblown for Bush — though there was at least some factual basis for it, as both Bush and Hitler were (different types of) right-wing extremists. Comparing Obama to Hitler, on the other hand, is not only overblown, it’s not even in the right solar system; it betrays a fundamental ignorance about Hitler, fascism, “liberalism” AND Obama.
It’s also off-track to focus on my “balance of opinion”. Opinion is not what this blog is about. That’s not to say it’s 100 percent opinion-free; that (in my opinion) is not even possible. But the meat of these discussions is fact, not opinion. I suppose I could provide more “balance” to the facts. But there are plenty of people out there doing that already — which is why this blog exists in the first place.
Reading the Second Amendment, it seems to me everyone who is in and who plans to join a well regulated militia should have the right to bear arms.
Folks are free to disagree with this interpretation, of course. I hope that those who do disagree really take it to heart by buying a nice pistol for their newborns, loading it, cocking it and putting it in the infants crib so that the baby might have his or her Constitutionally protected right to bear arms and personal safety protected. As the child’s grip strengthens, so will the gene pool of the United States.
By the way, I’m planning a follow-up in the near future of my previous post on the Second Amendment.
Brian Woods, that is quite disgusting and certainly not the way human beings need to deal with animosity. It doesn’t matter what side of the fence you are on. This is where proper guidance and aid comes in handy, not genocide. I really hope you don’t actually feel this way, and that this thought was a slip of the tongue. Especially when it comes to children, no matter what their gene pool is.
Leave this board?? IT’S HIS BLOG! IT’S HIS BOARD!!!
Holy crap you’re stupid. I mean…it’s astounding.
This reminds me of the time my sister barged into my room and told me to get out. Ridiculous!
Indeed, there was no need for the Nazis to pass a law like that, because the earlier Weimar government had already passed gun registration laws. When I asked Cramer about his reasearch, he said, “The laws adopted by the Weimar Republic intended to disarm Nazis and Communists were sufficiently discretionary that the Nazis managed to use them against their enemies once they were in power.” In other words, they didn’t need to pass additional laws. The Nazis did pass a weapons law in 1938, but that only added restrictions to the previous law, especially for Jews and other “non-citizens.”
I presume the national guardbreaking down doors and disarming citizens in undamaged areas after katrina was a good thing?
Um… let’s see… mice have lice, but lice do not have mice. There! I can play the non-sequitur game too.
It looks like I DO need to address Holocaust denial in the future. Not because it in itself is worth giving any attention to, but because it makes use of some significant propaganda techniques often put to better use.
Attention Holocaust deniers: Sorry, but you don’t get to use this forum as an arena to wallow in your own excrement — there are plenty of other places where you can do that. (And chances are I’d still feel that way even if I hadn’t personally talked to Holocaust survivors.) I’ll discuss your pathetic disease in the future. Until then, kindly crawl back under the rock whence you came, where you may salivate over your laughable “proof” to your heart’s content.
Since I got sent this (for some reason, as I’m not “sharpnickelz”) I must give ya a heads up:
>> “sharpnickelz” said: ” I believe that Hitler meant what he said in the quote “History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.” regardless if any sort of gun control was instrumental in Nazi Germany’s conquering of Europe or not. It rings true that a [...]
Then you (POP) said: “You’ve articulated the position of much of the Second Amendment crowd quite nicely, and it may even have some relevance to the Founders’ intent. But it does not alter what the Second Amendment actually says.” <<
The "quote" of Hitler is (you might know) from the fantastic "Table Talks" collection. And it is fantastic. In it, there are other alleged "Hitler" gems like:
"As for the ridiculous hundred million Slavs [....] goes straight off into a concentration camp."
I've seen that one before a couple times.
But then right below that damning "Hitlerian" rant is this:
"At harvest time we will set up markets at all the centres of any importance. There we will buy up all the cereals and fruit, and sell the more trashy products of our own manufacture. In this way we shall receive for these goods of ours a return considerably greater than their intrinsic value. The profit will be pocketed by the Reich to defray the price of the campaign. [...yadda yadda yadda] Why should we thwart the longing of these people for bright colors?"
Right. That's Hitler talking. He's spending time on "bright colored" textiles. That's "believable".
.
Just so ya know… what is and is not believable and more importantly, tenable.
:
my all time favorite response to those people is: so where exactly did all those jews go then? mass alien abduction?
They won’t answer. They’re too busy asking how so many bodies possibly could have been buried and/or burned. (The answer is, it wasn’t easy; it took some very focused evildoing.)
It seems German state has already addressed the issue of “holocaust denial.” If you question the official version of the holocaust, you are sent to prison in Germany. Ernst Zudel was sent to prison for researching the Holocaust and proving that certain elements of the official story were nothing but baseless propaganda. If they are imprisoning people for questioning official dogma, there must be something wrong with the official story. Of course, “holocaust denial” is a boilerplate propaganda term. It is disingenuous and insinuates that anyone who questions the “official story” of the holocaust is somehow mentally defective. What I know for certain, is that anyone who throws you in prison for asking questions about the Holocaust is worse than a Nazi.
Verbalvandal, While I do not agree with the policies of countries that would prohibit speech questioning whether aspects of the official account, if you will, of the Holocaust is entirely accurate, to conclude there is necessarily something wrong with the official story simply because there is a ban is absurdist reasoning. One ugly aspect of humanity – and I don’t think any group is exempt from having elements of this – is that we have consistently persecuted people in groups other than our own. The Holocaust marked a zenith in that type of conduct, and so some governments passed laws to try to stop that type of thing from snowballing again.
As far as your assertion that killing 6 million, or 20 million, or 2 million, or whatever number of people the Nazis killed – and, as you know, they killed millions of people – being worse than putting a couple of people in prison, well, we all have our values. Many people, including myself, would say you need to have your head examined.
Your closing statement is particularly absurd when one considers that the Nazis, too, threw people in prison for asking questions. And they tortured them for asking questions. And they murdered them for asking questions. You know this. And because you know this, you, Verbalvandal, should be in prison.for the safety of the rest of us. Question away, but you statements lead to the inescapable conclusion that you are a sociopath.
“What I know for certain, is that anyone who throws you in prison for asking questions about the Holocaust is worse than a Nazi.”
Worse than people responsible for 50 million deaths? Man, they really are bad. And by the way, people go to prison not for asking questions about the Holocaust, but for lying about it.
I believe that Hitler meant what he said in the quote “History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.” regardless if any sort of gun control was instrumental in Nazi Germany’s conquering of Europe or not. It rings true that a conqueror would want his subjects to be unable to resist.
Without the 2nd Amendment, all other Amendments are worth little more than the paper they are written on. “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good” – George Washington.
“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” – Alexander Hamilton.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
It is plain to see that America’s founding fathers considered being able to stand up and defend one’s rights a center piece in a free and open society. We have a right to form a militia and stand up against our government if they (for whatever reason) disobey the constitution and the checks of the democratic process. This nation was built on revolution, on the idea that to be TRULY free, one must be able to fight for that freedom, to have a way out when the walls of a crumbling government come crashing down. In this democracy, we are essentially representatives, is for and by the people. For that to be upheld, the 2nd Amendment is the foundation. It is no coincidence that the 1st Amendment lays the foundations of freedom (speech, religion, press, assembly) and that the 2nd Amendment immediately after gives the way in which the first is even able to exist. Written words are meaningless, only through our unalienable rights are those words given substance. Or you know…we could take our governments “word for it”.
You’ve articulated the position of much of the Second Amendment crowd quite nicely, and it may even have some relevance to the Founders’ intent. But it does not alter what the Second Amendment actually says.
As is usual with gun nuts’ comments;
The George Washington “quote” is a complete fabrication which apparently was created in the 1990′s
Despite some time spent searching, I was never able to find a citation for the Hamilton quote. It allegedly comes from the Federalist Papers, but none of the many (right wing) sources I found for it mention where in the Federalist papers it is supposed to be.
The Franklin quote is essentially true, but has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the second amendment.
On the other hand, Hamilton, in Federalist Paper no. 28, directly addressed the notion that the militias existed to protect citizens from the government. He dismissed that notion as a specimen of mental illness.
The amount of disingenuous blather from the right about the second amendment is overwhelming; particularly when the Founding Fathers made their intent so clear in a document available for free to anyone.
I think what all the gun “rights” people don’t seem to realize is that all the US Government needs to do to “take over” is to shut down water and electrical power and transportation on the interstates for about 3 weeks, let the US Citizenry fight it out with each other over what remains on the shelves in their pantries and grocery stores until their ammo runs out, then drive through the bigger cities with tanks and offer food and water in return for complete compliance. After all the chaos of neighbor killing neighbor and the resulting thirst and hunger the citizens will pretty much do anything. Stockpile away….if the Government wants to finally take you over, it will. In fact, they’ll use YOUR guns and let YOU do part of the job by forcing you to defend yourself against your starving neighbors. Point of fact, the answer isn’t stockpiling guns, but actually getting informed about your local polictial situation and getting involved in it. Local. Your neighborhood, town, county, and state.
Wow.. P.O.P., I have never witnessed a more pompous or self absorbed and self righteous individual in my life. You know everything and how everyone should live and what they should believe. Right? Why even bother with a blog like this when you have no room in your inflated head for an honest debate?
You, kind sir, may be completely right, in my humble opinion. (Aren’t you always?) I really don’t see how your comment contributes to an honest debate here, but hey, I’ll allow it anyway. Because I’m just that kinda guy.
Prove him wrong
About what? My supposed arrogance and narrow-mindedness? I’ve actually acknowledged he may be right, even though the evidence is overwhelmingly against it. If you peruse the pages of this blog, you’ll see all kinds of open and honest debate on matters that are debatable, and even some on matters that are really not. As for proving him wrong about any of the claims he makes in his own arena — well, maybe I’ll get around to that just as soon as someone proves me wrong for saying that the moon is made of watermelon.
Oh, look! An Alex Jones fanboi!!!
How cute! Do you have posters of The Conspiracy Theorist In Chief above your bed?
Your problem, “Alex”, (besides your man crush on Jones) is that you hate facts. Facts really upset you. That’s a shame.
Patrick! What a great article you’ve written God Bless and keep you until he returns! keep up the good fight!
[...] Wow, someone actually bought Hitler into it….. again. Hitler and his cronies were the ones to use guns to murder. Get it right. What is it called when the other side is losing a debate and they bring up Hitler? The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban [...]
The article is debunking an extremely popular myth. It is a RESPONSE, dimwit.
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order.” – Adolf Hitler, April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Translation: Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)
Interesting quote. It indicates that Hitler considered the real threat of allowing “conquered Eastern peoples to have arms” to come from military and police units, and not just from civilian gun owners.
You’re a moron. Are you trying to argue Hitler defended individuals’ right to bear arms? Read the quotation again, brain-dead liberal.
Thank you for that astute and sophisticated analysis of my competence, character and philosophy. Unfortunately, you totally missed the point of my comment. And you didn’t alter the quote one whit.
To further expose you as a brain-dead, neo-nazi, gun grabbing liberal…
Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons
11 November 1938
With a basis in §31 of the Weapons Law of 18 March 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p.265), Article III of the Law on the Reunification of Austria with Germany of 13 March 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 237), and §9 of the Führer and Chancellor’s decree on the administration of the Sudeten-German districts of 1 October 1938 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p 1331) are the following ordered:
§1
Jews (§5 of the First Regulations of the German Citizenship Law of 14 November 1935, Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 1333) are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority.
§2
Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew’s possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation.
§3
The Minister of the Interior may make exceptions to the Prohibition in §1 for Jews who are foreign nationals. He can entrust other authorities with this power.
§4
Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions of §1 will be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the punishment is imprisonment in a penitentiary for up to five years.
§5
For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions.
§6
This regulation is valid in the state of Austria and in the Sudeten-German districts.
Berlin, 11 November 1938
Minister of the Interior
On Nov. 8, the New York Times reported from Berlin, “Berlin Police Head Announces ‘Disarming’ of Jews,” explaining:
The Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been “disarmed” with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.1
On Nov. 9, Adolf Hitler and Nazi officials made the following order: “All Jewish stores are to be destroyed immediately . . . . Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . . . . The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. . . . All Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately.”
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/registration_article/registration.html
Unfortunately, this brain-dead, etc. has already beaten you to the punch, pointing out (see above post, which you ostensibly are commenting on) that Hitler put a great many restrictions on Jews, including firearm ownership. But for everyone else, he significantly LOOSENED gun restrictions. So I suppose you can say that he did indeed “defend” an individual’s “right” to own guns — so long as the individual wasn’t Jewish.
“But for everyone else, he significantly LOOSENED gun restrictions.”
*FACEPALM*
Tell that to Hitler-worshiping fascists, liberals and Islamists.
I am telling it to everyone who wants to read it. But I recognize that some people (as you yourself have so ably demonstrated) don’t particularly enjoy hearing the truth.
The question, brain-dead liberals, is who is/are “everyone else”?
Are they his Nazi party-mates?
What about the Jews and the Communists or his political opponents?
Again, are you trying to say Hitler defended “gun rights” or the right to bear arms just like the founding fathers did?
Wow, what an archetype of a “loaded” question. Depends on what you mean by “defend”. And “gun rights”. And “bear arms”. For Hitler AND for the founding fathers.
You can’t answer it, right?
Then is who is/are “everyone else”? Did that include the Jews and Hitler’s political enemies or the communists?
Just answer the question, brain-dead liberal.
Okay kid, it’s abundantly clear that you’re just jerking off and trying to waste my time. So it’s time to invoke my “five or six strikes and you’re out” rule. Out of consideration for my readers, I want comments here to contribute something relevant or interesting. If you can’t do that, you’ll be barred from further posting.
This is grossly misleading at best. Hitler DID confiscate weapons from Jews, and he did so with the registrations that were previously forced upon the population. Just because the actions of the government prior to his rise to power had already begun a campaign against the people does not change the facts.
Registration/Confiscation… Genocide. PERIOD.
You can dream whatever little dream you like, but history stands as the monument to truth; from Germany and the Jews, Turkey and the Armenians, USSR/Stalin and the Ukrainians, and in 1994 in Rwanda and the Tutsis.
I have stated that Hitler did not ban guns. He didn’t. I have stated that he actually loosened gun regulations. He did. I have stated that he denied Jews many benefits of citizenship — including but by no means limited to ownership of guns. This also is true. Where exactly is the misleading again?
You may have already answered this somewhere else, P.O.P., but what is your stance on the above mentioned topic? Hitler loosening gun regulations to everyone else, and denying ownership of guns to the Jews, that is. Do you feel what he did, in this case, was positive, negative, or irrelevant to the end result? Can you compare it in any way to America today? Thank you.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t approve of singling out one segment of the population to deny them gun ownership without good cause, especially given that it was within the context of denying the benefits of citizenship on a broader level. As I have indicated, however, I see no reason to believe this materially affected the end result. (More about this in a future post.) No, there is absolutely no comparison to anything in America today. No one here is being singled out as ineligible for gun ownership on the basis of race or creed.
Form over substance, and if singling out a group is going to part of your analysis (something I believe is a red flag but far from the only point of analysis), with the amount of money in politics today, you should be particularly analyzing with respect to any legislation – gun-related or otherwise – whether it is a matter of those in and connected to power (power in a real sense, not just official titles) asserting control over the rest of us. Democide and other government persecutions over time have not been limited to race or creed; as an example, Mao had children turning against their own parents, and the Nazis murdered no shortage of communists irrespective of race or creed.
I am really interested in seeing the intellectual contortions you are going to have to come up with to devise a scenario in which, had Jewish civilians been appropriately armed with assault weapons, fewer would have ended up surviving than would have justified, if you will, the increased level of day-to-day gun violence. Bear in mind the United States had 12,000 gun deaths last year. In the last year that CDC statistics are available, around 250 children were victims of gun homicide nationwide. The Germans killed an average of more than 250 children a day from 1935-1945, and they didn’t really get around to the bulk of the murdering until 1942.
POP wrote: “No one here [in America today] is being singled out as ineligible for gun ownership on the basis of race or creed.”
That’s certainly true, but it’s worth noting that that hasn’t been true in the past, particularly since it has a bearing on the individual ownership vs. militia debate. Some of the arguments I’ve seen here hinge on quotes or writings by Founding Fathers referring in one fashion or another to an armed citizenry. This is in turn interpreted, or merely assumed, to mean any law abiding citizen, thereby allowing the poster to argue, directly or by implication, that “militia” refers to the entire population.
What is clear from the historical record, however, is that this is a modern myth. Gun ownership was restricted to while males over the age of 18; no women or minorities. In fact, if anything, gun ownership was further restricted rather than expanded. For example, during the various Indian wars in the South before the Revolution, blacks were allowed to join the militia, but by the time of the War of Independence, Southern fears of servile insurrection caused them to pass laws banning blacks from militia service so they could not own guns.
Now, here’s the punchline: after the Constitution was ratified, who was allowed to join the militia? White males between the ages of 18 and 45, the same people who were allowed to own guns. Interesting coincidence, no?
Now, this doesn’t answer the question of which came first, armed citizens or militias. Certainly, in the very early years of the colonies, militias were formed from the colonists who owned guns, but based on what we now know, it would seem that gun ownership was not as widespread as modern myth claims, or at least we can say there is no evidence supporting the myth. This is supported in part by the fact that after the Constitution was ratified, some states had laws that required all eligible members of the militia to own guns, while other states issued guns (then took them back when the militiamen were mustered out). If the majority of white males owned guns, or even just a large portion of them, why have a law requiring militiamen to acquire guns for service, or why issue them? It seems rather that this was done because there were too few “armed citizens” to form effective militias. Moreover, there is no evidence these laws were strictly obeyed, or enforced.
As such, history seems to suggest that when the Founding Fathers referred to an armed citizenry, they were actually referring to the state militias in a roundabout fashion. The officially sanctioned and created militias were composed of citizens who were required to be armed, one way or another, but the citizens themselves did not constitute a militia by default. In other words, by the time of the Constitution, it was the militias that were creating an armed citizenry.
It can be confusing when someone like Madison refers to armed citizens and militias virtually in the same breath, but in point of fact he was using two different terms to refer to the same entity.
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/SpitzerChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FinkelmanChicago.htm
Very true. Indeed, a major motive behind inserting the Second Amendment into the Constitution was the protection of slavery — not freedom. “Militia” often was used to designate armed contingents who kept slaves in line, and hunted down runaways. And lest we forget, the “conservatives” who are so vehemently against “gun control” now were very much for it back in that remote era called the Sixties when the Black Panthers liked to stroll around sporting firearms.
Actually Prof I’d argue that point with you. At the time the second amendment was drafted the continental army was downsized to the point of uselessness and there were several revolts against taxation. A suitable militia was thus necessary federally in case of needing to deal with such a scenario again, plus it’s been suggested that the protection of state rights to have a militia (at a time when the states and federals were less trusting than even now) made it easier for the federal government to get permission to have a standing army.
Were militia used to deal with slaves? A very good chance. Was slavery a reason for the second amendment? Nothing I’ve seen suggests that beyond present day hearsay.
As it happens, a concise and insightful analysis of my point was published just recently.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
So, where, would you say, the line is then? At what point is there good cause & to what degree do we allow, as citizens, the government to pick and choose who they feel is allowed weapons? Obviously, there are certain universal understandings of who should and should not be allowed the right to weapons, such as criminals, the mentally ill, possibly a certain age range, etc.. I think there needs to be regulations, don’t get me wrong, but there is a huge difference between regulations & bans. What if they were to put a ban (of any kind) on the internet or cell phones? Both of these are very dangerous tools as well. How do you feel about this? And, at what point do you allow freedoms to be taken? What are freedoms? Maybe we consider things to be freedoms that should not be? Just trying to cultivate some good discussion to see if we could all work together to devise a wise plan of action in the aid of decreased fatalities in the use of these guns. Why not? Why not use this time, not to bicker, but to actually come to some brilliant conclusions that one could even submit to congress?
My own take on this is there is a huge difference between banning assault weapons and banning cell phones. What I find very interesting is that people didn’t make a big deal out of it when Reagan called for such a ban. But when Obama does it, he’s clearly Hitler reborn. In any case, it wouldn’t bother me if all guns were banned, though I know that will never happen, nor do I know of any good reason it should. But I don’t depend on guns for my peace of mind. Note also that there is a big difference in prohibiting gun ownership for, say a person with a history of violence and prohibiting it for Jews, Muslims or atheists.
On the first view yes, it seems that he loosened gun control. On the second view you will see that he loosened only gun control for his organizations. There where no permits neccessary for Hitlerjugend, Lower Member of the NSDAP (called Untergruppenführer), Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrtkorps… and many other Hitler or Nazi related Organisation. Means they had a right to carry a firearm even without any permit. He also invented (or extended the law originaly made in the Weimar Republik) that permits are neccessary and Weapons can only be held by responsible persons. You can imagine what that means if the whole bureaucracy where already Members of the NSDAP. Just by saying everyone can get a permit doesnt mean everyone gets a permit, expecially if the person who makes the decision is a member of the NSDAP. The weapon law was actually a tool for them to select party members and Nazis from the rest of the people. Giving permits to one group, deny permits to the other group. Thats also the reason why it reads on first hand generous but if you want to outfit “your” people with firearms you cannot deny ownvership in the law itself, you have to establish a tool that puts you in the position to lead weopons where you want them to be.
Generally banned where gypsies, gays or Jews or everyone who was suspicious of being non faithful.
The intention of the weapon law established 1938 is pretty clear. Outfit Nazis with weapons, take away weapons from everyone else.
There’s some truth to this, of course. But the bottom line is, Hitler did not “ban” guns, as often claimed. And while keeping guns out of the hands of the oppressed made it easier to oppress them, it doesn’t follow (as often presumed) that allowing them guns would have enabled them to resist NAZI conquest successfully. It would, however, have made that conquest a little bloodier.
That´s right, we will never figure out what would have happend or what would have not happened. To state that Hitler “banned” guns is as false as to claim that Hitler loosened gun laws. The truth is that he used the weapon law to strenghten his position and the people and organications supporting him. There was actually no need for him to ban guns for NSDAP Members or the Hitlerjugend. Due to theyr indoctrination they would have died for him anyways, weapons in theyr hands was actually a advantage.
From a personal viewpoint: Armed Jews and the armed majority of Germans wouldn´t had stopped him starting a Genozide but maybe it would had ended earlier. It wouldn´t also had stopped him attacking France or Russia as the Propaganda Machine worked very well and the majority of Germans didnt either know about the Conzentration Camps as well as the lies about Poland attacking Germany. For the whole majority of Germans the beginning of the war was a mix of self-defence and fighting for rights that they lost in the Versaier Contracts. Hitler wasnt evil, he was the good guy for the most. That he would act dishonest was unthinkable.
Anyways, Jews fighting for their life inside Germany, not in a conzentration camp, would have opened the eyes of much Germans (and the rest of the world) way earlier. Splinter Groups (like the Rote Kapelle or die Weiße Rose) could have started being more effective, not in Killing Nazis, but in getting peoples attention. As i said, its a personal viewpoint but in my eyes Hitlers weapon control of course let him do what he did, at least it made things easier for him.
It’s important to note that the 1938 gun measure did not introduce any new restrictions — and it relaxed some that already existed. It was designed to make access to guns easier for those considered German citizens — which excluded Jews and gypsies or other “vagabonds”. It was actually Hitler’s enemies, and not Hitler himself, who were proponents of “gun control”.
I doubt that the designers of the 1928 weapon law where Hitlers enemys but they made things easier for him as the law invented something called “Bedürfnis”, maybe the best word for this would be “Justification” to own a weapon. The law of 1938 also didnt disarm the Jews, that happend way before by the Gestapo and the Police staitions as they got a directive from the NSDAP not to permit a “Justification” to Jews. The law of 1938 just wrote down what already happend. There was no need for him to “ban” weapons (see the explanations in my last post). If you have a tool that allows you to lead weapons where you want them why should you ban them? In fact, the law gives him the control of all weapon ownership as just the party decides who has a Bedürfnis and who not. You dont really believe that a member of “The Weiße Rose” would have gotten a weapon license just because they would have been a German Citizen.
If you read the law word by word and state that, due to that law, all german citizens had easier access to weapons you are wrong, only NSDAP Members (and the others i listed) had easier access to weapons while the Nazis used the Tool “Justification” to get it out of the hand of everyone else.
That the weapon law stated “German Citizens” is just common sense. What else should they have written in there?
I am a Pinko Left Wing Liberal Sterotype who currently has a 45 Ruger precisely BECAUSE of nutters like Patrick. I do not think I can protect myself from government with anything but sound reasoning and an ability to communicate. Individual nutters though can be kept off my front porch with the Ruger. Thanks for the balanced responses P.O.P. but I think Patrick closed his mind quite some time ago, 60+ years would be my guess. Mine was opened 60+ years ago and since that time I have learned lots of information that was simply unknown in the 1950′s. Science marches on, some people do not.
read the Treaty of Versaillies if you want to know who banned guns in Germany.
I would like to add some things about gun ownership in our present days, and in particular concealed weapon permits. In light of the CT shootings, the laws that were set in to place worked. The crazy killer was not able to buy the guns quick enough to kill so the CT killer had to steal his parents guns. With that said if there had been one or even two people there with a concealed weapon there might have been a far different circumstance. And here is proof, this is a story that includes a county sheriff officer that happened to be at the scene of the shooting when one of these crazy’s showed up. Just proof gun ownership works. But I ask why is this shooting not all over the internet? I wonder? maybe because it shows that armed citizens will fight back? Guns will always be there in the black market it is just a matter of are you going to give the citizen’s like weapons to fight back with. Second thought why destroy guns when you have people like the man in Korea in August that stabbed 8 people in a subway. Does that not prove it is the person not the guns? San Quenton had three violent felonies a day in 1997. How many of those do you think were done by guns? Let us use our brains here and blame the people and not the tools.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Two-wounded-in-theater-shooting-4122668.php
By all means, blame the individuals. But the thing is, guns make it much easier to kill than knives do. Guns, after all, were invented specifically to kill with.
Yea, swords were made for killing. But I am sure it was a good thing they were kept around for many nations when their lands were being invaded. and the problem with us good guys getting rid of the guns is that the bad guys will still have them or get access to them. Here is a good video that I found and it will clear up all these problems.
http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm
Having lived and worked in some rough areas of the US and the world, I feel as though I ought to chime in somewhere with my own experience. This post tripped my wire. First, I would like to posit that “proof” of any opinion is not going to be found in anecdotal evidence supporting one position or another. Yes, perhaps once an officer of the law was present when someone was about to shoot up the place and he intervened successfully by virtue of his owning a gun. If that’s “proof” then does my forthcoming counterexample refute that one instance and thus whatever argument that you are trying to make, right is right?
In my case, someone walked into our street level room in a garage of an industrial zone via an unlocked door with a .45 semi-automatic pistol leveled at my face, as I was closest to him. He said, “Don’t look at me, or I’ll shoot you!” I raised my hands and dropped my gaze to the floor. My girlfriend, who was standing next to me thought it was a joke and laughed for a moment until she realized what was going on. There were 2 others in the room. If any of us then had a pistol in hand, do you think that he would not have shot all of us straight off? Anyway, we were calmly terrorized by this man for more than an hour. At one point, he tried to drag my girlfriend off from the floor where we were lying to presumably rape her in the next room. When she made a loud, crazy fuss, he dragged her back, put a jacket over my head and counted down from 10 to zero, to force her to comply. I remember a lot of shouting and crying in the room and considered that I was living my last moments then. This went on for a while, with a couple more countdowns, him walking around the room. pointing the guns (he said that he two) at the backs of our heads. He emptied our pockets, drank a half-bottle of wine (OK, this was a recording studio) and pocketed another, telling us a couple of stories. As her prepared to leave, he ordered one of us to go out and start his car. He then walked around the room and warned us that he would kill our friend if we were not on the floor, as he left us, when he returned in 20 minutes.
He left, taking the friend with a pistol pressed against the back of his head to the next town where he was released. Ultimately, we were physically unharmed. My girlfriend sought counseling because she felt responsible for leaving the door ajar and for thus precipitating the PTSD symptoms that I developed a couple of months later. In that time, a housemate, sleeping in the next room from me awoke with a pistol pressed to his forehead and had his room robbed. I am pretty sure that he would have died had he a gun in hand or if he tried to access one that he might have hidden under his mattress, if he indeed had one. He was later mugged, smashed with an empty quart beer bottle square in the face– his jaw broken and his lower bridge of teeth cracked and cut through his chin. I am pretty certain that in this case, even a gun in hand or one in a quick-draw holster would not have helped him beside jeopardizing his life should he have attempted to use one.
I could go on. My point is that from my own, personal experience, the dynamics of a violent confrontation are a lot more eccentric than what handgun proponents might suppose. Truly, I think that you guys lack a lot of imagination in the configuration of your scenarios. You also tend to have a blind spot to the instances when having a handgun (or an assault rifle) present would have intensified a toxic situation. I think it’s a form of aggressive or self-interested, willful naivete on your part.
When I once turned the last corner toward home and saw some kids playing in the street then run into the (never) open front door of our place, would it have helped me/them/us if I had a pistol then, when I went room to room looking for them? They stole our rent money that day. Would having a pistol have helped anyone when I learned later that one of them had tortured and killed our beloved cat? I was enraged and shook my first in his face as a security guard held him for the police. How about the one time that a chain-swinging vagrant blocked a 4-lane road as I rode my bike in to work at 5AM? Would having gun in hand have helped me or him when he spit on me? I could have pulled mine out and shot him without anyone ever knowing about it. Then again, if he had a pistol then, I might lived through that otherwise mundane urban confrontation.
Move to Maine! T.
It was a trained LEO in the San Antonio theater shooting! Not some minimally trained “Dirty Harry” wannabe with a CCW permit and a military fetish. What about the guy in Georgia that was found with a bullet in his head, surrounded by several of his weapons. Not a single one of the high powered weapons that he had on his person at the time of his death saved his life. And what about the woman in Pennsylvania who gained some notoriety for openly carrying a 9mm to a 5 year old, kids soccer game? Her guns did not protect her from being shot to death by her husband. it goes both ways. But I do enjoy your ability to spew poser patriot talking points with aplomb.
[...] [...]
Like any post here, PP doesn’t source his claims and they’re very biased and one-sided. You are the one dispencing propaganda not busting it.
Jesus, can’t someone please come up with a less original juvenile insult? That one is boring me to tears.
So I’m sincerely a little confused, are you trying to debunk the fact that Hitler enacted a total gun ban, or trying to point out that Hitlers gun control measures were an effective means to arm his allied populace while at the same time disarming his targeted Jewish populace?
The first point is the real focus of this post. The second is a matter of interpretation rather than demonstrable fact. I’ll have more on this topic in the near future.
I have to admit, that is a very valid question. It would also be an interesting thesis for investigation.
After reading all of these responses, I just want to advocate having symbolic reasoning and logic along with formalized debate as part of the core curriculum in public schools. I am amazed at how many groupings of hybrid illogical fallacies and invalid reasoning are being flung around all willy-nilly. It seems to be disproportionally originating from the same posters who insist you educate yourself or insist you are somehow both brain dead and liberal. You’ve managed to construct quite a haven for paradox here. Which is unfortunate, because if both sides of the debate are unable to sit down and find at least SOME common ground, however will we move forward together, which we must do in order to survive intact. I know others here are accusing you of being arrogant, I think the best way to describe you is having the patience of a saint. I read some (well most) of these comments and look at it like a baking experiment gone horribly wrong. It’s like arguing with paint. Really, stupid paint. Bless you and your attempts.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I do my best. But some of these people really do try your patience.
Really interesting discussion and I agree with Christin 100%. We need history taught in the schools. We need logic and debate taught in our schools, and NOT from the Texas curriculum either!!
I will ask you to bare with me because I am not the best of spellers and I will have a few grammatical errors in this post of this I am sure. I personally believe that people should be allowed to carry and maintain their weapon systems be it a hunting rifle or something with which to defend their homes. I also believe that not everyone has the capacity to use those weapons in the proper manner because on the whole people are stupid scared animals. Before you jump on my case and say that not all people are stupid think about this a “person” is an intelligent and rational creature capable of great compassion and thought while “people” are terrified of anything that does not fit into their neat little box of what they believe to be correct and true. So yes the second amendment does give all american people the right to bare arms with which to defend themselves. Everyone is so up in arms about assault weapons but what is the purpose of weapons if not to assault another living creature be it for food or be it for any other reason. All weapons are made to assault that is their very nature and why they were created be it a humble rock or a tricked out AR 15 with laser sights and a pistol grip. I am myself a military veteran and before joining the military had never fired nor owned any kind of rifle and had no desire to own any kind of rifle. Once I joined the military I was taught everything I would need to know about the weapon systems I was firing from the basic name of said rifle, to how to break it down and care for it, all the way up to how far and fast the round would travel for every second after it left the muzzle. As I said I believe that every one should be allowed to own a weapon but they should first learn to use the weapon properly and prove that they are of sound mind before being allowed to purchase one. Because as someone much smarter than me said guns don’t kill people, people kill people. A gun is nothing more or less than a tool it has no goals no ulterior motives in and of itself. If a gun is wielded by a bad person then that gun will be used to do evil things. If that same gun is wielded by a righteous person then that gun will be used to do righteous things. Is a gun any more dangerous in the hands of a well trained man than a sword is when it is in the hands of a master? No it is not the only difference between the two is the distance at which you will be killed. Both of those weapons can be taken up and used by the untrained to kill a person and yet it is not the sword that people seem to fear it is the gun. What makes the gun so much more dangerous in people’s minds is not the fact that it kills it is the fact that it kills at a distance.
Well, you’re certainly free to believe people have a right to own a gun. And you’re right — but they have that right largely because of the Supreme Court and/or other rulings and laws. It’s not spelled out clearly in the Constitution, as I’ve already discussed (and will discuss further soon). You make a very good point about people (at least some of them) being “stupid scared animals”. But here’s the thing: will giving them guns make them any smarter? Or will it just allow them to do stupid things a lot easier? Not all gun owners have your kind of training. And by no means do all of them have the kind of presence of mind that a person needs to have when armed.
My point is train the people who want to own guns that way they are not a danger to themselves or to others. I do apologize if I did not make that clear. I have read the posts on here as a buddy of mine posted this on his face book page which brought it to my attention. I believe you to be a well educated and patient person. And you are right giving a person a gun will not make them any smarter but I have also said a person has the capacity to be intelligent and compassionate it is only when we gather in large groups that capacity is diminished. Many people do not wish to think for themselves and will go with the crowd so as not to stand out.
As per the Hitler, gun restriction, and the Holocaust argument I fear you have fallen for the great fallacy that empowering an individual with a greater chance to defend themselves is somehow useless because they wouldn’t be able to stop a genocide. This isn’t your fault of course. Many people see 6 million and believe that it is an all or nothing sort of affair instead of millions of acts of individual theft, molestation, and murder, each with their own circumstances. I would just say that as you were not one of the tens of thousands of German Jews, or millions of Jews in occupied countries denied their right to self defense by previous governments and occupiers alike, you cannot ever state that said individuals would not have benefited from the possession of a rifle, grenade, mortar, explosive, or hang gun.
Well, I don’t believe I said it would have been “useless” for the Jews to have been armed, but I did say I haven’t seen any reason to believe they would have stopped the Holocaust. And nobody has yet shown me any. It’s interesting that you start listing military-style weapons, which the Jews would have been unlikely to possess even if they’d been allowed to own guns. The NAZI troops, however, did have them in great supply. Not to mention tanks and other armaments that could have handily overpowered even a Jewish citizenry armed to the teeth.
Errrrr what’s a hang gun? T.
So 5 years before the holocaust they restricted guns, then banned Jews from having them period. 7 years later Hitler described an armed population as a threat to dictatorial powers. You sure showed us what’s what.
Glad we have professors like you to dictate what is and is not propaganda. #SARCASM
Read some of the other comments here — and perhaps a history book or two — and you may discover that your sarcasm is unwarranted.
A U.S. Supreme Court Judge once said, ” there are rights that we all have and then there is the right thing to do”. Constitutional rights,sometimes written 200 years ago, can often have difficulty relating to time. The constitution is supposed to be a dynamic document and we seem to think of it as static.
It’s the “conservatives” (and we all know that means radical reactionaries these days) who are proponents of originalism. But they are more than willing to suppress the traditional understanding of the 2nd Amendment (and to abrogate the 1st) in favor of a reinterpretation expressed as the 2008 Heller case, which culminated from increased political activism of the NRA after they had a conservative “coup” in 1977. It’s OK if the Constitution is a “living document,” unless you are a liberal or just someone who would like the Constitution to not exclude people from having basic human rights.
Yes, that’s pretty much how other counrties are veiwing the US and that’s one reason I got out as soon as I could. I don’t consider myself a liberal, but a progressive and I don’t like what the conservatives are doing to my country.
Myself like other American ex pats can’t imagine moving back to our home country because of how the right is acting.
Indeed. Even if you are a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, who owns and enjoys guns and served his/her country, they don’t care, they just call you a libtard the second you say something so extreme as “Maybe not every swinging dick should have a weapon used by infantrymen.”
Reblogged this on TheBarkingAtheist.
[...] The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban. [...]
So glad I found this! Thank you!
The Gun Give Us Equal Rights in a Moral Civilization
Written on Sunday, July 29, 2012 by Daniel Greystone
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under ‘threat of force.’ Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that is all there is.
In a truly moral and civilized society, like the Western civilized world we live in, people predominantly interact through discussions of persuasion. In our moral society, force has no place as a valid method of social interaction. There is only one thing that can remove force as an option; that is the ability to have a personal firearm. As paradoxical as it may sound, let us look at why having a personal firearm reduces force.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to have a discussion with me in order to persuade me. This is because I have a way to negate your threat; which is a bad employment of force on me. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100 pound woman on equal footing with a 220 pound mugger; puts a 75 year old retiree on equal footing with a 19 year old gang banger, and puts an isolated person on equal footing with a carload of drunken people with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender of life and liberty.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of a bad force equation. These are the people who think that we would be more civilized if all guns were removed from society. Do they think this way because a firearm makes it easier for an armed mugger to do their job? A mugger can only be successful if all of their potential victims are disarmed. Disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity if all the mugger’s potential victims are armed.
People who argue for the banning of personal firearms are really asking for us to be automatically ruled by young gang members, the strong of evil intent, and those that would do us harm. This is the exact opposite of a civilized and moral society, or are we missing something here? A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted a force monopoly where no one else is as armed as they are.
Then there is the argument that a gun makes civil confrontations more lethal that otherwise would only result in some minor injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party who would be inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser by force; not reason. It is proven that there is less crime where all homeowners are required to have a gun in their home than places that ban them.
There are people who think fists, bats, sticks, and stones do not constitute lethal force. They are watching too much TV or see too many movies. In these warped environments, people take severe beatings and come out of it with only a bloody lip at worst. The fact is that the gun does make lethal force easier but know it only works in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, there is a level playing field which seems fairer than any other option.
The gun is the only weapon that is as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply would not work as a force equalizer if it was not equally lethal and easily employable to everyone who welds it. Without one, you are vulnerable; with one, you are equal.
When I carry a gun, I do not do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I am looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means I cannot be forced; I can only be persuaded. I don’t carry it because I am afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It does not limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason; it only limits the actions of those who would do me harm by force. It removes force from the equation… and that is why I carry a gun. Carrying a gun at my side is a civilized and moral act, because without it, only harm can come my way.
Adapted from Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So, the greatest, most moral civilization in this world is one where all citizens are equally armed and each person can only be persuaded through discussions; never forced by a thug.
Read more: http://patriotupdate.com/articles/the-gun-give-us-equal-rights-in-a-moral-civilization/#ixzz2HWGLhNtW
You make the false assumption that only reasonable people will have the guns. Sad experience proves the opposite.
Just a minor detail – but unless you are either the original author of this, or have his written permission to republish it, then you’ve broken the law. It’s called copyright.
So, is it that you don’t really have any true understanding of the law, or that you don’t see any reason to obey the law unless it’s convenient for you to do so?
This article is wrong on many levels,
1, jews were not a handful of people but a significant portion of the population.
2, the hubris of a these Jews fending off Nazis with hunting rifles and pistols is not hubris at all as in the case the Warsaw ghetto Uprising where Several hundred resistance fighters, armed with a small cache of weapons, managed to fight the Germans, who far outnumbered them in terms of manpower and weapons, for nearly a month. As well besides being able to successfully hold their own they inspired multiple other uprisings that resulted in heavy losses to the Nazis
3. the article glazes over the point that Jews were prohibited from owning weapons under the weapons act of 1938, which is just before those same Jews, no disarmed, were rounded up and put into ghettos and then liquidated.
4. the speech quoted is one I have never seen and I look for stuff like this all the time, but the article does admit that Hitler states that conquered people having access to arms is the downfall of tyranny which IS the quote that i see repeated most often, a quote that is verifiable and historically accurate.
5. every instance I have ever seen quoting this gun regulation that led (obviously) to the disarming of Jews and the subsequent round up of them states the dates accurately.
So to recap, Hitler enacted gun legislation in 38 that banned weapons from a group of people that he almost immediately after rounded up, imprisoned and liquidated, The disarmed Jews once rounded up, smuggled illegal weapons into the ghettos and severely outnumbered and outgunned, held off the nazi army for a month while inflicting heavy losses and inspiring others to do the same.
So there is no “Myth” at all about this historical event. Gun control was used to disarm people in preparation for genocide. just as it has been used all throughout history to pave the way for democide of millions and millions of people.
any attempt to contradict this historical fact and the logic behind it is beyond the scope of serious discussion. It is like talking to a tea bagger about climate change. They ignore the facts, the numbers, the science and the history and spew thinly veiled attempts at bad reason and shallow logic that does not hold up to serious critical thinking. It is laughable and a real shame.
What do you think the Americans, British, French and Russians did when Occupying a defeated Germany. They confiscated all the guns. Then mostly the Russians proceeded to kill about 10 million Germans. Read “After the Reich” http://www.amazon.com/After-Reich-Brutal-History-Occupation/dp/0465003389
Your reply is equally wrong on so many levels.
1) If your definition of ‘significant’ is under 15% of the population. At the beginning of Hitler’s reign, the Jewish population of Germany was approximately 12%. That is about the percentage of the global population Judaism makes up today.
2) Warsaw is not Germany. It is Poland. They were under INVASION.
3) The horrors inflicted upon the Jewish people were not exclusively because they were left without the right of gun ownership. They were also left with no right to employment, no right of property, no right of their bank accounts, no right to their personal property, no right to assemble, no right to move freely in the cities or country, no right flee oppression,…Do I make my point yet?
The Jews had every Right systematically stripped away while the population had been poisoned to their very existence. All of these things happened gradually over time BEFORE the 1938 law to remove their right to gun ownership. German citizens were participating in the isolation of the Jewish people into Concentration Camps. They did not care to know what was occurring at those camps once the Jews were off and away out of sight.
4) No comment other than, I find it funny you would believe you know every possible quote a past world leader might have made. That a quote you never saw before might exist, seemed to blow your mind.
5) You seem to forget that post WWI Germany had gun regulation prior to Hitler’s legislation of 1938. It was part of the Peace Treaty at Versailles. The ’38 law only restricted the Jewish people from gun ownership.
Your attempt of debunking the debunking is unsuccessful. The Far right elements of the Gun Rights movement consistently refer to Hitler’s 1938 as being applicable to ALL Germans. That is incorrect. It only applied to the German Jewish people, and Jewish people in each country Germany occupied.
Cudos to you, P.O.P. for standing up to this drivel. I was raised with guns, hunting regularly. I still own guns, but no assault or automatic weapons. I was also a member of the NRA for a short while, until I started actually reading the materials they distribute. It was absolute propaganda, from beginning to end. I dropped my NRA membership and started looking closely at the gun control movement immediately, to which I count myself a supporter. There is no reason we shouldn’t be able to own and use guns within reason. Possession of unreasonably dangerous weapons should be limited to the military, and the military must be controlled and limited by the government.
Further, we need laws in place to maintain a registry of weapons, their owners, and how those weapons are secured from abuse by uninformed youth or mentally unstable adults. Every weapon in civilian control should be trigger-locked and placed in a securely locked location.
I’m sure many agree with me, and some disagree. Unfortunately, the latter group includes my father, who’s been caught up in the propaganda so long we cannot even have a reasonable conversation about the facts because he takes all the NRA propaganda as reality.
Thank you for your support and facilitation of reasonable discourse!
[...] The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban. [...]
This entire article is a basket of red herrings.
I’ve never seen this page before, but well-written. Personally, I think there should be an IQ test required to own a gun. You know, to keep it out of the hands of lunatics (like Patrick here).
Just out of curiosity, why do you always capitalize the word “NAZI”? It’s not an acronym.
I don’t always, although it has become a stylistic quirk of mine lately. It’s not exactly an acronym, but it is an abbreviation.
You have one error in this article, or perhaps, just misleading. The 1928 gun registration actually *overturned* a full gun ban and allowed private gun ownership for the first time after the Versaille Treaty. So the gun law was a relaxation of stricter gun laws.
Patrick ! I ‘am German by birth American by Choice.God Bless You Keep up the good fight .Not all are brain washed yet and hear the truth you speak and some others hopfully wake up befor it is to late.
Thank you. I love America !!!!! we all need to wake up get of the coolaid…..
I agree with the Founders, that every American has the right to possess a muzzle-loading long-barrelled flintlock rifle, so that they can join a well-regulated militia, and practice having two ranks reload while one rank fires. That’s what the writers of the Constitution guaranteed. Breech loading weapons and bullets with powder included, let alone repeating automatic fire and 100-round magazines, were unimaginable to them. I’m a strict constructionist, here, unlike our selectively strict Supreme Court: the Constitution comes with directions for its own amendment, because, in their wisdom, the Founders knew that society and technology would change in ways unimaginable to them. I believe they’d be astonished at the mayhem devastating our country, and the insistence in some quarters that they had insured our “right” to bear incredibly destructive weapons.
P.O.P., you are now my hero!!
Thanks! It’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve been called.
[...] http://propagandaprofessor.net/2011/…tlers-gun-ban/ tho [...]
Before I begin, I want to express how much I have enjoyed this entire segment and the following comments. I studied quite a bit about WWII and the Holocaust in my college years, but I certainly learned a lot more by reading this whole page.
With that said, I believe your attempt to debunk the myth of Hitler is a little off. It seems you are trying to convey that the “gun nuts” in this country point to Hitler taking away people’s rights to guns as the temple upon which they base their opinion is fallacious (or based on inaccurate information), but your example of Jews being denied the right to own firearms undercuts your point. While it seems true that Hitler “loosened” gun laws for others, he still denied them to his target (the Jews) and then they were subsequently annihilated. What’s more is that you also later admit that Hitler really only allowed “his” people to own guns, which means he didn’t truely “loosen” gun laws but merely expanded ownership to people in his party, military, etc. What I’m getting from the “gun nuts” argument is that they want to own guns to protect themselves from another Hitler-like event where Hitler took guns away from the citizens (or at least a portion of the citizens) and expanded it for the government-run military. And what I’m getting from your argument is that yes, Hitler did take guns away from some citizens but expanded it mostly for the government-run military. The result in either argument is the same: the Jews died in part because they were denied permits for and access to guns.
I’m afraid your argument has a hole in the point and it seems to support the conclusion that anyone can be denied the right to own a gun in this country and subsequently exterminated as was done in Nazi Germany. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a conspiracy theorist and I’m not paranoid about the government, but that seems the pretty logical conclusion from these arguments). And in this case I have to side with proponents of the right to bear arms as it could very easily be me that gets denied the permit to own a gun for any number of criteria: I’m a woman, I’m not a Republican, I eat organic food, I have pets, etc. Plus, when I look at the statistics on gun-related crime: while the US ranks highest in gun-related crime, the percentage of gun-related crime against all available guns in the US is nearly miniscule.
Cheers!
I’ll address some of this in a followup post.
When you do, would you mind replying to my comment with that link?
If our guns are taken away in America, P.O.P and his liberal friends will be raping, pillaging and murdering the American populace!
I’m trying to picture myself raping, pillaging and murdering. Without a gun, no less. It’s too comical for words.
@Jonathan,
Just because that is something you would do to a group of people you oppressed, does not mean all people think that way.
Personally, I think some of the far right of the Gun rights movement might need a Viking raider to reign down on their delusions of government invasion against its citizens. On a side tangent, that whole ‘legitimate rape doesn’t cause pregnancy’ is debunked by Viking DNA in so many global populations. Kind of like Genghis Khan’s offspring. But then again, the Vikings assimilated themselves into the very communities they raided. They established trade routes, so what started out as rape and pillage led to established relationships.
Tracey, I actually live in Chicago and see what has happened because of the gun ban… 500+ murders last year. My neighborhood is one the safest in the city only due to the fact that most of the homes do have personal firearms.
On a side tangent, I am over 50% Scandinavian
Also, as a Christian, I have no interest in committing the crimes
above. I just know history and human nature and want to protect myself and my family from it.
“In a land with no law, guns become the only law”.
This is what America has become.
Brilliant strategery, bringing up Chicago, if you’re trying to make a case in favor of gun control. Chicago enacted a ban on hand guns in 1982. The murder rate went down. The murder rate continued to trend downward until 2010, when the SCoUS overturned Chicago’s law and cheap hand guns were once again easily available. Since then, the murder rate has spiked.
So, thanks so much for making such a great case for gun control!
Imagine the propaganda hitler could have used if the Jews shot German soldiers. Outcome I fear would have been the same but a lot quicker. Don’t believe any country would have stepped in to help the Jews either.
Interesting debate but its like flogging a dead horse. It isn’t 1938 or 1776 anymore and using history as an argument for or against gun laws seems bizarre to me. Only my opinion.
You have far more patience than I, P.O.P. As a gun owner who has no problem with common sense regulation, all I’ll say is If you think your guns will protect you from a tyrannical government, you’re not just a paranoid nut. You are an idiot and a fool. Unless your collection includes fleets of supersonic stealth fighter-bombers, aircraft carriers, missile carrying drones, satellites, surface to air missiles, Abrams tanks, long range artillery, depleted uranium ammunition…
Grow the bleep up, gun nuts, wingnuts, loonytoonians. You’re looking even more stupid/crazy than before. Who’da thunk it possible?
“Unless your collection includes fleets of supersonic stealth fighter-bombers, aircraft carriers, missile carrying drones, satellites, surface to air missiles, Abrams tanks, long range artillery, depleted uranium ammunition…”
I hear this argument a great deal but it appears to lack support based on history and the actions of our own government. Small arms supplied to the rebel groups in great numbers by the US and, in the past, by the Soviets. Indeed the reason why the AK-47 is so prevalent is because of this fact. When the US was supporting the Afghan rebels against the Soviets it did not provide aircraft, tanks, long range artillery or carriers, it provided small arms (granted, there were likely some advisers as well). The point of this is that the insurgency becomes such a strain on the superior force that it becomes an unsustainable action or, as in the case of the American Revolution, you reach a position of credibility where another power will come in on your side. The very essence of asymmetric warfare that the US, the Soviets, the British and many others have encountered and failed (see Afghanistan (US and Soviet), Vietnam and the Anglo-Irish War). I guess the point is, all of these conflicts are fought with small arms against superior forces in training and equipment. Without the small arms, no rebellion/conflict. This is why the US engages in this “support.”
Unlike major conventional weapons as you listed, which are most often procured solely by national funded armies, small arms and light weapons cross the dividing line separating military and police forces from the civilian population.
All of these characteristics of light weapons (Low Cost and Wide Availability, Lethality, Simplicity and Durability, Portability and Concealability) have made them particularly attractive to the sort of paramilitary and irregular forces that have played such a prominent role in recent and past rebel conflicts. These forces have limited financial and technical means, lack professional military training, and often must operate in remote and inaccessible areas—all conditions that favor the use of small arms and light weapons. At the same time, many states have increased their purchases of these weapons for use in counterinsurgency campaigns against ethnic and political groups and to suppress domestic opposition movements. The fact is, the small arm is the weapon of choice.
Going back to the thread a bit, it is an interesting question if armed Jews could have made enough of a problem for the Nazis. One could envision “Crystal Nacht” going a little different.
“One could envision “Crystal Nacht” going a little different.” One could, were one to ride a toy train of logic to its inevitable flaming wreck. The fact is that Jews in Warsaw had guns. Jews in Prague had guns. Jews in Paris had guns. Fat lot of good it did them. To claim that if only German Jews – of which there were fewer than 200,000 – had guns, the Holocaust would never have happened is risibly absurd, considering tens of millions of other European Jews weren’t banned from owning guns and still fell prey to the Nazi war machine.
[...] The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban. [...]
[...] Story is located here [...]
[...] the way, Hitler actually expanded gun ownership rights in Germany in 1938, but why let the facts get in the way of a good scare [...]
I just wanted to say thank you.
Having never read the Federalist Papers before, I took the opportunity, at your suggestion, to actually read #29. With all the different interpretations of the Second Amendment out there I feel better equipped to engage in a more enlightened dialog.
As a favorite English teacher used to say, “Context, it’s all about context.”
Whenever a politician, or anyone else, starts talking about regulating guns, it’s a safe bet that someone will bring up how Hitler supposedly outlawed guns in Germany, which supposedly enabled him to do “all the mischief he did.” So you’re trying to sell killing millions of people as mischief? STFU you tool.
Are you unfamiliar with the rhetorical device of ironic understatement?
But the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts.
Right! Sort of like the American Revolution is hubris and never happened that way.
.
And “addicts”. It’s really hard to have a national debate and discussion aimed at curtailing violence when so many self-righteous people are so condescending and demeaning of the opposition viewpoint. Take note of the crimes AND victims prevented by someone protecting his or her own family with a legal weapon to balance the scales. But don’t let the facts (The U.S. rate of violent crimes has DECREASED over the last 20 years – FBI stats) get in the way of a good sarcastic and insulting rant.
When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. No thanks, I’ll take reasonable measures to defend me and my own including my neighbors if need be. You can rely on the police.
The distinction between the revolutionary army (or any revolutionary army) and an armed citizenry has already been touched on, as has the distinction between gun addicts and gun owners.
My BIL share this on FB– enjoy reading your commentary. Will be following you now! Keep going!
Could you possibly provide sources for this so that the crazies can at least feel shamed into silence?
Yes, I plan on adding some links either to this post or the followup I’m planning. But don’t expect the “crazies” to be overly impressed by documentation.
I have an uncle who’s a holocaust denier. Makes family get togethers… “interesting.”
If the Jews did have arms the Holocaust still would have happened. The only difference would be no concentration camps because they would have all died fighting the Nazi army.
I must say, P.O.P – this has to be one of the most entertaining comment boards I’ve ever read – this is sooooo bookmarked. Lots of great points to be used at a later date.
Hitler had a dog. Obama has a dog. Need I say more?
I warned you. You should have stopped.
The thought occurs to me, with all this talk of “What if Jews had guns in Germany?”, that a huge armed resistance might have accelerated Hitler’s plans of extermination. With a demonstrable “security threat”, the majority populace would’ve potentially been even more behind him and he could have openly pursued extermination much earlier.
The reality, though, is that once Hitler came to power, the Jewish population were in a losing situation regardless of their armament. To me, the whole discussion of “weapons against tyrants” is a bit of a red-herring, as it is more important to try and determine what we need to do to keep violent tyrants from ever *gaining* power, rather than trying to fix tyranny once it has arrived. The latter scenario is, in my view, akin to trying to figure out which band-aid to put on a bullet hole.
Another tangential thought: those talking about how Afghans were able to hold off the Soviets for so long don’t seem to acknowledge that the Afghans had (a) the home-field advantage, having lived and survived in the country in conflict which the Soviets did not, and (b) support of the native population, which can shelter them, feed them, and mislead the enemy. I don’t think Jews in Germany had either advantage. Also, would-be American insurrectionists would also run into similar problems.
Very well put.
The Afghans also had covert and massive weapons support from the U.S.
All of the arguments using hisory about taking guns away
Reblogged this on While you were sleeping .
P.O.P – I posted your piece on a news aggregation site, Snip.it. I got this response: Do you know what, if any part of this is fact? Any help appreciate.
“Don’t be so naïve ~The Nazi Weapons Law of 1938 replaced a Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 13, 1928. The 1928 law was enacted by the pre-Nazi government who wanted to curb “gang activity,” violent street fights between Nazi party and Communist party. Under the law all firearm owners and their firearms had to be registered. Sound familiar? But gun control did not save Germany. It helped to make sure that the toughest criminals, the Nazis, prevailed.
The Nazis inherited lists of firearm owners and their firearms when they ‘lawfully’ took over in March 1933. The Nazis used these inherited registration lists to seize privately held firearms from persons who were not “reliable.” Knowing exactly who owned which firearms, the Nazis had only to revoke the annual ownership permits or decline to renew them.
In 1938, five years after taking power, the Nazis enhanced the 1928 law. The Nazi Weapons Law introduced handgun control. Firearms ownership was restricted to Nazi party members and other “reliable” people.”
The last two sentences are especially suspect. Here’s the 1938 law in a nutshell, nicely summed up on Wikipedia:
“As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.” Under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. Writes Prof. Bernard Harcourt of the University of Chicago, “The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition.”[4]
The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP party members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[5]
The age at which persons could own guns was lowered from 20 to 18.[5]
The firearms carry permit was valid for three years instead of one year.[5]
Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[6]
Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns’ serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.”
Overall, it’s unmistakable that the Nazis significantly relaxed, rather than tightened, gun restrictions.
Thanks for the help. I didn’t know where to begin.
I read through quite a few of the comments but toward the mid lower portion I just ran out of patience so I apologize if this has been brought up before or not:
So some are saying if the gun rights of Jewish Germans had not been taken away (along with a myriad of other rights) that they could have defended themselves. Then there is the counter argument that the small armed resistance that could have been attempted would have been futile, and the holocaust would have persisted, albeit bloodier. Then the counters to that and so forth.
I just wanted to bring up one point that slappy magoo made- “If the Gestapo knocked on the doors of Jews only to be met with gunfire…by the time they got to the third door, they would’ve stopped knocking and just started shooting.” – in addition to a violent reaction by the Gestapo in response to some sort of armed resistance, such an occurrence would likely have fueled support for the German government of not only German citizens but perhaps the rest of the world- no doubt the armed resistance would have been painted as a rebellious terror group refusing to adhere to German law, and stomping out the group would have been not only a top priority but an encouraged and supported one- perhaps subsequently Germans would have argued that the response of the genocide of millions of Jewish people, as well as other “threats to the nation”, was justified, given the resistance that the authorities had faced, while performing their “civil service”. The United States already took a long time to join the allies, and even then only after a direct attack. Perhaps if the above scenario was the case the Germans could have spun it in their favor and our world would have turned out completely different. This, like all of the “if they had been armed” speculative scenarios, is just as likely, and like all those scenarios, is moot.
Thank you for this comment. I can’t believe so many people here have this idealized picture of WW2 history in which it was always crystal clear to everyone who were the good guys and who were the bad guys and which side to be on. Sure, in retrospect (and for some people, of course, also in the course of it) it became clear that a world in which Hitler had any kind of power was not a world most people would want to live in; and that what happened to the Jews (and others) was not “just” what had happened around the world many times before (and since), namely displacement and genoicide – that is, it was that, but on a massive, industrialized scale. But for the majority of people at the time, Hitler was just another dictator and WW2 was just another horrible war; they could not see it as we do now. History with a capital H is always the past in view of the present. If people back then had known everything about Hitler and Holocaust AND viewed it exactly like most people do nowadays, the United States would not have hesitated in joining the allies. But they didn’t, and they did.
” the United States would not have hesitated in joining the allies.”
The United States did not hesitate to join its allies, and by 1939, no honest person had a shred of doubt about the nature of the Nazis. The opposition to the U.S. participation in World War II, even to letting Roosevelt lend monetary support to England, was led by Republicans, who were willing to do anything to frustrate President Roosevelt. This is essentially the same problem we have today; Republican hatred of Democrats inevitably trumps their patriotic responsibility.
Lol ok ok P.O.P we get it, Hitler was a great guy. Jeesh none of this story means a damn thing to people who just wanna be left the hell alone by our current tyrant!
“Hitler was a great guy?” That’s what you get out of all of this? Seriously?
Excellent piece of well researched work. However, if one was looking for a flaw, one finds a problem that the author still believes in the mainstream historiography’s version of the Holocaust, and I quote: ” And it has become an article of faith among the gun culture that had they been armed, the Holocaust would not have happened (that is, among those members of the gun culture who know that the Holocaust really did happen).”
Well researched? Where are the links? There aren’t even any references to source material.
Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian even though he tried to convince people he was. But as far as gun control by the right-wing goes, the opposition dominated congress in Chile pushed through a gun registration law. In the early hours of the coup against Salvador Allende, the military seized the gun registration records at police departments and then seized the weapons of known Allende supporters (and the supporters themselves) first. What followed is well known.
Ah, yes, let’s just forget the US backing that brought Allende to power…it was gun registration. If only the Chilean citizens had another handgun, they could win against the tanks. Hmmm…wonder why the Shah of Iran was overthrown just by women marching on the palace..no guns at all.
To the retard from Texas posting bible verses… Are you really Christian? What bible are you reading. Bless ‘Merica!! Please!
Next time, post the scripture word for word cause you are missing a few things. The word meat…
Meat is good for you, in moderation… Veggies are also good for you.. And you can eat as much of them as you’d like. I don’t care if you’re a vegetarian, but don’t post false Christian scripture trying to convince others being a vegetarian is holy!
Holy crap you suck Texas!
-Alaska
Wow, the outpatients are really out in force here. Very interesting original post, professor.
the gun nuts will be gun nuts no matter what facts they are presented. i have no problem with guns, hi capacity mags are a bigger problem than the individual firearm, but the gun nuts are gun nuts because it gives them a stiffy thinking about being all rambo-esque and heroic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
i think they use the 2nd amendment and the defense against tyranny as a shallow excuse to own guns. i think the truth of the matter is that it gives them a stiffy.
I keep seeing where the gun-control community debunks this as a falsehood, something made up, yet here is it and it’s source:
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.” –Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, Second Edition (1973), Pg. 425-426. Translated by Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens. Introduced and with a new preface by H. R. Trevor-Roper. The original German papers were known as Bormann-Vermerke
This does not constitute a ban on guns. And perhaps the key statement here is “So let’s not have any native militia or native police.” He was talking about prohibiting those types of organized units rather than private ownership of guns.
Reblogged this on The Accidental Survivalist and commented:
This is a good read.
It is interesting how the argument can be made that Hitler did not ban guns by limiting that argument to the population as a whole. Yes, Jews were not allowed to own guns or even a stabbing weapon, but the people in the Nazi party were allowed to have guns so that is not really a “gun ban”.
I suppose if all registered weapons were confiscated in the US except for those in law enforcement and those who agreed with the administration who banned the weapons then that would not be a gun ban either. Except to those who had been banned from owning weapons, but they do not matter.
Except, the Nazi Party was more than just limited to law enforcement. They were a political party as well as a social party, like the Moose Lodge & Elks Club. People had to decide if they wanted to join the party or risk losing their jobs or otherwise raising some red flag. The Hitler Youth was part of the Nazi Party, a training program for potential officers or other officials.
So your comparison would be ‘more accurate’ if you included expanded law enforcement and included: the GOP, All of Alaska and Texas, The Moose population (yes, the animal) of Maine, The wild hogs of SC, the KKK enrollment of 1921, and the global Harley Owners Group.
No, you’ve got it backwards. The GOP doesn’t want to ban guns. The Democrats do. So your comparison needs to be reversed. The guns would be banned from conservatives and libertarians but guns would be allowed for liberals and statists. This is pretty much what we already see, The war profiteer Dianne Feinstein carried a concealed weapon when she felt endangered. She has armed body guards. The liberal celebrities who make millions from movies portraying massive amounts of killing have their armed body guards. The POTUS who drone strikes hundred of children overseas has armed body guards. These folks want to have the personal protection of guns — but they want to take that away from everyone else.
” The guns would be banned from conservatives and libertarians but guns would be allowed for liberals and statists. This is pretty much what we already see…”
Carol, are you completely delusional? I see a lot of right wing crap, but rarely do I find something as out of touch with any shred of reality as that.
Just because hitler was in power doesnt mean the Nazi’s didn’t benefit from the gun laws in 1928. The Nazi party existed since 1920…
[...] Our state’s attorney general made a tweet quoting Adolf Hitler regarding gun control, and Star Telegram reporter Bud Kennedy replied with a tweet correcting his spelling of the dictator’s name. [Credit LiberallyLean] Somewhat related: Did Hitler ban gun ownership? [TheStraightDope.com], The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban [...]
[...] or outright falsehoods. Guns were not summarily banned in any of these countries – including Nazi Germany, as a matter of historical note. Although firearm ownership took a distinctly different form than the Wild Wild West policies in the [...]
Oh please, what a crock. Your blatant bias (of course you have one), is rearing its ugly head. Trying to claim anyone for gun rights is too stupid to know there was a Holocaust? Pathetic. Any professor worth his salt would know not to trust any of your comments or “research” after this point. I also don’t know of a single person who believes Hitler brought the Nazi’s to power by taking away the citizens’ guns, everyone knows it was propanganda. You even have the proof of their point in your essay, yet, of course, lack the proper understanding to make the connection. You say Hitler expanded guns for everyone, except the Jews, taking away their guns and making it illegal for them to own. Riddle me this, genius: Without the national registry, *how* did they know which jews had guns to take? *Exactly* the point and fear of gun owners today. A fear also proven by a pisant newspaper and its moronic editors in New York publishing the names and locations of all the gun owners they can get their hands on.
You don’t know of a single person who believes the Nazis rose to power through banning guns? Really?
Nobody (that I know of) thinks Hitler “stole” Germany’s leadership, which would require taking the citizens’ guns first. He “earned” it (through charisma and propanganda), which is why Germany is still vilified in much of today’s world. They do all believe that Hitler first took the Jews’ guns as part of subjugating and controling them, however.
“the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris ”
Not really. It happens all the time. The Viet Cong kicked our butts in asia and the Afgans did the same for the Soviet Union in Waziristan. The small arms in civilian hands in the United States greatly outnumber any military arsenal and the bulk of our police and military are unlikely to go after their friends and families to carry out the policies of our ambitious authoritarian left. Very interesting corrections on the Hitler -gun control thingy. I suspected the “.. first day in history…” quote and googled it to find your article. Now I know that the ” Subject races” quote is real but wondered about it too. There are abundant quotes from Consitutionalists at the time of ratification that support the hedge against tyranny aspect of the Second Amendment however none of them came from Washington or Jefferson. Us Gun Addicts make ourselves look stupid when we parrot them.
I wouldnt call American provided Stinger missles that took out the Soviet helicopters exacly small arms. That is what the Afghans used against the Soviets.
Neither the Viet Cong nor the Afghans were armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials – they were supported by governments and supplied with military weapons. It’s also fair to point out that the Viet Cong and the Afghans were fighting on their home turf against people they saw as invaders, while a fair number of the people they were fighting against had little desire to be in unknown terrain fighting both for & against people with a vastly different culture and compounded by language differences.
I’m not sure what ‘policies of our ambitious authoritarian left’ you think would be carried out at gunpoint by either the police or the military, but do you realize that your statement directly contradicts the argument that Joe Blow needs a gun to fight off a tyrannical government? If the police and military are unlikely to go after their friends and families, who exactly is it that you envision you would need to fight off?
[...] distortions or outright falsehoods. Guns were not summarily banned in any of these countries – including Nazi Germany, as a matter of historical note. Although firearm ownership took a distinctly different form than the Wild Wild West policies in [...]
I think its interesting in your argument that you mention that the Jews were not allowed to own guns. Not that owning guns would have made it better for the Jews but it sure made it much easier for the Nazis. Another interesting tongue-in-check point you made was Waco. What if the Branch Davidens did have fully automatic weapons, APCs, land mines, grenade launchers? Would that not have evened the sides at least a little? After all, Waco was an example of what the 2nd amendment is all about. I agree propaganda is more powerful than weapons. Who’s to say that the things that were said about the Branch Davidens was not propaganda used to sway public opinion in favor of the government? By the way, while the Waco incident does disgust me, I admit I don’t know anything more than what I was told.
“After all, Waco was an example of what the 2nd amendment is all about.”
No it isn’t you jackass. In the first place, the notion that the second amendment exists so people can fight back against the government is, as I have documented here, a total lie. Second, here is what Waco was an example of: a group of filthy, deranged right wing religious fanatics that would rather burn their children to death than submit to totally legal government action. The fact that miserable people like you can regard as heroes people who accomplished nothing but the death of their own children, perhaps does a lot to explain why you are so indifferent to the twenty dead children at Sandy Hook school.
“But the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts. On American soil, its most glorious day in the sun has been perhaps Waco. And we all know how well that turned out.”
Speaking of arguing against your own case, you just made a good argument as to why all Americans NEED assault weapons — especially if they want to prevent a child massacre.
[...] loudmouths and the mildly entertaining gun advocates such as Alex Jones.By the way, Hitler actually expanded gun ownership rights in Germany in 1938, but why let the facts get in the way of a good scare tactic? Steve M: [...]
[...] distortions or outright falsehoods. Guns were not summarily banned in any of these countries – including Nazi Germany, as a matter of historical note. Although firearm ownership took a distinctly different form than the Wild Wild West policies in [...]
[...] The Gun Lobby is LYING TO US [...]
Another myth is that Hitler was a vegetarian. He was no such thing.
how many people here have read Mein Kamph? for it you did, you understand what happened with “gun control”
wow. you really pulled out the crazies with this one didnt you?
I am a liberal who has wasted a tremendous amount of time on conservative websites writing comments trying to convince people to change their viewpoints. I have concluded that it would have been far wiser, and more fun, to have gone to a VFW hall to drink beers and to listen to retired veterans retell their stories. Even listening to the cockamamie stories of guys who’ve only been listening to Rush for years and years could be more useful and entertaining than devoting time to responding to the hard shelled nuts of the Right whose comments are in abundance on the internet.
That said, I appreciate the time and effort P.O.P. put into his comments throughout this thread. Thank you.
Actually no evidence that Hitler was vegetarian. Any claim that he was was just propaganda. Plenty of evidence that he ate meat. See scopes.com.
My favorite part is where you insinuate the people who own guns, or the “gun culture” as you seem so excited to call them also tend to deny the Holocaust happened. I mean, not all, but you never know with them evil gun nuts, anyone you talk to who has a gun probably doesn’t believe the Holocaust happened either….
The ONLY purpose for that little jibe is to create a false association and discredit a group. It is a perfect example of an “association fallacy”.
If you are going to make an argument, fine. But make a good argument.
I’ve known quite a few gun addicts, and quite a few of them were Holocaust deniers. I’m sorry to say I didn’t track the exact percentage. How good an “argument” does it need to be to meet your approval?
Patrick = Troll:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll
Not quite true, as one of my old friends – who is not Jewish – will attest. He grew up during the Nazi regime and WWII. His father hid his old hunting rifle in a hollow stump deep in the woods because weapons were banned generally, except for police and a few trusted government officials – who had to be members of the Nazi party, or else you were not considered to be a “good German”. This is the truth that libs would deny. We know it, but they use a half-truth for their agenda.
The truth is that the Nazi gun law made it easier than ever for Germans to own guns.
So let me get this straight…Hitler didn’t ban ALL guns, only the guns owned by the people he hated and wanted to exterminate? Seems to me that the author is making a distinction without a difference. The simple fact of the matter is that the first order of business of every genocidal regime of the 20th century has been to disarm its victims. But of course, we know that could NEVER happen in today’s modern world, where we are led by such enlightened and progressive minds!
With respect to the conversations about whether or not being armed would have prevented the Holocaust, let me leap ahead. After the war, when the Jewish people declared “never again,” they built a country which has armed itself to the teeth. In spite of being a tiny minority amongst their Jew-hating neighbors in the mid-East, they are not being dragged into ovens these days. Instead of looking at history as one static moment in time (WWII); look at the consequences of the history and how it has changed, molded or created new history. This is not to say that the dialogue about guns is not a good and necessary thing at this time, with regard to recent massacre-type gun violence. Both sides have some valid arguments. However, it should also be recognized that one of, if not the, worst school killing sprees was accomplished with a bomb, not guns. The answers to violence (gun and other) are many and nuanced and will probably never be 100% fool proof. Screaming about your point of view (regardless of which side you are on) is sort of counter-intuitive isn’t it? And like so many other well intentioned ideas, one must always be aware of the law of unintended consequences within ones own position as well.
[...] Via:The Myth Of Hitler’s Gun Ban « The Propaganda Professor [automated] [...]
P.O.P,
I don’t disagree with your viewpoints but do have a question. Don’t you think the colonists did a pretty good job of defeating a much better equipped army and armada with simple muskets and a few farmers, shopkeepers and the like? Over simplifying I know, but easily a much shorter question this way.
They eventually were victorious of course. Not just with farmers and shopkeepers but with trained soldiers — aided by the French. By the time the war was over, Revolutionary troops had become more effective than the ragtag ensemble they seemed to be at the outset.
“But the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts.”
You might want to research some history on the Jewish resistance and some of the issues they caused.
Equating the holocaust number to “a handful of citizens” says more about you than those you think you are denigrating.
I’m quite familiar with the Jewsih resistance activities, and I’m also quite familiar with how most of them failed to achieve the desired result. In virtually every case, it was indeed a handful of citizens, which I am in no way equating to the entire “holocaust number”. If you think stating such facts is denigrating anyone, then it says more about you than about the writer you are denigrating by accusing me of denigrating.
Patrick, You are THE BIGGEST LOSER AND THE WEAKEST LINK…give me back my minutes.
Patrick: YOU ARE THE BIGGEST LOSER & YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK…now I want the minutes of life you stole from me from having read your PROPAGANDA!!!!
I thought you might find these articles useful:
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/SchwoererChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/BellesilesChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/RakoveChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/UvillerAndMerkelChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/HeymanChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/DorfChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FinkelmanChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/SpitzerChicago.htm
Thanks. I think a great many people might benefit from reading these if they would bother to do so.
You’re welcome. My favorite is the Finkelman article, second from the bottom, about the historical context surrounding militias. Especially revealing is the revelation that Antifederalists wanted a “2nd Am” that specifically stated a right of individual ownership for self-protection, and that Madison and the First Congress rejected such wording.
I’m planning a sequel to my previous post on the Second Amendment, which really didn’t cover enough bases. This just might come in handy.
I was going to bother reading your legal paper links on gun control, until I saw that *every* single one came from Chicago legal offices. You know, that city that not only has among the highest gun crimes, but such draconian gun laws that the Supreme Court came in and told them they are violating the Constitution. Its like reading papers from the Chinese government talking about how communism is the best government.
More like the ownership of the Chicago Cubs advising on how to assemble a winning baseball dynasty
If people are looking for excuses not to be enlightened, Daniel Mey’s implication that the linked papers are government sponsored is as good as any I suppose. But it’s based on some serious misconceptions.
To begin with a somewhat trivial point, the website that posts these papers is The Second Amendment Foundation, a distinctly pro-gun organization.
Secondly, these papers were neither written by nor sponsored by the government of the city of Chicago. It would seem Mey only looked at the links and not the articles themselves, then jumped to conclusions.
Rather, the papers had been submitted to The Symposium on the Second Amendment hosted by the Chicago-Kent College of Law of the Illinois Institute of Technology. They were then published in the Vol. 76 No. 1 2000 issue of The Chicago-Kent Law Review.
So rather than being government propaganda as Mey suggests, they are in fact scholarly essays written by historians filled with documented evidence from primary sources written by the Founding Fathers themselves.
To further illustrate this point, only one of the authors of the above linked articles is from Chicago himself. Of the rest:
1 is from Washington, DC (George Washington University)
1 is from Georgia (Emory University)
1 is from California (Stanford University)
2 are from New York City (Columbia University)
1 is from New York State (SUNY)
1 is from Oklahoma (University of Tulsa)
Despite this, however, I doubt anyone will cease looking for excuses to avoid reading these articles.
Here, Biochemborg, are the additional links you posted on a different page. I think they belong here instead. (I think I’ll also put them, or at least some of them, on my future post about the Second Amendment.)
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayres_Donohue_article.pdf
http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/chapter_1/evaluatinggunpolicy.pdf
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=fss_papers
http://www.guncite.com/cummingsjama.html
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199208133270705
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Hemenway1.htm
No, I did not read them after I saw they came from Chicago, there was no point–just as I’m sure you would find no point in legal papers written in Texas (or on Fox News) supporting the 2nd Amendment. Also, all the professors you mentioned (except maybe Tulsa, I don’t know that one) are “liberal” colleges, hardly an unbiased demographic, despite your assertions. Just because the government didn’t commission the symposium doesn’t mean it wasn’t attended by all the same elites, either.
I would like to thank Mr. Mey for confirming both my suspicion and my prediction that he and others would devise excuses for not reading these scholarly papers backed by documented historical facts from primary sources written by the Founding Fathers.
However, I think he may be wasting his time posting to this blog; rather, he should be on the stage putting his talents to more lucrative uses. His paranormal ability to determine the worth or truth of a written document without actually reading it, as well as his equally extrasensory power of being able to remotely determine people’s motives and purposes without actually knowing anything about them, except perhaps their university affiliation and/or geographical location, suggests he could make a very comfortable living as a professional “psychic”.
I must confess, however, to being surprised that anyone would seriously argue that the city or state one resides in, or the university one teaches at, is a viable and precise determinant of the truth and accuracy of his or her historical research. Many scholars who argue for an individualist interpretation of the 2nd Am teach at so-called “liberal” universities, or live in New York or California rather than Texas, or receive their funding from state or national grant programs instead of Fox News or the NRA. I know, because I’ve read their articles (thereby confounding Mr. Mey’s certainty that I would consider doing so pointless; maybe he wouldn’t do so well on the stage after all). Does Mr. Mey consider them to be “elites”?
My paranormal sense tells me he does not. So I guess the only “elites” are those who argue against his ideology.
I was hoping I could get some sources for the information? I believe you but I like to be able to say “SEE?!” at people when they doubt things.
Here’s an excellent paper on the subject:http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/67-harcourt.pdf
It also cites a number of other sources.
Here’s a corroboration from GunCite, which is a PRO-GUN website: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html
It cites two lengthier sources: The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich and Lethal Laws.
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, passed Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all Jews of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, passed Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all Jews of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.
Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.
“… the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris …”
With this statement, the author unwittingly makes the fundamental argument AGAINST restrictions on military-style defensive weapons. Of COURSE one can’t use plinking guns to repel an army. Free citizens, if they are to remain free and not become subjects, have a right to the same arms as the military. This is the primary purpose of the Second Amendment, and the reason why the Amendment does not specify things like caliber or clip size.
No, actually. That only makes sense if you accept that a fundamental purpose of the Second Amendment was to allow armed rebellion against the government, which is preposterous if you think about it carefully. Even if that WAS the purpose way back when the most advanced military weaponry was a muzzle-loading cannon, it wasn’t a sensible reason for the 2nd Amendment even then. THERE IS NO LEGAL RIGHT TO OVERTHROW A LAWFUL GOVERNMENT, and there is no need for a law permitting one to overthrow an unlawful one.
But today, the argument that citizens should be able to to match the firepower of the military is even more preposterous. Even if we did nominally permit all forms of armaments, the sheer cost of advanced military hardware would absolutely prevent individual citizens from being able to come anywhere near competing with the military might of the state, except perhaps for fantastically wealthy corporations, and do we REALLY want corporate armies poised to overthrow the state? Seriously? Has it come to that?
The author shows simply that the rationale offered for the 2nd Amendment, in allowing private citizens sufficient weaponry to resist the government, is nonsense, because the kinds of weapons that private citizens will ever be able to obtain and wield effectively as individuals will never ever ever be able to pose a threat to Leviathan. Those gun nuts (and I use the term reservedly) insisting that they be allowed to keep their assault rifles in order to resist government tyranny are delusional because their weapons are utterly useless against the state.
Abandon this silly barbaric Maoist concept that political power grows from the barrel of a gun. Military power is not a new invention, and it is not the secret to America’s freedom (and the freedom of other modern democracies). The secret is the Rule of Law, the idea that we are a nation of laws not men, and that disputes are resolved by reason and principle, not force of arms. That force of arms itself must be made subservient to law, and not its master.
KBI says: “Free citizens, if they are to remain free and not become subjects, have a right to the same arms as the military. This is the primary purpose of the Second Amendment, and the reason why the Amendment does not specify things like caliber or clip size.”
Are you a total lunatic, KBI? Your statement would allow citizens to own hydrogen bombs. Is that okay with you? Then maybe instead of 26 dead people in Newtown, we could have had a couple of million killed. And the second amendment does not specify things like clip size because at the time it was written, all guns were single shot, with powder and ball being loaded separately- no one had ever even thought of a multi-round magazine, let alone made one.
People like you need to grow up and get it together before pushing your idiocy on other people.
A German:
Immediately after the “takeover” of the Nazis in 1933, the legislation on weapons of the Weimar Republic was used to disarm Jews, Communists, Socialists, Gipsies, Homosexuals and other persons who were to be considered not trustworthy. So the chief of police in Wroclaw decreed on 21 April 1933, that these persons have their gun licenses immediately have to hand over to the police authorities.
The Arms Act was also used for house searches and raids. The victims were alleged to have stored large quantities of weapons and ammunition. One prominent victim is Albert Einstein, whose summer home in Caputh was searched in spring of 1933.
In large-scale raids in April 1933 in Berlin and other cities, along with many weapons dissident writings were found.
At this time Wilhelm Frick, the minister of the interior wrote to Hermann Goering that the the right time for a revision of the entire weapons law is only given if the penetration of the German people with the Nazi ideology has progressed to the point that armed clashes with dissident elements to a significant degree are not to be expected. ”
After five years of oppression and eradication of dissidents the time was ripe, Hitler signed the new gun law. With the firearms legislation 1938 laws have been extensively regulated by the Nazis has been. This Arms Act, benefited the officials of the NSDAP and its affiliated organizations and the enemies of the state were denied to possess arms. With this gun laws no more firearms license for carrying a weapon was needed for certain groups within the Nazi party.
The assassination of a prominent Nazi (Ernst vom Rath by a Jew on November 1938 was used by the Nazi regime as a pretext for the November pogrom (Reichskristallnacht). This was done witout any risk because at this time the Jews had been completely disarmed.
“Als erste zivilisierte Nation haben wir ein Waffenregistrierungsgesetz. Unsere Straßen werden dadurch sicherer werden; unsere Polizei wird effizienter und die Welt wird unserem Beispiel in die Zukunft folgen!”
(Adolf Hitler, Reichsparteitag am 15. 09.1935)
Sources:
Stephen P. Halbrook: Das Nazi-Waffengesetz und die Entwaffnung der deutschen Juden. In: Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitschrift, Nr. 12, Dezember 2001
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/law_review_articles/entwaffnung.pdf
Joachim Steindorf: Kurzkommentar zum Waffenrecht, Verlag C.H. Beck 1999.
Wolf Gruner: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Band 2: Deutsches Reich 1938 – August 1939. München 2009
NO one said htiler didint take the guns from the Jews. Just that he didnt take them from the German population.
How would any of you like your freedom of speech taken away? The out right lies and disinformation in this whole post is damaging. Not in a way like a gun killing someone but damaging. Dont get information from a history book, or the news, or the internet, they are good refrences but not 100% true, if you think they are then this post is not for you because you are already a lost sheep. The gun ban talk boils down to this, if you dont want rights like freedom of speech, or many others taken away then dont open the door by letting the government take other rights like guns. Ronald Regan was shot by a mentally unstable person yet he was a defender of the second amendment. Crazy people do crazy things, its going to happen wether they have guns or not. John Gasey, Green river killer, Timothy Mcvey, Ted bundy, and so on and so on, none of which had guns. Some people like to bring up George Zimmerman as a “good person” that killed becouse of a gun, well guess what, he wasnt diagnosed but there is strong evidence of paranoia, so even undiagnosed mental problems can lead to this type of incident. That should not be a basis for taking or banning guns from sane and responsible people. I do not own an assault riffle but I do have guns and have been hunting since I was a small child and I was taught to handle them and respect them. Which brings us to the lack of respect for others and life that whole generations seem to have now, especially in this country. P.O P. I respect your opinion on guns but it is exactly that an opinion, not facts. You should also respect others opinions even if they differ from yours!!
I’m not sure what leads you to think that my comments are merely opinion, or that I don’t respect what other people have to say, but in any case thanks for your two cents’ worth.
“Dont get information from a history book, or the news, or the internet, they are good refrences but not 100% true, if you think they are then this post is not for you because you are already a lost sheep.”
Ha. Where are we supposed to get information from? Divine inspiration? Listening to lunatics like you? Going into a trance and being transported to ancient times when the events took place?
As a non American I’ve read about as much as I can stomach of this, mostly with a sense of increasing awe. Is this the country that once led the world in technology, spawned many of the world’s greatest artists, performers, cineastes, composers et al?
The patent lack of education in many of these replies is staggering. Has blind acceptance of snake oil selling preachers now usurped the quest for learning?
A European , Asian or African child of ten would collapse in hysterical laughter at 90% of the verbiage used here. For the simple reason that you are mostly too stupid to understand how under informed you really are.
P.O.P., you are quickly becoming somebody I look up to. I wish I could speak these things as eloquently as you.
Thanks, appreciate it.
All these brilliant remarks and there not one thing you can do about any of it, nothing!
“But the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts.”
Exactly, which is why we need to be allowed to arm ourselves with assault rifles. You unwittingly make the gun rights case.
Not really. There will always be someone with bigger and more toys. You want tanks to go with that? Nuclear weapons?
The idea is for the individuals to be able to protect themselves and narrow the gap; when an armed agent or two or four of government comes to take you or your family away or off you on the spot, nuclear weapons cannot save you. Assault weapons can. I’ll defer discussing whether an individual should be able to own a tank until I’ve thought about it more-though it doesn’t seem all that unreasonable quite frankly-why limit the control of tanks to government employees and exclude qualified civilians? Deciding who is armed based merely on where there paycheck comes strikes me as irrational, and contrary to the human experience; democide has killed a lot more people than civilian maniacs have.
It’s not a matter of deciding who is armed. It’s a matter of recognizing that your rationale for being armed is totally unrealistic.
Hitler and the Nazis apparently thought it was realistic that Jews would be able to substantially defend themselves and inflict casualties on the Nazis; if the Nazis thought it wasn’t realistic, they wouldn’t have taken the guns away.
One thing I’ve noticed about controllers is that they tend to be fixated on the idea that the individual right to bear arms and defend oneself is the same thing as civilian insurrection. They are not. I by no means posit that the Jews would have defeated the Nazis in some sort of collective armed action, though I of course can’t rule out that several million armed individuals could make a substantial difference as we recently saw in Libya. That, however, is a different question than whether weapons in the hands of civilians can help them save themselves and get to safety. I should also note its also a different question than deterrence.
DirkJohanson says:
January 18, 2013 at 2:51 pm
The idea is for the individuals to be able to protect themselves and narrow the gap; when an armed agent or two or four of government comes to take you or your family away or off you on the spot, nuclear weapons cannot save you. Assault weapons can.
–Really? Ever watch Cops? You think one or 2 armed agents are just going to “come” as though you’d invited them for tea? What is a rifle or shotgun going to do except get you killed? How much warning were you planning on having, anyway? We have more than simply squads of highly trained, armored men with superior firepower to come get you. We have flying robot assassins. We have battlefield robots. If the army came for you, it won’t be like you have any inkling until a flash-bang grenade bursts in your living room. They have snipers. But…
The closest we’ve ever, EVER come to the government making any kind of statement that they would engage in “coming for us” was under Bush, when he recalled the 1st Div to the States for “crowd control.” The closest we have ever, EVER, come to “gun grabbing” has been under Republican leadership. Reagan signed the very first “assault weapons” ban. HCI was formed by Sarah Brady and is still headed up by Republicans. The Brady Bill is a Republican creature.
The most you can hope for is to conduct some kind of stand off operation to buy your family time to get out. That’s if you have warning, an escape plan, a solid understanding of SWAT or infantry tactics, and most importantly, if you are never standing down yourself. But you are welcome to dress up like a toy soldier, carry a weird manifestation of your manhood in your own home, and stand a 24-hour sentry for things that will never happen. Good luck with the wife and kids with that. We have a Constitution for a reason: to preserve domestic tranquility.
Ah, cyprian66 – here you go, another liberal who can’t conceive of a scenario other than the entire United States army coming for one guy and his family.
When the Nazis rounded up the Jews, typically they were told by letter to assemble at the train station. I recently read a lengthy historical account of the attempted, and largely unsuccessful, rounding-up in Vichy France, which turned out to be quite an ordeal because for the most part, the French would have none of it.
Me thinks you need to watch a little less TV. You also apparently are unfamiliar with laws in the south which prohibited African Americans from owning guns, with the experience of First Peoples, and with Waco.
BTW, I don’t own a gun, and my use of a gun in my entire life has consistent of about an hour on a firing range – I don’t see an immediate need. But keep mocking those that disagree with you – by doing so, you are, like the author of the article, doing a better job making the case for individual ownership of effective weaponry than I ever could.
what a laundry list of erroneous assumptions. You put yourself up for mockery by all of these assumbtions about me, wihout refuting anything I have said. I did not state that “the entire US Army” would come after you. I did state a counter to your statement that it would be a handful of govenernment agents. You seem to be completely, completely unaware of how warrants are served. Dog the Bounty Hunter makes more forceful entries than the ones you seem to be fantasizing about.
Having said that: I am familiar with TV. That doesn’t make me a chronic TV watcher. My knowledge of shows is very limited. I don’t own a TV. I spend my time reading. Nothing I have said indicates a lack of my awareness of Waco, or of the gun control act of 1969, etc. I study these things not solely bec I get in these debates, but also simply bec I “assign homework” to myself in the form of the things I like to read, which are philosphy and history. I have shown no ignorance of the things you have accused me of being ignorant of, and I don’t do the things that you seem to judge that I do based on my one rather un-insightful post which was simply addressing one very specific thing. But you go right on ahead and continue to make your strawman statements about me which only show your inability to read between the lines or extract information which is freely available to you in my posts and in my blog. You have no idea of my experience or what I believe, and you still seem to be clinging to a fantasy about fending off the government, which Tom address in much more insightful terms than I have. I see that you offer him only simplistic, strawman arguments to him as well.
Be honest about what you’re advocating, DirkJohanson. You aren’t simply suggesting that individuals should be allowed to arm themselves (which I don’t have a serious problem with subject to sensible licensing, registration and insurance like we have with automobiles, for example.) You are suggesting that there should be no lawful government at all. You are saying that all power is and should remain force of arms, and rejecting the single most important principle that underlies the entire American experiment: Rule of Law, that disputes should be resolved by principled discourse and reason, and that force should only be available to the state, and even then subject to very strict limits of law.
You are rejecting the very notion of the state, which is defined by scholars variously but almost always includes a legal monopoly on the use of force. When you suggest that individuals should have the capacity to forcibly repel lawful attempts to repel them, you are denying that there can even exist a lawful arrest; there is only a successful exercise of military force and an unsuccessful exercise. The state is entitled to arrest you if they send enough soldiers to take you out, and not if they don’t. But this same rule applies to anyone else; anyone well-armed enough to take you out, is entitled to do so regardless of moral or legal justification.
There are only two games to choose from here. Rule of Law, and Rule of Arms. Rule of Arms includes both anarchy and despotism, because invariably the best equipped and best organized faction ends up imposing its will on everyone else. You can see the world through that Maoist lens if you wish, but you essentially surrender any moral claim when you do, because you reject any relevance of moral or legal force when you embrace Might Makes Right. You will never be mighty enough to stop the State from imposing its will upon you, but under Rule of Law, that might is restrained.
I know people who are gun enthusiasts who are constantly denouncing the police — any police — as consistently evil, incompetent and corrupt, and urging resistance and noncompliance with police action as a matter of principle. I find that attitude, especially when espoused by gun lovers, much scarier than the admitted occasional abuses that some police personnel are guilty of.
“I know people who are gun enthusiasts who are constantly denouncing the police — any police — as consistently evil, incompetent and corrupt…”
If that is true (and all too often it is,) then it is our responsibility as citizens to reform them, and weed out those who are incorrigible, so they can perform their very necessary function, not to kill them.
Not really, Tom. I’ve written nothing, and advocate nothing, of the sort. You are stunningly dishonest to even imply that out of nothing. I’m one of the most ardent supporters of the language of the constitution I know.
What I am saying is that ultimately, when a government goes haywire and becomes tyrannical, the ultimate power is the power of the gun. Because no amount of naivete by those that worship at the altar of big government negates the fact that it is.
You write about my words, “When you suggest that individuals should have the capacity to forcibly repel lawful attempts to repel them” Of course, I didn’t write that, so your comment, which is essentially an elaboration of that baseless assertion, is thoroughly off-base.
That having been said, it is of course possible for even lawful exercises of government power to be so over the top that they merit armed resistance, though I personally do not see how that is possible under our constitution as it reads and exists today.
Tom, very well put.
Speaking of scary, are you familiar with L. Neil Smith?
If not, here are some links to get acquainted:
http://www.lneilsmith.org/
http://www.lneilsmith.org/lns_speeches.html
http://down-with-power.com/lever_action/07_leveract.html
http://down-with-power.com/
http://www.ncc-1776.org/
Wow
Yes, Mr. Smith is certainly … interesting. His first novel, written in the late 70′s, predicted that sometime soon (for that time) the US would be taken over by an ecofascist green party. To my knowledge he’s never admitted his mistake, but he continues to write pessimistic essays predicting the imminent takeover of the US by “collectivist” forces both domestic and foreign. Here’s his vision of that apocalyptic scenario:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2011/tle609-20110306-02.html
He claims to be a libertarian, which he defines very narrowly:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/whoislib.html
but he skirts the edge of calling for armed insurrection so closely that one almost cringes in expectation that he will one day inadvertently fall off.
If I have misrepresented your views, Dirk, I apologize, but I can see no other way to parse what you wrote. You said, “The idea is for the individuals to be able to protect themselves and narrow the gap; when an armed agent or two or four of government comes to take you or your family away or off you on the spot, nuclear weapons cannot save you. Assault weapons can.”
How else can a reasonable person read that but as advocating a right for people to resist the government with force? When the armed government agents come to the door, the lawful response is to go peacefully, not to shoot them. Yes, I am well aware that the government ought not to be trusted; that’s why we have law, and checks and balances, and procedure. And yes, I know that these measures can fail and governments can (and often do) do unjust and unlawful things.
I do not worship at the altar of big government, nor do I put my trust in the idol of the gun. Without Law, they are ultimately the same thing, and neither deserve nor need our faith. But Law does. Law works only if we all collectively agree to embrace its principles and abide by its requirements, and that requires us to invest our faith in it. (Here I mean faith, and NOT belief; I may well believe the government is corrupt, but to act in good faith I must act AS IF it is lawful regardless of my doubts.) We can never have law if we don’t make that leap of faith, and cede our right to use violence.
Tom,
At a certain level of tyranny, individuals may have to turn to the use of force against governmental agents to save their lives and such and I fully back their right to do so and don’t think I’ve claimed otherwise. What I objected to about your post was something different.
I am not advocating that individuals use force against any governmental agent that oversteps his or her bounds in some minor way on isolated occasions and/or when there are real procedures in place for reversal of the improper act and possible redress, merely when a government goes haywire. Unfortunately, that has happened a lot. Something like 270 million people were murdered by their own governments in the 20th century, far more than have been killed in the recent spat of horrific mass murders. It seems to me that too many people feel like “it can’t happen here.” I hooe those people are right – maybe it never will – but my preference is better safe than sorry. A lot of people never thought about New York City getting hit with a major hurricane. S*&t happens.
Of course. At a certain level of tyranny, all bets are off, and principles of law no longer apply. You do what you have to to survive in that case, and hopefully throw out the regime. But “better safe than sorry” is a delusion; privately owned guns are no more protection against a tyrannical government than tightly-wound blanket is against a real monster in the closet, if such a creature were to actually exist. There just IS no safety in such a scenario; you fight with what you have available, and try to get better resources by any means you can, whether that be the hunting rifle in the attic or ambushing a supply convoy.
As I have said before, I am not arguing for total bans, because there are legitimate reasons to own firearms. But having them FOR USE AGAINST THE STATE is by definition an illegitimate purpose. There is not and can never be a legal right to take up arms against the state. There may be a PRACTICAL necessity, but if it ever comes to that, law has already long ceased to be a consideration. The state has no obligation to facilitate its own overthrow by permitting weapons for that purpose, and it undermines the whole reason to have a constitution to enshrine a right of violent resistance to it. A right to bear arms? Sure, no problem. But a right to bear arms agains the state? This is a legal and logical oxymoron.
Tom, By writing “The state has no obligation to facilitate its own overthrow ” you evidence a very static viewpoint of what “the state” is. The Framers believed, I believe wisely, that as admirable for the times as what they founded was, that it could also change for the worse. When they enacted the Second Amendment, they did so as representatives of the people, not the institution of government. They weren’t seeking to preserve that institution even if it devolved into something so disconnected from what they intended that it was merely nominally what they had founded.
I’m not the biggest fan of legislative history as a guide to its meaning, and can’t rule out that there were other viewpoints among the framers at the time, but certainly many statements of the founders evidence that this was there intent. Quoting from wikipedia:
Noah Webster::
Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.[81][8
George Mason: "to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them . . . by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." He also clarified that under prevailing practice the militia included all people, rich and poor. "Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."
Patrick Henry:
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.[85]
James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” He assured his fellow citizens that they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed….”[81][86]
It should also be born in mind that every other amendment in the Bill of Rights is patently protective of individual rights against the state.
“James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” He assured his fellow citizens that they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed….”
Wrong. As usual, a grossly out of context excerpt. Here it is in a little more context:
Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned”
Madison states clearly that he does not believe that it was the lack of arms that prevented Europeans from languishing under monarchies. This is stated only a couple of sentences after the remark quoted above, but it has been ignored.
At the beginning of this Federalist paper Madison makes the following remarks:
“The federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers, and designed for different purposes. The adversaries of the Constitution seem…to have viewed these different establishments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies, but as uncontrolled by any common superior in their efforts to usurp the authorities of each other. These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error. ”
Again affirming that Madison here, as others in other Federalist Papers, rejects the notion of the militia as a weapon against the Federal government. I need hardly remark that the entire program of American Conservatism is based on a pack of lies and distortions. It won’t surprise anyone that this is just one more little addition to that record.
I’m sorry, Green Eagle, but reading your comment, it appears quite clear to me that you are saying one thing and James Madison is saying another.
In the first paragraph, he is advocating that, in addition to private arms, that local governments have their own military forces. He closes the paragraph stating that were it the case that the people of Europe had both sets of force at their disposal (i.e., both private arms and local government arms) that they could shake the central government’s tyranny. In the United States, as I’m sure you know, the central government is the federal government.
His second paragraph merely makes the point that just because local government and the central government serve as checks and balances to each other, that does not make them enemies or rivals. Of course, as per his first paragraph, it certainly was apparent to him that they could theoretically end up being enemies or rivals, and it was patently his hope that by empowering local government, and that adding empowered local government to an already-empowered individual populace would serve as a deterrent to the exercise of the use federal power against the people.
Sorry, can’t be bothered to respond to your quibbling.
Mr. Cantine:
You might want to read these articles:
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/FinkelmanChicago.htm
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/SpitzerChicago.htm
They address many of the points Mr. Johanson has, particularly the “right of revolution” and the use of quotes to support an individualist interpretation. In the second link, the author says this in one of his footnotes:
36. Much of this line of analysis relies on supporting quotes accidentally or willfully pulled out of context that, when examined in context, support the Court’s view. To pick an example, Stephen P. Halbrook quotes Patrick Henry’s words during the Virginia Ratifying Convention as saying, “The great object is, that every man be armed … . Every one who is able may have a gun.” Stephen P. Halbrook, To Keep and Bear Their Private Arms: The Adoption of the Second Amendment, 1787-1791, 10 N. Ky. L. Rev. 24, 25 (1982). This quote would seem to support the view that at least some early leaders advocated general popular armament aside from militia purposes. Yet here is the full quote from the original debates:
May we not discipline and arm them [the states], as well as Congress, if the power be concurrent? so that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, &c; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed. But can the people afford to pay for double sets of arms, &c? Every one who is able may have a gun. But we have learned, by experience, that, necessary as it is to have arms, and though our Assembly has, by a succession of laws for many years, endeavored to have the militia completely armed, it is still far from being the case.
3 Jonathan Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 386 (1836) (emphasis added). It is perfectly obvious that Henry’s comments are in the context of a discussion of the militia and the power balance between the states and Congress. Numerous other such examples as this can be found; space limits constrain the presentation of additional illustrations. Garry Wills’s conclusion about this literature is less charitable. Speaking about the individualist writers, he says that “it is the quality of their arguments that makes them hard to take seriously.” Garry Wills, Why We Have No Right to Keep and Bear Arms, N.Y. Rev. Books, Sept. 21, 1995, at 62.
=====
Though many Founding Fathers were Antifederalists who believed in an individual right to gun ownership, the vast majority of such quotes are actually referring to militias, not an armed citizenry.
It may be worth referring to the actual text of the 2nd Amendment. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Note what a well-regulated militia is necessary to: the SECURITY of a free state. It takes a rather strenuous and contrived reading to interpret that as “the overthrow of a tyrannical state”. They had already fought to overthrow a tyrannical state; the purpose of a constitution was to establish a state they would not need to overthrow. And if they DID ever come to need to overthrow it, they wouldn’t need a constitutional right to do so.
First of all, the framers did not want to be overthrowing a state. The goal was a structure of checks and balances so it would never be necessary. You state that they wouldn’t need a constitutional amendment to overthrow a tyrannical government should it ever occur, but in fact, the Second Amendment allows people to be armed so that if the day should come, they are able to do so since they are already armed and are not defenseless lambs waiting to be culled.
As far as your assertion that gun ownership was limited to governmental militias, the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States disagrees with you. Reading from the Heller decision:
The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause. The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose. The Amendment could be rephrased, “Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keepand bear Arms shall not be infringed.” See J. Tiffany, A Treatise on Government and Constitutional Law §585,
p. 394 (1867); Brief for Professors of Linguistics and English as Amici Curiae 3 (hereinafter Linguists’ Brief).Although this structure of the Second Amendment is unique in our Constitution, other legal documents of the founding era, particularly individual-rights provisions of state constitutions, commonly included a prefatory statement of purpose. See generally Volokh, The CommonplaceSecond Amendment, 73 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 793, 814–821
…
The discussion of this clause continues on for several pages in the decision and concludes that the right to bear arms is an individual right, not limited to members of governmental militias.
“The discussion of this clause continues on for several pages in the decision and concludes that the right to bear arms is an individual right, not limited to members of governmental militias.”
Funny, you are willing to rely on the right wing “scholar” Volokh, rather than the clear statements to the contrary in the Federalist Papers, written by the authors of the second amendment.
We discussed two statements from the Federalist Papers yesterday which you presented; with all due respect, you are reading them wrong. If you believe there is another, please present it.
It also bears mentioning to construe the10th amendment with the second, since they were both adopted at the same time.
the 10th states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, OR to the people.”
Clearly, “the States” and “the people” were two different things to the Framers. Thus, when the 2nd amendment states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” it is unreasonable to assume that the word “state” and “people” be used interchangeably. Not only should one presume that different words mean different things within a single sentence, but the tenth amendment makes that distinction even clearer.
It is also worth noting that the Constitution defines insurrection as treason and grants Congress the power to suppress it using the militias. This was before the 2nd Am was even written, much less ratified.
I never said anything about in whom the right to bear arms was vested. While there can be some ambiguity about what that denotes (criminal cases are, in some states at least, styled “The People v. John Doe”), I’m not taking issue with an individual right to be armed. We’re talking about the reasons why such a right should be enshrined.
I need to make clear here that the original intent is not, to my mind, an exhaustive answer to the question, though it deserves some weight. Nor is the position of SCOTUS the answer for now until the end of time, although it is of course the law of the land until it is reversed or a constitutional amendment is passed. (Virtually no one today believes the Dred Scott decision was correct, after all.) Court decisions, even legally correct ones, are part of an ongoing dialogue, and the legislative branch may choose to change the law as circumstances change.
So even if the framers actually intended for the 2nd Amendment to preserve the people’s ability to overthrow the government if it became too corrupt, we are within our rights to review that justification and reject it if it turns out to be inappropriate to our modern circumstances. Personally, I don’t think we need to go that far; giving the framers credit for some wisdom, we should assume they would have understood that no constitution should be written so as to sacrifice the welfare and stability of the regime it contemplates for the ability of people to overthrow some other future tyranny that might arise after the constitution itself has ceased to have meaning. You write a constitution for the benefit of the people who will live under it, not for the regime that follows after it has failed. They were not Hari Seldon.
Tom, I’m pretty sure I agree with everything in the first two paragraphs of your previous comment, and while there were almost certainly a variety of opinions at the time as there usually are, what the framers memorialized was not the delusion that they had performed a perfect union, but merely a “more perfect union” as the preamble to the Constitution states.
Thomas Jefferson is notably on record as assuming there would be future insurrections. See http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/The_tree_of_liberty…%28Quotation%29
“…We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure… – Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787[2]
Did you somehow forget the biggest insurrection in our History with over 500k casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Act_of_1862
Did you ever wonder why they all were called by the state they were from instead of the way the Army is today with soldiers mixed from all different states? It was because they were Militias raised from the populations of their respective states. How could you miss that?
ItS impertinent; there’s always been an individual right to bear arms
It wasnt just a right, it was a requirement for every male age 18 to 45 and they were required to provide their own firearm, bullets, powder and flints Etc. as any of them could be called up into the militia at any time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792
Here is an alternative view of the meaning of “The Tree of Liberty” quote, suggesting that TJ’s beliefs were far more nuanced than discussed herein, and that they evolved over time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/thomas-jefferson-and-the_b_273800.html
The full text of the letter:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96oct/obrien/blood.htm
A scholarly article on what TJ wrote and said about arms, militias, and insurrection in their historical contexts:
http://www.albanygovernmentlawreview.org/articles/1_2_250-291.pdf
Propaganda Professor: This is an excellent blog entry. I feel the need, however, give you an editorial note that will help make it more accurate: “Nazi” is not an acronym and should not be written in all-caps. Neither in German nor English is anything but the first letter capitalized.
Yes, you’re right. Nazi is what I call (and I believe I coined this term) a quasi-acronym. Which is to say it’s an abbreviation that represents more than one word. So my using all caps is a stylistic quirk of mine to indicate that, though I’ve decided to stop doing it because it causes confusion. Technically, if it were an acronym, I’d probably put periods after the letters.
Incidentally, many people (including yours truly) have been known to refer to Nazi as an acronym even when they know it’s not — see, for example, Wikipedia. It’s usually more a case of broadening the application of the word than of not understanding its strict meaning.
We were not “designed” to be strict vegetarians. How do I know this? Because we have a brain that can question and explore, figure out how to kill and cook, and in other respects transcend limitations of our anatomy. It’s like saying we should all do it missionary style because we have 2 feet instead of 4, or that we should worship rocks because we can’t touch the moon.
I guess a lot of pro-gun/conservative folks presume to know something about each other, when they obviously don’t…I am pro-2nd ammendment, I personally think that everyone should open carry (provided training, and they aren’t a criminal, etc, etc), I served my country in multiple conflicts on the front lines and am a bronze star and multiple ARCOM’s w/valor device recipient, and continue to serve today. I am an atheist, I have stared death in the face many times over and had no need to look to god (there are no atheists in fox-holes, my ass), or felt that he was in any way helping me. But I support everyone else’s freedom of religion, I don’t care if you post a statue of the ten commandments (but don’t get butt hurt when someone wants to put up a big ass Buddha statue), I don’t care if your kids pray in school (my kids pray in school too of their own choice, because I want them to make their own decision about where they believe or not). The article above is posted filled with facts, for anyone that has actually studied historical fact (and not philosophic discussion on what hitler “intended”, since actions and/or recorded words are the only thing that are measurable in time and space). The below are the “outrageous” gun restrictions that have been put in place so far (literally nothing new preventing you from doing anything you couldn’t legally do before…these are just common sense damn good idea’s)
“The announcement is over, and Obama is signing the 23 executive actions. These actions are in addition to laws that Obama wants Congress to pass. Here, according to the White House, are the 23 executive actions that he and his administration will do:
1. “Issue a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.”
2. “Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.”
3. “Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.”
4. “Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.”
5. “Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.”
6. “Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.”
7. “Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.”
8. “Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).”
9. “Issue a presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.”
10. “Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.”
11. “Nominate an ATF director.”
12. “Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.”
13. “Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.”
14. “Issue a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.”
15. “Direct the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.”
16. “Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.”
17. “Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.”
18. “Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.”
19. “Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.”
20. “Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.”
21. “Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.”"
22. “Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.”
23. “Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.”
“Direct the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.”
Does this include Mexican Drug cartels who killed over 300 Mexican nationals with guns given to them under the direction of Eric Holder? Over 1400 of those guns were never recovered, two were found at the location of the murder of a US Border Patrol agent, and now he’s sitting on an Executive Committee to find ways to “take peoples Second Amendment rights away”?
Eric Holder and Obama have always been against the Second Amendment, because they disagree with private gun ownership. I know Obama says he “supports the Second Amendment,” but his record as Senator of Illinois completely contradicts this, as does his intention to “find ways to restrict gun ownership.” Eric Holder was asked by Obama in 2011 to study ways to end gun ownership in this country, before any of these mass shootings. Holder launched a campaign years ago to–in his own words–try to “BRAINWASH PEOPLE” into thinking guns are evil.
The Obama administration has one plan, and that is the COMPLETE disarmament of the American people in accordance with UN Treaty (U.S. Department of State Department of State Publication 7277. Of course, they know this will cause widespread outrage, and what better way to extinguish that then to propagate a lie that 20 “five and six” year old kids were killed! One of the girls who was supposedly killed had her picture taken with Obama the day after it happened. The memorial website which was set up by her father was done so “four days” before it happened. There really is a great deal that just doesn’t make sense about the entire incident! Just look on youtube! There’s parents of the victims laughing and it really looks STAGED!!!
Maybe that laughing parent belongs in the same mental institution that Adam Lanza should have been in.
[...] where the quote is being debunked and making people using it look like hicks and hillbillies. http://propagandaprofessor.net/2011/09/26/the-myth-of-hitlers-gun-ban/ Like I wrote earlier, I don't lie. Peace favor your sword, Kirk __________________ Banned [...]
The US Civil rights movement did not start to succeed until the minorities started collectively exercising their 2nd amendment rights, and challenging state laws meant to disarm them.
(easily researched, but this is a good prep article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/1/)
Even Martin Luther King Jr applied for a concealed weapons permit (and was denied, because the states did NOT want the minorities armed.)
And as for “well regulated militia,” diagram the sentence- The subject is “the right” the predicate is “shall not be infringed. The first part of the sentence is a nominative absolute- meaning that it cannot exist unless the rest of the sentence is satisfied. In short, the people are the militia by default.
Thalia, I’d like to voice some friendly disagreement. The prevailing thought on the first clause – and historically supported by the words of one of its main proponents, George Mason – is that since since an armed militia under the auspices of government is a reality of life, individual people should be able to have arms as a counterweight the militia’s arms.
Correct- the people have the right, as a check against the government (since the constitution is all about checks and balances.) Many of the federalist papers explain it quite well. It’s really not such a confusing amendment when it is diagrammed like we were taught in grade school.
Funny you mention diagramming, Thalia, since just yesterday, I posted on Facebook a couple of excerpts from the constitution to demonstrate the point of how easy it is to read and understand if you merely eliminate the mid-sentence capitalizations of proper nouns, change the format to an outline from a narrative, and add some white space.
I meant “common” nouns in my previous comment, no proper ones.
Thalia, you are a liar. The Federalist Papers say no such thing; in fact that notion is specifically repudiated in the Federalist Papers. At this point, I do not give gun nuts like you the benefit of the doubt. You know perfectly well what the Federalist Papers say.
#28, #29, #46…. quite a few others…. you might want to re read them.
In that case, you must be a (arguably white) male between 17 and 42.
Question? Would it not be wise to enact a bill/law (what have you) that all who wish to possess a gun would have to take & pass a course & test, both written & physical before legally purchasing, with a license? Just as you would have to in order to drive a vehicle. Couldn’t you even go further by having even more specific courses & tests per the type of weapon & licensure? Just as you must in order to drive a bus or other heavy machinery? Now, I fully admit that I am not learned in this subject what so ever, but I thought I would throw it out here & see what kind of response it would emit.
In several European countries it is a crime to question the official story of Hitler and the Holocaust. If you question the official state story of Hitler, or question any of the details the state has published as fact, you will go to prison. If they have to threaten people with a prison sentence for questioning details about Hitler and the Holocaust, then there must be something wrong with the official story. I suppose we have freedom of speech, except of course, evilnaziswhowanttokillsixmillionjews who would dare question official government propaganda. Ernst Zundel was sent to prison for questioning the official version of the holocaust. Then Ernst Zundel’s defense lawyer was also sent to prison for defending him at trial. If the official story of Hitler is true, why do they need a prison sentence for anyone who questions it? Does sending people to prison for questioning something, make it true? All I know for sure is that if they are imprisoning people for questioning a sacred cow, there must be something wrong with the official story. What are the powers-that-be trying to hide about Adolf Hitler? Why do they not want anyone questioning the official story of Adolf Hitler?
VV, fortunately for you, you have no clue about the Holocaust, you have not been touched by it, directly or indirectly.
“All I know for sure is that if they are imprisoning people for questioning a sacred cow, there must be something wrong with the official story.”
You are wrong here. The “official” story, the unfortunately true story, is that the Nazis enacted discriminatory measures against the Jews and other minorities, in Germany first, then in the countries they occupied. These measures soon were followed by internment, then extermination. Men, women, children. People, just like you.
In France it is an offense to question the existence or size of the crimes against humanity. Also illegal is incitement to racial, sexual and religious hatred.
It is not because the “official story” is a “sacred cow”, it is because denying the existence of a crime against humanity is an insult to the victims, and a way to attack them and their descendants.
Other places, other laws, other customs.
@James: Are you serious? “God has a disdain for swords.” And, if people were really following the words of Jesus, “The NRA would lose all of its members”? First of all, the Bible states that “David was a man after God’s own heart,” and it’s also said that “King Saul killed his thousands, bud David his TEN thousands.” And to imply one cannot be a Christian and still support ownership of guns as afforded to them under the Second Amendment to the US Constitution is an argument that is flat on its face! People use guns for hunting, recreational shooting, and to defend themselves. I know, you think Christians aren’t suppose to defend themselves, right? How do you justify Jesus telling his disciples before they set out on dangerous journeys, “if you do not own a sword, sell your coat and buy one”?
Of course, swords were the weapons of choice then, and many were killed by them in the Old Testament under God’s direction–as when he instructed King Saul to kill ALL the Amalekites and leave not one alive! Saul’s army easily defeated the Amalekites, so he spared their king, and for this reason God regretted making him king, and Saul was stripped of the kingdom, and the kingdom was given to David. I’m not saying violence is appropriate for Christians, or that God wishes us to kill. I’m merely trying to point out that as scripture states, “there is a time to kill,” and your statement that “God despised the sword” in order to attack Christians who own guns is inconsistent with scripture, and baseless.
If you choose to be a fascist, and oppose people’s right to bear arms–a right afforded them by the US Constitution–that is your choice, but please refrain from using rhetoric to attack people who are both Christian and gun owners. Hitler did in fact ban Jews and those who weren’t Nationals from owning firearms, which just so happens to be the ones he set out to eradicate from the earth!
“and many were killed by them in the Old Testament under God’s direction–as when he instructed King Saul to kill ALL the Amalekites and leave not one alive!”
…a really good reason to regard this “god” as either a sick fiction or one hell of a Satanic creature.
Jesus Christ, you are one bloody walking red fucking herring.
“Under their reign, Jews were prohibited from owning guns, just as they were prohibited from doing many things.”
Is this not what the fuck people are talking about when they talk about ‘Hitler’s gun ban’?
Nope.
Well said, Annica.
Um… yeah. very perceptive and articulate by the gun culture’s usual standards, I suppose.
Dirk says: “Jesus Christ, you are one bloody walking red fucking herring. “Under their reign, Jews were prohibited from owning guns, just as they were prohibited from doing many things.” Is this not what the fuck people are talking about when they talk about ‘Hitler’s gun ban’?”
As you know perfectly well, Dirk, that is not “what the fuck people are talking about…” The (lying) right wing argument is that Hitler imposed a general gun ban in Germany as part of his seizure of dictatorial power. The truth is, his seizure of power was completed within months of his being named Chancellor in 1933, years before he denied guns to one extremely small segment of the German population. The 1938 law, whatever it contained, had absolutely nothing to do with the rise of the Nazis.
It’s no wonder Christ called the Jews hypocrites. They squawk and squawk about Hitler’s alleged imposition of draconian gun laws in Germany, while they campaign to outlaw guns in America.
More innocent children are murdered every day in abortion slaughter houses than are killed in gun massacres over the course of an entire decade. But the Jews aren’t saying “boo” about that, are they?
Cut “the Jews” nonsense and start looking at people as individuals. Plenty of Jews are against an assault weapons ban, and are against abortion. Here’s a link to Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership: http://jpfo.org/ and another link to a Jewish anti-abortion group. http://jewishprolifefoundation.org/Jewish_Pro-Life_Foundation/Welcome.html
People who want to put other people in prison over whether something is the truth or a lie, when there is no victim or crime, is criminal. Furthermore, the victim industry is one big scam to foist guilt on those who still have a modicum of common sense. As Bill Clinton once said, “We will not tolerate intolerance.” Seems like some people never learn the repetitions of history. Here’s the kicker (if you’re a professing Christian), “If you should believe a lie and have no love of the truth, God will send strong delusion” II Thes. 2:10-11. It should be apparent who is delusional these days.
Thanks, P.O.P.!
You have my respect for intellectual honesty, my admiration for staying calm in front of the most outrageous posts, my envy for using humor so appropriately.
Keep up the good work!
I shall do my best!
Well this article was semi interesting until the author began taking childish stabs at the opposite side alluding to that they are all a bunch of conspiracy theorists….
“And it has become an article of faith among the gun culture that had they been armed, the Holocaust would not have happened (that is, among those members of the gun culture who know that the Holocaust really did happen).”
This author make some (kind of?) valid points, but then decided to write the rest of the article with the logical backing of a dog.
-1/10 Author should not quit his REAL day job.
It is a fact of life that a great many gun fanatics are also conspiracy theorists of many flavors, including Holocaust deniers. You are most welcome to explain how stating facts constitutes “childish stabs”.
[...] from them. Here are, by far, the most widely read and commented upon posts on this blog : (1) The Myth of Hitler’s Gun Ban; (2) Estimating Defensive Gun Uses Reasonably; (3) Make My Day: Mention Gun Defense [...]
A gun is designed to kill. Anyone buying a gun is, in law, in a frame of mind that constitutes mens rea. Pulling the trigger is actus reus. However, there are many cases where mens rea is sufficient to incarcerate a person for life. Discuss….T.
Do you mean there are cases when mens rea ALONE is sufficient to incarcerate a person for life?
Yes, otherwise Guantanamo wouldn’t exist. T.
You need to prove mens rea beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes, the intention to kill is a PLAUSIBLE reason for buying a gun. But there are other plausible reasons as well, sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt that anyone who buys a gun has the mens rea to kill, let alone to kill a human unlawfully. The intention to kill a moose is not inherently unlawful, nor to put down Old Yeller, nor indeed to defend oneself against attack (although I take the position that carrying for self-defense should be discouraged on public policy grounds, and here in Canada it’s often a violation of s.88 of the Criminal Code, possession of a weapon for a purpose dangerous to the public peace).
The contents of the kitchen drawers and the toolshed were the weapons of choice for warfare up to the 16th century when low explosives came into use as propellants for bullets.Now, I can hammer a nail into a bit of wood with the butt of a Glock 17 but it’s a useless hammer since it breaks and splinters half way through the job. So,I must say that he purpose of a Glock 17 9mm Polymer Framed Handgun is not for hammering in nails. Now, what else can I do with it? Oh, right, I can propel a bullet at 1200m/s into the body of someone else. That will hurt them.won’t it? T.
So, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
OK, but so far, I see no evidence of a ‘well regulated militia’ all I see in the US is an unregulated population in posession of lethal weapons that they keep and bear to defend themselves against….well what? A democratic state that will suddenly turn on them? Their neighbors who will attempt to kill them? Hoards of Canadians suddenly coming south to invade Florida? (OK that battle was lost a long time ago). What is the reason to have a handgun or a semi-automatic short barreled rifle? Hobby? Sport? Hunting – hey if you can’t bring it down with the first shot you shouldn’t be hunting with a rifle – maybe a Claymore mine would be better….. I see so many dubious arguments here as to why America needs to spend so much money to so little effect by buying handguns. T.
Er, I think you’ve mistaken my position. I am not advocating unrestricted access to firearms. I’m actually very much in favour of stricter regulations. But we don’t need invalid quasi-legal arguments to support that. I’m not going to accept a silly argument just because I happen to agree with the conclusion. You just don’t establish mens rea to commit murder by the mere fact of someone’s buying a gun.
On the subject of UK/US attitudes: A Scottish guy who is lost in an American city and is slightly drunk, walks up to the back door of a house to ask for directions, as he would have back home in Aberdeen where he came from, and is shot dead by the home owner. What a sad, sad country. A population in fear. No pursuit of life, liberty and happiness here, just a fear of strangers.T.
@Tom Cantine, Then why buy a gun if you don’t intend to use it to kill? There’s no point in waving the bloody thing around just to frighten someone, you could do that with a carving knife. T.
Swords are designed for killing. I own one. I’m probably the best authority on the state of my mind with respect to my intention in owning one, and I know with complete certainty that I do not have it for the purpose of killing people. It is decorative and ceremonial, even though it’s made of real metal and could certainly be used to kill.
Now, admittedly, the testimony of the accused can be viewed with some suspicion when he says he had no intention to kill someone. But I’m not trying to defend myself against a charge here. I’m drawing on my own experience with states of mind to make inferences about the state of mind of someone who buys a gun. Since it’s possible for me to own a sword (a device designed for killing) without my harbouring any intention to kill someone with it ever, I have reasonable doubts about the mens rea of someone who buys a gun.
In some circumstance, of course, the fact of someone’s buying a gun can be evidence of premeditation. If I buy a gun an hour before I show up at your door to accuse you of ruining my life, and then I shoot you, it’s kind of hard to claim I just suddenly lost it; buying the gun was more likely part of preparing to kill you. But without those sorts of circumstances, merely buying a gun is not strong evidence of intention to commit murder.
If you are a college grad. Ask for your money back. They f#%ked you royally.
Men, want to die defending themselves and others instead of in a tank breathing Prussian Blue.
Not hard to understand, unless you have been “enlightened” by the left.
Good guys – Believe in America and her Constitution.
Bad guys – Want to take away some or all of your rights or seriously affect you enjoying those guaranteed rights.
Really very simple.
Everyone is a “good guy” up until…………
You like freedom of movement? Drive your overpowered car down an engineered highway at speeds unsurvivalable?
I like shooting paper targets with a variety of firearms of my liking.
You want your car to have a top speed of 3 MPH and a machette welded to a metal dashboard?
I admit that was a stupid comparison. You car is not a right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Gun ownership can not be infringed.
The “well regulated militia you speak of, is the only reason for “the right of the People to keep and bear arms”
Not hunting, target practice or protection from Indians or daily dangers. Those are only the wonderful byproduct of our Liberty.
SCOTUS and this old hillbilly agree. To protect citizens from oppression, like gun control.
“I came into this world screaming and covered in anothers’ blood, leaving this world the same is not a problem.”
Wow, Spud.
Apparently the Supreme court does NOT believe the right to bear arms cannot be regulated. Not sure what you mean by infringed.
I like the car anology and think it reasonable that cars and guns be treated in similar ways.
I do not think the Foudners considered the possibility that transportation could be banned. If it had occurred to them, i am pretty sure there would have been an amendment in there about the right to ride and/or attach a horse to a carriage.
So “well regulated militia” seems prett clear that the founders did not want ideological paranoid fanatics hoarding tanks, flame throwers, anti aircraft batteries and assorted ordinance.
It seems quite reasonable to me that the rights and responsibilities of owning a car are at least comparable togun ownership, since both can and do cause horrific violent death and destruction to innocent people every day.
SO What say I let you KEEP your armaments, as per the constitution and bill of rights. But you have to geta license to show competence in handling something that can easily kill someone. Register your weapons so that us non paranoid people make sure it is legal, PAy for liability insurance so that us non violent people don’t ahve to pay for the costs of your accidentally or purposefully killing or injuring someone that did NOT invade your home. Then when the muslim socialist government comes to TAKE you guns, you and the 100 million other people who have been patiently waiting to protect us, can kill them dead and save the american way of life.
And tell you what, if they come to take your cars, I will be there behind the barricades with you.
Good read. As a gun owner, I do dislike the constant and tiring spectacle that has become of reasoned debate in this country – each side weilding their own buckets of claptrap…I do however, take umbrage with one line in your article.
“…the concept of a handful of citizens armed with hunting rifles and Saturday night specials fending off an army is delusional hubris peculiar to gun addicts. On American soil, its most glorious day in the sun has been perhaps Waco.”
I would argue that its most glorious day was the revolution…but to each his own
The idea that the Revolutionary War was won by allied bands of armed citizens is a myth. It was won by colonial militias united into organized, disciplined armies by Washington and other commanders, trained and drilled by French and Prussian advisers, and equipped with the latest military hardware from the Dutch, French, and Spanish governments.
Even the victory at Yorktown, which all but ended the war, was achieved because the Americans had a proper European-style army and conducted a proper European-style battle and siege, and because they were reinforced by French army and naval units.
What The Professor is talking about is the modern-day fantasy that disorganized, untrained, undisciplined, unregulated citizens who happen to own guns could engage and defeat a modern army. Especially considering the latter are equipped with WMDs.
As several people here, including myself, have pointed out, Mike, the revolution wasn’t fought by just a bunch of armed citizens, but by an organized army. And, though many Americans today like to ignore the fact, they had some crucial assistance — i.e., from the French.
As an American currently living in Europe, it blows my mind to see so much disinformation and the blatant rewriting of history. Ask a German if hitler was conservative or progressive. In the spectrum of political belief Fasicisism is on the right and communism on the left. If a modern day conservative took an honest look at Nazi policies they would find some striking similarities. The German people truly believed that the Jews and Roma were coming in and taking good jobs away from more deserving Germans. What does this sound like? This is just one if many similarities, the list goes on and on like an old sad song. So lets put an end to this silly behavior by ending the copy and paste function’s from our devices. I’m tired of seeing quotes never said. Same goes for the mountains of fake Thomas Jefferson quotes.
“The German people truly believed that the Jews and Roma were coming in and taking good jobs away from more deserving Germans. What does this sound like?”
And so says a liberal about 3 days after the Republicans were forced to make Latino their 2016 front-runner in order to compete with the preference programs and giveaways of the Democrats? What – the presidency isn’t a good job?
Perhaps something from the BBC? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21379912
Interesting. There’s a common tendency among the Second Amendment crowd to cherry-pick those statistics that seemingly show that “gun control doesn’t work”, and to equate correlation with causation. I’ll be addressing this topic more in the future.
For ‘Children’, assume that they are between the ages of five and fifteen years, I think this covers most of the United States in terms of definition. T.
Anyone whom has little understanding of our historic need for weapons to protect ourselves should remember how America was founded… Hello ignorant puppets, open your minds, think for yourselves and cut your strings.
I haven’t heard anybody argue that we need to protect ourselves. I’ve only heard people argue that the average citizen has no reason to own a gun.
The only reason we need to buy a gun is to protect ourselves against people who have guns. Now,write this up on the blackboard 250,000,000 times and come and see me after class! T.
And then of course we need bigger guns to protect ourselves from the people who buy guns to protect themselves against people who have guns. And rocket launchers to protect ourselves against people who buy bigger guns to protect themselves against the people who buy guns to protect themselves from people with guns. Hold on. we’re gonna need a helluva lot more blackboards.
…Or fewer guns. I vote for the latter. By the way, I was robbed at gunpoint a few years back. I gave the robber a phony PIN, so all he got was about $50 in cash & an old purse. The thief was peeved & came back, resulting in his arrest–because he had a concealed gun. Personally, I’d rather lose $50 than take a human life–and/or lose my own in the process; and, by the way, unless the person with the gun is there specifically to kill you, don’t underestimate the power of intelligence, guile & a good watchdog as weapons of defense. So far, I’ve managed to maintain the first two, and I haven’t been without a dog since that incident.
I was mugged at gunpoint once too, and managed to get out of it with my wits. I can’t help suspecting that a great many incidents could be prevented that way. And by exercising more caution in the first place than I did that night.
True Weimar republic created gun laws to comply with the peace treaty of WW1 but Hitler pursue to deny guns rights to everyone suspected to be against his rule. “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.” –Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, Second Edition (1973), Pg. 425-426. Translated by Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens. Introduced and with a new preface by H. R. Trevor-Roper. The original German papers were known as Bormann-Vermerke. A Gun Control Law Passed by the German Government One Day After Kristallnacht.
Nazi Weapons Act of 1938 (Translated to English)
Classified guns for “sporting purposes”.
All citizens who wished to purchase firearms had to register with the Nazi officials and have a background check.
Presumed German citizens were hostile and thereby exempted Nazis from the gun control law.
Gave Nazis unrestricted power to decide what kinds of firearms could, or could not be owned by private persons.
The types of ammunition that were legal were subject to control by bureaucrats.
Juveniles under 18 years could not buy firearms and ammunition.
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.” But under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition.”[4]
The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.[5]
Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.[5]
The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[4]
Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[4]
‘Children’ in this context means a person between 5 and 15 years of age. T.
[...] level of rabidly hateful insanity spewing out of the Second Amendment crowd, my previous post on The Myth of Hitler’s Gun, written more than a year ago, has suddenly been catapulted through the stratosphere, at least by [...]
I’ve now published the first of two follow-ups to this post.
http://propagandaprofessor.net/2013/02/18/more-on-the-myth-of-hitlers-gun-ban-part-1/
The 1938 German Weapons Act
The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law. As under the 1928 law, citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit.” But under the new law:
Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition.”[4]
The legal age at which guns could be purchased was lowered from 20 to 18.[5]
Permits were valid for three years, rather than one year.[5]
The groups of people who were exempt from the acquisition permit requirement expanded. Holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Prior to the 1938 law, only officials of the central government, the states, and employees of the German Reichsbahn Railways were exempted.[4]
Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[4]
Under both the 1928 and 1938 acts, gun manufacturers and dealers were required to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the guns’ serial numbers. These records were to be delivered to a police authority for inspection at the end of each year.
come agian, jews cant have guns, staright forward and the truth, anything else!
On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, promulgated Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived Jews of the right to possess firearms or other weapons
Well, if Jews didn’t have guns we wouldn’t have Gaza eh? T.
It’s amazing how many gun advocates equate self defense with ballistic weapons to be equivalent of some spiritually advanced state of mind. Two of the most pertinent quotes in the Christian Bible include; “Thou Shalt Not Kill”–part of the ten commandments in the old testament and, “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword”–in the Christian New Testament.
If these people had their way, we would have a nation based on a Theocracy, not a free representative government. And, I suggest that if they want to envision a society which revolves around one particular “acceptable” religion, then look no further than the Taliban, and see the future you desire.
It is also ironic how anything that deviates from their own theologies are often feared and criticized without reason. i.e. what is the difference between Karma, and the Christian axiom that we shall all sow what we reap? If you claim to know, then you do not understand that they are exactly the same thing!
I can hear them saying, “you poor misguided fool, Christianity has nothing to do with force–only heathens like Muslims advocate that.”
So, every use of violence by “our” side comes only out of pure self-defense, or by spiritual righteousness! Well I hope Christianity can finally evolve a away from its own forms of violence and fanaticism—best exemplified by the Crusades between the 11th and 13th centuries, and the Spanish inquisition which made sure that only the “right” knowledge was spread.
I love Christ and I love the beauty awe expressed in the love of his teachings, but it is hard to picture the savior waving a sword and screaming, “Death to the infidels!”
What is happening now is a watered down program of repression, suppression and manipulative religious domination, all so wrongly claiming to represent the teachings of Christ!
If certain people want to teach religious doctrines then why not use the venues you have always been free to use in America–your own churches! If you want to teach your children about self defense, in the guise of, a self-righteous gun owners creed, then don’t allow them to read the Bible or think for themselves about what love and truth really mean!
“It’s amazing how many gun advocates equate self defense with ballistic weapons to be equivalent of some spiritually advanced state of mind.”
While this is true, it doesn’t necessarily follow. There is a subset of gun-rights advocates who are libertarian anarchists and reject authority in any form, including religion or God.
For them, self-defense is equivalent to a morally advanced state of mind, one that rejects coercion in any form but especially that derived from force or the threat of force. They call it the non-(or zero-)aggression policy (commonly called ZAP).
What they seek to create is not a theocracy but a stateless society with no government or rulers or even laws, just a free market and contractual volunteerism.
Yes, No stereotype is absolutely NOT true except perhaps the stereotype that all members of a given subset act exactly like the any of the other individuals or groups with the same, or with similar ideologies.
Very clearly and succinctly stated: thank you!
http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/brody%20ghetto.html
The final liquidation of the ghetto occurred on 21 May 1943, in the course of which members of underground organisation opened fire on the Ukrainian policemen and Germans. Several Ukrainians were killed. … in the chaos that ensued, many Jews escaped from the ghetto. Among them were some members of the resistance, led by Weiler. He survived the war in a partisan unit.
I am a bit confused as to why so many people keep posting (usually without comment) snippets about the Jewish resistance. I’m guessing that this is intended to discredit something I’ve stated in this article. It doesn’t.
I served in the United States Marine Corps, in the United States Army, and for years recently as a policeman, at first as a patrolman and later as a Detective. Therefore, I spent decades carrying firearms, and still do.
I was just wondering, does this make me a “gun addict”? Am I part of the “gun culture”? Frankly, I can’t think of anyone who is more “addicted” to guns, and part of “gun culture”, than a Marine, a soldier, or a policeman. Am I right? Surely police officers and military personnel are more ‘in love with guns’, so to speak, than civilians..? It would be difficult to imagine differently.
No more than doctors are addicted to drugs or part of the drug culture.
Personally, I use the term “gun addict” not as a pejorative for gun owners or enthusiasts generally, but as a quasi-clinical description of a particular psychological dependency on guns. That is, people who own or carry guns because it makes them FEEL safer (as distinct from actually making them safer, which guns only do in certain special cases, not the overwhelming majority of ordinary citizens). People who keep guns for sport target shooting or hunting, or as collector’s items, or as family heirlooms, or as fashion accessories, are probably not addicts so long as they feel as safe without their guns as with them.
Since I’ve been persuaded by the statistics that carrying firearms increases overall risk to society (including the individuals carrying the firearms), I tend to think that someone who carries for self-defense is mistaken about the benefits, and therefore a likely candidate for gun addiction. However, the balance of risk and reward is different from person to person, and particularly when it comes to trained police officers. Carrying as part of your job isn’t inherently addictive (though the Kalamazoo police officer vacationing in Calgary last year who complained about how threatened he felt without his gun sounds like he’s addicted), because generally speaking you are aware of and voluntarily assuming added personal risk as part of your job which is to reduce the overall risk to society. It gets a little greyer if you’re no longer on duty, but if your actual purpose in mind is civic-minded intention to act as a reserve cop in emergencies, then it’s probably not addiction. However, in that case, you’re no longer actually carrying for self-defense, because you’re knowingly assuming a GREATER risk.
Thank you for your response. Though thoughtful, your response is faulty on several levels.
Before I get into that, I will say that I, along with most current or former police officers I know, never do anything to “feel” safer– we take action, whether it be carrying a firearm or whatever it might be, to BE safer. Safety has nothing to do with feelings, but reality.
Next, you wrote, regarding carrying firearms — “..as distinct from actually making them safer, which guns only do in certain special cases, not the overwhelming majority of ordinary citizens..” Again, as someone who served as a police officer for years, I ask you, can you please list, using specifics, what these “certain special cases” would be. I will respond to each as you list them. I am very curious to know what these “special situations” are, I am not aware of them at this time.
Next, you wrote– “..Since I’ve been persuaded by the statistics that carrying firearms increases overall risk to society (including the individuals carrying the firearms)”
In response to that, first I will say that, compared to your “persuasion by statistics”, my years of experience, training, investigations of hundreds of actual shootings, and familiarity with statistics, that is– actually having been a police officer, trump it. I grant you that some familiarity with statistics is a pair of sevens, say, in comparison to most peoples’ hands… but, I’m afraid my experience is a royal flush, in comparison. I’m sure you will agree with that. Furthermore, I don’t know a single police officer, current or former, who agrees with your statement. If it were true, then police officers would be safer without firearms than with them… but that’s another topic. (Before you attempt to say that the difference between a police officer and a citizen who has never been a police officer is the officer’s “training”, I will let you in on a fact– all it takes to remain a police officer is to pass a simple course (called the QT) at the pistol range, once or twice a year. During the last years of my service, when I was a Detective, I never wore the uniform, I wore suits to work everyday, and my use of my own pistol was limited to brief practices, and then actually passing the course. Some “training” that is.)
Secondly, I would like to know exactly what these “statistics” are, and where you are finding them. Again, I would like specific references. Most government (FBI) statistics are taken from what are known as IBR’s, or Incident Based Reports, that officers must fill out regarding every incident they encounter, so their departments can forward them to the FBI. As someone who filled out thousands of them, and had to use thousands of them during investigations, I could talk to you for months about IBR’s and their pitfalls, unreliability, etc. If there is another source of “statistics”, I would love to know about it.
Further on, you wrote– “I tend to think that someone who carries for self-defense is mistaken about the benefits, and therefore a likely candidate for gun addiction.” Forgive me, but I am going to question you just as someone who purports to be an “expert witness” is questioned, in order to certify their status as an expert witness, in court. For example, if a witness in court states that a suspect is “insane”, the opposing attorney will ask him to cite his portfolio/qualifications in order to be able to reliably dub someone “insane”. In the same way, in this case, the word “addiction” has a very specific clinical meaning. So I ask you, what are your qualifications to be able to speak about a clinical “addiction” to guns, or to anything else? Are you a psychiatrist? A psychologist? A clinician of any kind? If so, please tell what your training is in, and from what school/institution… do you have an MD? A PhD? A Masters in the subject perhaps…? If you are trained and have studied addiction, especially addiction to firearms, in an academic setting, I would be satisfied and we can talk further about “addiction”. But if this is simply your layman’s opinion of what an “addiction” is, I’m afraid that carries about as much weight in a discussion as “my friend Steve says the defendant is addicted” would have in court.
Your next statement puzzles me– “..generally speaking you are aware of and voluntarily assuming added personal risk as part of your job which is to reduce the overall risk to society.” Unless I am mistaken, you seem to be arguing that “a police officer can effectively use a firearm to protect others (society), but is incapable of protecting himself with that very same firearm”. If that is not what you are saying, I apologize. But if not that, I am at a loss to figure out what exactly you’re trying to put forward. If you are actually attempting to argue that a police officer is able to defend others but not himself, I could write volumes about how ludicrous that is. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Finally, I need to educate you about one point regarding police officers. you wrote– “.. It gets a little greyer if you’re no longer on duty, but if your actual purpose in mind is civic-minded intention to act as a reserve cop in emergencies, then it’s probably not addiction. However, in that case, you’re no longer actually carrying for self-defense, because you’re knowingly assuming a GREATER risk.”
You may not be aware of the fact that most cities, at least in my state, REQUIRE their police officers to carry their badge and firearm, off duty, especially while in their area of Jurisdiction (officers have the ability to arrest for ALL crimes, felonies and misdemeanors, inside their own city, and can arrest/intervene in FELONIES within their entire state, whether on or off duty… this is something many people don’t realize). This requirement has many reasons, but one of the most glaring is liability– imagine if there were an incident in which, say, someone’s child is hurt, or someone is raped/robbed, etc, IN THE PRESENCE OF A POLICE OFFICER, who could not act because he was not armed. There would be (and have been) lawsuits galore against the city, not to mention questions raised about the ability of police officers to protect and defend citizens. Headlines and newspapers, and most judges and juries, for that matter, don’t care if a police officer is on or “off duty”… I’m sure you get the point. Much more importantly, a police officer is an officer 24/7. It is not something one goes “off duty” from (other than while you’re off duty, you aren’t getting paid– pay is hourly) — I lost track of the many, many times I was woken up during my off days to come in to investigate a shooting, or to come in to interview a suspect I took a warrant out on a year earlier, and was just picked up, etc etc. And if an incident takes place, in your presence, especially while you are in your own city, or even state, you are expected to act. On or off duty.
Anyway, I am no longer a police officer, I’m a private investigator attending law school, my intention is to become a prosecutor. But I have a Concealed Carry permit, and I always carry a firearm. Not because I “feel” safer, but because I AM safer.
Finally, I would like to ask what your background is– how long did you serve as a police officer? Did you serve in the military? Any experience or training? Have you ever been involved in incidents involving firearms– either because you’re being threatened, shot at, or have to use it in the course of your day? Basically I am attempting to find what your experience is to be able to state “I tend to think that someone who carries for self-defense is mistaken about the benefits”. It would be difficult for someone who has never carried a firearm or used it to defend themselves or others to know anything useful about its benefits, much less be able to speak about actually using them. Again, forgive me, but this is simply a method used in court to “impeach a witness”– to either certify someone as an expert in the subject matter, or to impeach them, and invalidate them as witnesses who have information germane to the case.
Thank you for your time.
David Vazquez
I have an MA in philosophy, and wrote my thesis on what I called the Detection Principle in rule enforcement, which naturally led me to my next degree, a bachelor of laws. I have in fact practiced criminal law, and at the moment I’m teaching business law.
My involvement in this discussion is more in the capacity of an advocate than a witness. I’m not advancing any particular factual claims on my own authority, and so the attempt to impeach me as a witness is misplaced. What I’ve offered is an argument to be considered on its own merits, namely, the idea that people can become addicted to guns in a similar way to becoming addicted to drugs.
I have said that gun addicts are those who carry guns to FEEL safer. Someone who carries to actually BE safer would not likely be an addict, but we have a problem: someone who FEELS safer (whether he is or not) is likely to insist that he actually IS safer. Now, you might argue that everyone who carries a gun is safer, and thus seek to dismiss my argument that way. I already mentioned having been persuaded by statistics that most people who carry put themselves and others at greater rather than lesser risk. “Responsible” gun owners might not, but there are a lot of people who fancy themselves “responsible” but aren’t: Nancy Lanza, George Zimmerman, Oskar Pistorius are just a few names that come to mind from recent headlines. My reading over the decades has persuaded me that for most people, keeping a gun is more dangerous than not keeping one, on balance. Example source: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/ But I’m not testifying here. If you think everyone (not just people who confront violent criminals for a living) is safer keeping a gun, then you’re free to adduce evidence to that effect.
I would suggest not relying too heavily on your own expert credentials as a former police officer. As an exercise, think about how you would go about impeaching such a witness.
Mr Cantine–
Sorry, I didn’t see that you had responded to my post earlier.
Your background, taken at face value is impressive, at least to me. The “Detection Principle” sounds intriguing, and I’ll be looking it up later.
May I ask in what capacity you practiced criminal law?
To address your specific points:
“Now, you might argue that everyone who carries a gun is safer, and thus seek to dismiss my argument that way.”
I do not argue that. Clearly, people who are insane, who are convicted felons, and people who have been issued what are called Protective Orders in my state (usually for family violence or threats/stalking etc) are not safer with guns, and certainly the pubic wouldn’t be safer. So I must be very careful to point that I never argued that “everyone” who carries a gun is safer.
“there are a lot of people who fancy themselves “responsible” but aren’t: Nancy Lanza, George Zimmerman, Oskar Pistorius are just a few names that come to mind from recent headlines.”
That’s just the trouble– apart from the fact that 2 out of the three weren’t necessarily “irresponsible”– there is no evidence that Nancy Lanza was “irresponsible”, and George Zimmerman’s case is still being adjudicated, which means that we cannot speak of his case with any reliability here.. and as for Pistorius, his alleged crime took place in South Africa, so it has little relevance to the US 2nd Amendment and US law– it is only 3 names, it is not “a lot”.
Allow me to use an analogy. I’m using it because the other day in the course of my work I happened upon a stray cat that had 2 feet on each leg– it had 4 front feet. If I were to see, say, 2 or 3 more cats with this anomaly during the course of my life, would I then be able to state that “a lot” of cats have 4 front feet? One of the courses I recently took (don’t ask why) was Biological Statistics. One of the things we studied was finding out if a group of individuals falling within a certain range exist in a “statistically significant” amount of individuals. Don’t ask me to recite it here, but there is a formula to follow and calculations to make, in order to ascertain this. And to move the analogy into what we’re discussing– and here is where my experience comes in– for every supposed ” responsible gun owner” who out of the blue allegedly shoots someone, I can present, LITERALLY, about 3,000 to 5,000 shooters who are NOT part of that group– in other words, 3,000 to 5,000 shooters who are convicted felons, people with previous stints in jail, drug abusers, mentally unstable people, etc, for every ONE supposed “reponsible gun owner shooter”. And this is further backed up by experience– I challenge you to speak to ANY police officer with more than a few years of experience who will agree with you that the majority of shooters are people who have had no involvement with the law in any capacity prior to the day they shot someone.
I can go on and on with analogies. One of my piglets on my farm is tiny– she is under 5 lbs in weight, and will not reach 18 or 20lbs, ever. However, all of her siblings, and the breed itself, reaches 200 or 300lbs in weight at adulthood. Can we say that the pig that weighs 5lbs is typical of all pigs? No, because the incidence of such pigs is very very low. And the incidence of such pigs, and even the incidence of cats with 4 front paws, is much much higher than the incidence of people who shoot others illegally without any previous indication or involvement with the law. In other words, not statistically significant at all.
One of the things I’ve learned in the Statistics class, and in another class called Genetic Evolution, is that almost any kind of variation of form and behavior that can be imagined, has, is, or will exist at some point. That’s how evolution works– only the most successful variations will continue. But all kinds of wierdnesses exist, to coin a word. And what you are describing is one of those very rare wierdnesses. But that’s what it is, a wierdness, not a common event, and certainly not something to use as ammunition to change the law.
As for the discussion of “addiction” to guns… with all due respect, since neither of us is a trained clinician or psychiatrist or psychologist, I think that discussion about that would be fruitless. it would be like our arguing about the relative strengths of materials used in the Space Shuttle, when neither of us is an engineer. We need to be “certified experts” on the subject, to continue the court analogy.
I’ll be glad to go to the link you provided, and will address it after I’ve read it.
“If you think everyone (not just people who confront violent criminals for a living) is safer keeping a gun..”
I already addressed that. However, you might keep in mind that military personnel don’t “confront violent criminals for a living”, yet are pretty proficient with firearms (at least all Marines are, and some Army… less so for the other branches). Furthermore, as I stated earlier, police don’t necessarily have the greatest training, and there are many non-law enforcement personnel who are much, much better shots than many police are, and are better trained. Also, think of all the literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of individuals who are FORMER law enforcement, and I’m sure you’re not arguing that former law enforcement should not carry weapons.
I’m anxious to see where your “statistics” come from. I am hoping against hope that it’s not based on liberal (in the non-political sense) interpretations of IBR’s… which I’m sure if you practiced criminal law, you are intimately familiar with….
Thanks for your response,
David Vazquez
Thank you, but my background should be of no relevance here. I only mentioned it since you asked. (And in response to your followup, I’ve defended criminal clients. I should also specify that my experience and training is Canadian, which has some notable differences from most U.S. jurisdictions, but we’re all Common Law, and the basic principles tend to be similar.
Now, the reason I said, “…you might argue that everyone who carries a gun is safer” was because that’s really the only option for rejecting the idea of gun addiction outright. For people who are ACTUALLY made safer by guns, feeling safer is not (or at least not completely) illusory. I suppose it could still be carried to an unhealthy extreme, like someone who panics at the absence of a seatbelt on a city bus might be “addicted” to the sense of security seatbelts might give him, but mainly I’m concerned about people who, in the desire to be safer, actually end up putting themselves and others at greater risk.
Now, you grant that there are people whose being armed elevates rather than reduces risk, so we’re on the same page there. The point we disagree over seems to be, how MANY such people are there? I gather you think that they are the exception, and that most “normal” people are made safer by being armed. I tend to think the opposite, that most “normal” people are actually at greater risk for owning weapons, and people who are made safer are the exception. (I’m excluding the military from consideration in all of this, since war is a special case with its own legal, moral, philosophical and tactical problems. However, it’s worth noting that the very distinction of “war” from ordinary civilian life in North America is loaded with assumptions; people in the most lawless and violent areas might not see such a distinction as meaningful.)
In my experience, not just in peace-loving Canada but also for the years I’ve lived in the States, violence has been the exception rather than the rule. No, I’ve never been shot at, but far from that disqualifying as an expert on what it’s “really” like out there, I’d suggest it’s actually fairly representative. MOST people have never been shot at, and most never will be. There has been a dramatic downward trend in violence in the world, and I mean an absolutely STAGGERING drop. In the U.S., the homicide rate is 4.8 per 100,000. That is TINY by historical standards, even if it’s three times higher than Canada and most of Western Europe. Your ACTUAL risk of being attacked and killed by a random stranger is tiny. Yes, I understand, you’ve been shot at by a random stranger, but that doesn’t mean it’s a common occurrence. Lottery winners are not better authorities on probability than those who choose not to buy tickets based on the odds.
The risks associated with keeping a gun include theft or unauthorized use, and accidental or deliberate misuse. I include suicides in this category, or at least some of them, because there are at least a few suicides that would not happen but for the presence of a gun. Not all suicides are the result of careful and determined planning; some are momentary lapses that would be regretted if they didn’t make regretting impossible. There are a lot of ways that keeping a gun can go wrong, and it’s naive to dismiss any of them as “But I would never let THAT happen!” The odds may be small, overall, but they’re not zero.
Are your chances of being hurt as a result of keeping a gun higher than the chances of being a victim of a crime? No, probably not, but that’s not the proper comparison. What we need to look at it is the net difference keeping a gun makes to the overall risk of harm. There are, after all, a whole lot of crimes that a gun is useless to prevent, and the tactical situation of many others is such that you just don’t get a chance to shoot back. So if your base chance of being harmed by crime when you don’t have a gun is A, and your base chance of being harmed by crime when you HAVE a gun is B, and your base risk of being harmed by keeping a gun is C, it’s only actually a net improvement to keep a gun if C(A-B), and so keeping/carrying a gun actually exposes them to greater overall risk. I expect someone can provide some hard statistics on this, but I’m not trying to establish any cold hard facts here. Rather, I’m just trying to explain why I think “gun addiction” is a meaningful concept. People who mistakenly think the gun makes them safer, and who develop unrealistic anxiety about being unarmed, are what I would call addicted. Perhaps not in the strictest clinical sense, but at least in a usefully analogical way: they are unhealthily dependent on something external to make them feel normal.
Tom,
Actually the March-April issue of Mother Jones contains some interesting statistics in regards to many of the issues you and others have been discussing. I suppose some will believe that such a magazine has a liberal bias, but it also has a great reputation for doing top notch Investigative journalism. Some of the most pertinent statistics are:
1. Keeping a gun at home doesn’t make you safer. For every time a gun is used for self defense in a home, 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns and kids happen in the home. 43% of homes that have both guns and kids have at least 1 unlocked firearm.
2.Carrying a gun for self-defense does not make you safer. In 2011 nearly 10 times more people were shot to death in arguments, than by civilians who tried to stop a crime with a gun.
3. After a close look at cases where 1% of gun owner claim to have used one to defend themselves or their property, it was discovered that more than 50% of these involved aggressive use of a gun, which, for example, only escalated an argument.
4. A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4 to 5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.
5.For those who feel they must continue to arm themselves in order to defend themselves against the government, gun owners actually outnumber both the Feds and the cops combined by a ration of 79 to 1. Civilians own 310 million guns already, and, law enforcement agents and the military combined have only 4 million.
Mother Jones goes on to destroy myths about guns and gun use–with 10 different examples of these myths–each, listing several statistics that disprove popular assumptions and untrue claims by gun advocates. I would recommend that anyone should read it.
We live in a time, where, as the P.O.P often takes note of–if we don’t like the facts, we just make up some of our own. But, I am just saying that a very reputable journal like Mother Jones, does research that is almost always lauded by other journalist,.and, I believe some of them even have a conservative slant!
Thank you, Peter. That’s a good sampling of some of the stuff I’ve seen over the years that’s led me to my current view on the folly of keeping guns for individual/household defense.
Just yesterday, I found myself reflecting on the game theory implications, and realized another reason why we should be doubtful of the claim that carrying a gun makes one safer. Back in the Cold War, the doctrine of MAD worked (for the most part) because you knew that no matter how devastating your first strike, the other side would still be able to launch enough missiles to incinerate you as well. So it was an effective deterrence.
But, at least on an individual bases, guns don’t work this way. The whole POINT of using a gun in self defense is that it prevents your assailant from being able to continue attacking. Gun conflict typically favours the person who gets the drop on the other; if I feel you might be a potential threat as an argument becomes heated, I may feel obliged to draw before you do in an effort to get you to back down. A good offense may or may not be the BEST defense, but it can be pretty effective. So right there is a built-in factor that to some extent promotes aggressively pre-emptive gun use. The person who’s drawing first, even if it’s just to make the other guy back off, may well believe he’s acting purely in self-defense, but that’s not how it will be regarded by the courts.
Does this tactical dynamic contribute to higher rates of gun violence? I’d be amazed if it didn’t. And some studies seem to bear this out: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/
Tom,
yes there certainly are a lot more factors and nuances to be considered in gun confrontations—despite what groups like the NRA would have us believe!
Personally, I don’t know if “gun addict” has any validity, but what bothers me are the people who claim:
“Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission.”
http://www.lneilsmith.org/atlanta.html
Combine that with their unwavering certainty that the Second Amendment was created to give ordinary citizens the right and ability to overthrow the government if they feel it has turned tyrannical, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Being as you are a former policeman, perhaps you can understand when I say, I am more frightened of an armed next door neighbor blowing me away because my dog dug up his garden, then I am of the police invading my home because they mistook it for a drug den.
And before you say the former cannot happen, you should know better than I do that it has, and more times than either of us would like.
To begin with, I object to your method of presenting your case as you wrote in your last sentence — “you should know better than I that it has, and more times than either of us would like.” I’m sorry, but that is not acceptable. That would be like a prosecuting attorney stating to the court that it is a forgone conclusion that the defendant is guilty, without presenting a shred of evidence to prove it.
No, I have never, in my years as a police detective, worked a case in which anyone was “blown away” because their neighbor dug up their garden. In fact, of the hundreds of shooting suspects I have interviewed (and by “shooting” I mean any incident in which a suspect discharged a weapon illegally), not a single one did it in reference to a garden. In fact, I can’t think of one that even owned a flower garden. The majority of suspects I dealt with lived in projects and in rooming houses, with no gardens to speak of. Most were gang members of one kind or another, and gardening was not a priority. Furthermore, I don’t have any experience personally with anyone attempting to shoot me or assaulting me with a firearm due to gardening. Long before I became a police officer I was assaulted, beaten and robbed by a gang member with a gun who had no garden. While I was a police officer, for example, a convicted felon gang member fired into my house from the sidewalk, not knowing I was a police officer. That was the first case I ever solved as a police officer– he was having a dispute with a rival Bloods gang member and mistook my house for his. No garden involved. Much more recently, a good friend of mine, and an outstanding police officer, was robbed then shot and killed by a convicted 3 time felon while he was off duty. I assure you he did not kill him because of a garden. And I have many many more experiences with shootings, none of which involved gardens, but DID involve convicted felons in possession of firearms.
On the other hand, there is a well-known case that took place in a nearby city, which is being litigated to this day. A narcotics officer and his team executed an improper search warrant on a house, and the home owner fired at the entering officers, thinking they were intruders, unfortunately killing the lead officer. The homeowner was then arrested…. this resulted in a gigantic legal mess which caused law enforcement all around to change their procedures.
Another case that took place in my department that unfortunately became notorious nationwide was when a canine officer shot and killed another officer because he mistook him for a suspect. They were of different races, which is what made it notorious.
I could go on and on.
But no, I can’t say I know first hand about any cases involving dug up gardens. Besides that, I now live on a farm, and am more concerned about coyotes killing chickens than gardens. And when I’m in cities, I’m much more cautious of convicted felon gang members who are usually denizens of bad neighborhoods, because I know they commit the bulk of the armed robberies and shootings. I know this from personal and professional experience.
Seems to me you’re going on a tangent, David, by taking the garden example too literally and restrictively. I hear of many cases of people being killed because of an argument over parking spaces, dog poop, rent, or who gets the dark meat of the Thanksgiving turkey. And I’m pretty certain that not all of the killers had criminal records.
Incorrect. “Taking the garden example too literally”? That is what the poster wrote, not me. This would be like attempting in court to argue that a defendant murdered a victim with a bat…. but after the defense shows that a bat was not used… the prosecutor stating “you took me too literally! I actually meant he was killed with a pistol… or sword…!” Sorry, but this sort of “shotgun statement” does not fly– you cannot testify to one thing, and then when what you said is found to be incorrect, change it to something else. First it’s gardening. Now you say it’s Turkey or rent. Which is it? What’s your next guess, tampons? Sorry, but that’s not how it works. If you’re going to make a statement and expect it to survive, you have to back it up with specific evidence. And as for your statements “I hear of cases…” and “I’m pretty sure..” Well, I’m pretty sure what a judge or jury, or the opposing attorney for that matter would say if you attempted to preface testimony with those kinds of phrases. Need specifics not hearsay or opinion.
Of course in a Court of law, one must be specific about what is charged i.e. Murder over an under cooked turkey or, a homicide set off by one’s neighbor digging up the attacker’s garden. But, using an example of one kind of murder resulting from a petty difference of opinion, or a minor transgression, can justifiably be used to point out that, many other murders or gun attacks result from similar petty conflicts.
When one is generalizing by attempting to use instances which come to mind off of the top of one’s head, and which resemble a similar type of conflict happening “over nothing,” I think it is permissible not to be required to prove that something exactly like it, actually did happen in reality.
In general, I too find it difficult to believe that shootings resulting from petty arguments and minor differences, are never perpetrated by people who don’t have a record of committing a felony, or other types of serious crimes, and, that these types of assaults are not common at all. It seems to me, that I have read many press reports concerning just such crimes! I can’t provide specific cases, but still feel that I have often read about them.
The fact is though, that we are not in a court of law, and are only expressing our opinions in an online forum.
“..When one is generalizing …” That’s just it. I don’t generalize. If you wish to prove your case, you must use specific evidence. If “generalizing” were acceptable, than anything and everything could be “proven”. A case is won or lost based on specific, provable information. If you can’t come up with any, then you have no case. “Generalizations” don’t cut it.
“I too find it difficult to believe that shootings resulting from petty arguments and minor differences…” Again, what you find difficult to believe is irrelevant. I have presented you with evidence. You have the ability to prove or disprove your ideas— with the Freedom of Information Act, you have the ability to access police reports and court records across the country. You don’t have to rely on “press reports” which are useless as evidence. You have the ability to access what the investigators themselves wrote about the cases, and what the results in court were. If you refuse to do this, and still hang on to ideas that are incorrect and devoid of supporting evidence, that is on you. But don’t try to claim to be fair minded or even educated about the issue.
“I have read many press reports concerning just such crimes! I can’t provide specific cases, but still feel that I have often read about them.” Again, “press reports” are meaningless and are not evidence– they are not written by people who are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and uphold the law, and are not admissible as evidence anywhere, not even in simple academic research. And “feeling” that you have done something is no evidence either.
This may not be a court of law, but in having a discussion with me, you must present evidence to back up your assertions. If you can’t, this is a waste of time and no more interesting than navel gazing.
Your admonishment concerning that specific instances are required in order to argue that a specific type of crime was committed may be necessary in a court of law if the scope of the example has only to do with, digging up the neighbors back yard, or shooting his cat (just another example) but the idea you were protesting was merely meant as a generalization to illustrate that petty crimes (plural) involving not just the exact, but also similar kinds of misunderstandings and/or conflicts exist.
How would you feel about a statement like, “plenty of conflicts involving gun crimes, represent moments of passion that involved using guns to settle petty disagreements.” I might come up with hypothetical types of crimes off of the top of my head just to bolster that statement, but whether these really happened or not, is irrelevant, since they only are meant to give a general idea about what kinds of petty crimes are being discussed. If you take the case to court that may not be sufficient, but in a discussion on a forum like this, I hope you can grant me the benefit of using generalizations to make a point, especially since no legal consequences can or will result.
I also take exception to your denial that press reports are reliable sources which can provide concrete examples of the kinds of offenses that are being discussed. Are you saying that, an attorney who said something like, “Examples of the kinds of crimes of passion that we are discussing are real and do exist, can be found in such and such issues of the New York Times, in such and such specific stories.” cannot use these journalistic accounts as solid evidence that plenty of gun crimes involve petty and unplanned conflicts and do really exist? In other words, are Crimes of passion that are committed by people with no previous criminal records not allowable to be mentioned?.” Remember that the original example of “digging up the back yard” was only intended as a possible example in the first place and the proof of stupid and petty crimes really being committed is the issue at stake in the first place!
I find myself becoming excessively “wordy” while trying to elaborate this point. But what it boils down to is that, You are indeed, being much too serious about an example that was meant only as a general example to bolster an over all point!
Perhaps such an argument would have to be made specifically in a Court of law (which this forum isn’t) but I would not want you to represent me, if it meant denying objective reporting from a periodical like the New York Times was not permissible as proof that specific crime which fit a general category, did indeed happen. Perhaps we should throw out the dictionary when used to define words with several different meanings since they are also not specific enough to be relied upon!
My point was that the garden example was merely one illustration out of many similar scenarios involving senseless gun violence, and you took it ran with it as if it were the only such scenario.
“My point was that the garden example was merely one illustration out of many similar scenarios involving senseless gun violence, and you took it ran with it as if it were the only such scenario.”
Sorry, but you (or whoever it was) handed me the “garden” thing on a silver platter. One basic rule of argumentation is that words are like bullets– once they’re let loose, they can’t be recalled. And can be used by the opposing attorney to hammer you. For example, if a witness in a murder court case states that he saw a suspect shoot a victim at exactly 4pm, and later it is found that the the suspect was at a party at 4pm, the witness cannot backtrack and say “oh, wait a minute, I actually meant 5pm! Sorry it was a mistake I was just generalizing.” On the contrary– the defense attorney will hammer the opposite side with it, and the case may very well have been lost because of such a statement.
By the same token, the “garden” hammer was handed to me, and I used it. Now, if your side says “oh wait a minute, we didn’t actually mean a garden… we actually meant a bottle of wine… or a boat… or a bird!” then your side comes across as very weak at best, and disingenuous and dishonest at worst.
The takeaway lesson is, if you’re going to make an argument and present what you purport to be evidence to back it up, it had better be accurate and true– because I watch specific words like a hawk, as would anyone who is out to win an argument or case. Once you fail at that, your side becomes weak and lacking in believability. Remember– specifics, specifics. If you are trying to win an argument, pretend that everything you say (or write) is being scrutinized and examined for weaknesses in order to attack it and impeach it. Every word is important. That’s how it works in court– every word uttered is “attackable”, so to speak. Winning or losing can hinge on a single word.
Again, you’re dancing around the real issue. All the shooting incidents mentioned actually occurred. And there are many others like them. The fact that you personally have not encountered any of them doesn’t change that.
“All the shooting incidents mentioned actually occurred.”
And I’m supposed to take your word for it, without proof? Sorry, that’s not how it works. You make an assertion, prove it– provide proof that such incidents took place. Acceptable proof are things like incident reports filled out by police which are public information, court transcripts, which are also public information, etc. All of these things are available to you.
“The fact that you personally have not encountered any of them doesn’t change that.”
And the fact that you state that pigs fly doesn’t make it so either.
Like I said, come back with proof.
What difference does it make whether you “take my word for it”? I have no interest in proving the reality to you. If you wanted to know about these incidents, you could look them up yourself — shouldn’t be too hard, as there was a shooting death over dog shit in the news only about a week ago. And am I supposed to just take your word that you’re experienced in law enforcement? You haven’t shown a shred a proof. Come back when you can contribute something of value to the discussion here. Your attacks and circular arguing are becoming a bore.
Mr. Vazquez might make an interesting subject for a future post. He’s used all the tactics I’ve seen others used when they get trapped in a corner: red herrings, moving goalposts, circular reasoning, gatekeeping, petulant hypocrisy…the list goes on. It’s especially ridiculous when you consider that he came here on his own. It’s not like you invaded his blog or whatever and picked a fight with him.
Mr. Vazquez,
You insist that among the only types of objective proof, Police reports can be considered examples,and then you deny the validity of newspaper stories. Are you saying that all police who fill out reports about incidents involving guns are beyond reproach and infallible witnesses?
Isn’t there always the possibility that a police officer who reports about an incident may be lying to cover up some unnecessary transgression of his own. If both he and a partner responded, isn’t it possible that his partner might also lie to get him off of the hook.
Let me suggest that, if you are looking for indisputable evidence, is it really fair to say that the police can be trusted to provide it, but not stories reported in major journals like the New York Times?
“Isn’t there always the possibility that a police officer who reports about an incident may be lying to cover up some unnecessary transgression of his own. If both he and a partner responded, isn’t it possible that his partner might also lie to get him off of the hook.”
There is always a “possibility”, but is highly unlikely. For several reasons. First of all, remember that a Police Report, nowadays, is accessible by literally ANYONE, digitally– from citizens who might happen to be perusing the internet and looking up cases, to other investigators/police officers around the country, to the officer’s colleagues, to reporters, to attorneys (both hostile and friendly to the police), etc. One of my duties as a rookie Detective (as it is with rookie Detectives throughout the country) was to pick up reams of police reports that had just been filed the day and night before by officers, review them, and investigate the crimes described there if appropriate. If I were to come across evidence that an officer lied on a report, I would have had to notify my own supervisor, and that officer’s reputation would be destroyed, because no investigator would want to take the time to investigate a case presented by an officer who is unable to be truthful. Furthermore, that officer would be, at minimum, suspended, pending further investigation. And if you think there is any incentive for me, a 40-something year old detective (at the time) with a wife and kids depending on me and my job to feed them, to cover up for or ignore untruths written by some 24 year old patrol officer who I’ve never met, and therefore put myself at risk to be fired and or imprisoned, you don’t understand the situation. As an example, while I was a patrol officer, I served with an extremely proactive young officer who often outstripped his peers in arrests made, in fact he was my partner on many occasions on the street. Everyone had high hopes for him, and I expected him to go far. Unfortunately, a year later, after I’d transferred to the Detective division, it was revealed that he didn’t lie, but simply embellished a single police report, and worse, attempted to encourage another officer to do the same. Not only was he immediately asked to resign, which he did, but shortly afterward he was arrested and charged with Making a False Police Report. Which is only a minor misdemeanor, but it was enough to ensure that he will never work as a policeman again, nor ever get any sort of classified clearance.
To repeat– police reports are accessible by EVERYONE AND ANYONE, which brings me to the second reason your statement is highly unlikely– if a police report involves a crime that is brought to court, as they often do, not only will attorneys and other officers see the report, THE JUDGE WILL. In other words, the officer who made the report will be testifying in court as to what took place, and believe you me, his report and testimony will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb by the judge and the defense attorney. In fact, the major part of the job of a defense attorney is to impeach the testimony of a witness, especially a police officer. And if that defense attorney even gets a whiff that a police officer is lying regarding his client, he will be ecstatic, because such a scenario will usually result in the client being found not guilty. And, worse for that officer, there is nothing a judge hates more than a lying officer. As another example, another officer I was familiar with testified in court regarding a case he was investigating. During his testimony, he made statements contradicting what he’d written in his own police report. The judge noticed it, and on the spot had that officer charged with Perjury, which is a felony. That was the last day of that officer’s career in law enforcement. (This is also why I am extremely careful about specific words I use in argumentation, and why I hold others to a high standard of specificity– this is the result of years and years of spending many hours every week testifying in courtrooms, knowing that even the slightest error in word-choice could not only cost the Commonwealth the case, but could also cost me my career or my freedom, and more importantly, cost someone else his freedom unfairly. This is why I don’t speak in “generalities”, nor tolerate those who do, in argumentation. I think this is a very good standard to have, and I wish more people had it.)
“Let me suggest that, if you are looking for indisputable evidence, is it really fair to say that the police can be trusted to provide it, but not stories reported in major journals like the New York Times?”
Yes, it is more than fair. For several reasons:
1)The testimony of police officers (including police reports) are accessible to all, including the press, and including defense attorneys, whose job it is to pick them apart and find flaws in them. This is because what is in a police report has the power of life and death, or freedom or imprisonment– meaning that what a police report contains could cause someone to go to prison. This is not the case with newspapers– no one is arrested, no warrants are signed by judges based on what newspaper articles say. No one comes to a judge and says “Newspaper X says that Mr Y molested 10 children. Therefore, kindly sign this warrant for his arrest”. Police officers do every day, based on their reports and testimony.
2)Writers of newspaper writers aren’t imprisoned for making mistakes in what they write (at best) or lying outright (at worst). Police officers are.
3)Newspaper writers don’t have to appear in court to testify to what they wrote. Police officers do, every single day. In other words, police officers are held accountable on a daily basis for what they write. Not so with writers, by a long shot. Newspaper writers don’t have to appear in court, so that those they accuse of crimes can face them. Police officers do, every day.
4)Newspaper articles are not written to the same standard that police reports and court testimony is. Court testimony (which police reports are a form of) MUST be concise, free of opinion, and must only consist of facts. In other words, must be 100% truthful. If they aren’t, the writer is going to jail. On the other hand, no newspaper writer is going to be imprisoned for not writing the truth. At worst, they will be suspended or fired. At best, they’ll be promoted, write books, and win the Pulitzer Prize… but that’s another topic.
Ask most any police officer, and they will tell you, that in the vast majority of the time, newspapers get the facts WRONG regarding cases being investigated, especially soon after they take place. Which means newspapers are printing falsehoods.
5)And I say this partially tongue-in-cheek– frankly, hardly anyone reads newspapers anymore, nor cares what’s in them. This is not 1936 or even 1975– people aren’t waiting with bated breath anymore for the Evening Edition to come out on the newstands so they can snatch them up and “read all about it”, like in some black and white James Cagney movie. I was going to say hardly anyone under 30, but I’m over 40 so I’ll say hardly anyone under 50 reads newspapers anymore. This is clearly shown by the plummeting subscription numbers for newspapers across the board, and many of their going out of business. This is the information age, and people get their information instantaneously from multiple reliable sources, and they no longer rely on “funnels” of screened information like newspapers. So, frankly, the age has long passed where most people consider newspapers to be sources of information that they use in their lives. A relevant example of this is that police reports and court records (including the outcome of cases) are posted and available online for all to see almost instantaneously. We no longer need to rely on a newspaper headline published the following morning to tell us that Citizen X was found guilty or innocent– we know it instantaneously online from the Court’s own website, often even before news anchors can announce it on the TV news. Why rely on a 3rd party to “report” things to you, when you can look the facts up yourself directly, at least with regards to topics of crime and law enforcement?
Mr. Vazquez,
First of all, I am glad you admitted that there is a chance police reports may be falsified in a small number of cases. But even with so many specific procedures and levels of reporting required by officers, this obviously does NOT guaranteed that that the absolute truth will be reported.
Like many other people, I still can see images of Rodney King, being beaten over and over while lying helpless on the ground! Still, the officers involved insisted that they were acting to make him comply and stop resisting. Apparently the slightest motion to get up was considered an aggressive threat. But the beating went on for several minutes, and Mr. King did not appear to be aggressive in any way–in fact he couldn’t have been after the first several dozens of blows I would guess!
Now, I am not saying that police officers always use excessive force, or that when they do, they might have actually believed it was necessary. I’m saying that at first, the officers were not aggressively prosecuted, and only received a small slap on the wrist. Although the case finally DID come to trial, because the circulation of the video stirred public outrage, it is still arguable if the officers involved received fair sentences for what they had done. Apparently, just like the political parties, the armed forces, and even the Catholic Church, the LAPD followed a “protect your own” instinct and deliberately downplayed the validity of the charge. So, although you are probably correct to report that the many checks and balances in the legal process make it very difficult for officers to lie or falsify reports, I still suspect that there have been quite a few cases of corruption and legal self-protection among policemen.
As for the the legal difficulty of prosecuting journalists who lie, I’m not so sure that they are as immune to legal charges as you may think.
I know that in the world of written journalism and spoken journalism in other media, there is this thing called slander and libel. And there have probably been quite a few cases when journalists have been accused of these crimes. I think that to be found guilty is quite a blemish on the reputation of the news outlets involved, and I also remember the famous case of Valarie plane (not certain of the exact name) where a reporter was prosecuted and served time in jail for refusing to reveal the source of her information. So, rightly or wrongly, this proves that journalists also are NOT above or beyond legal consequences.
We all know about the farce called Fox cable news where lies are not just aberrations but part of the creative (if delusional) process of reporting. But what do you think would happen to the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other popular media outlet that was found consistently to err or lie in their reporting? I would guess that the negative publicity would not be desired by those who own and manage such periodicals and they would hold their journalists to a standard which is used to exclude such lies!
You claim that police reports are permanent and involve many levels of verification–probably very true–but how can you say that what is written in newspapers (or online) by those who report news stories–is not also a virtually permanent record of events? Many of the archives belonging to famous news outlets go back more than 100 years, and if something is contradictory in those reports comes out in the future, it would prove very easy to prove both what was said, and, who said it.
So, it may or may not be true that police must adhere to higher standards of truth telling than journalists, but certainly police officers are also quite capable of lying or embellishing the truth.
Fine if you want to prove specifically where a bullet hit a target, but irrelevant if you are simply trying to say that a bullet was, indeed fired. Your task in this discussion, is not to prove that any specific arguments involving guns and someone “digging up a yard” happened. Your task is to respond to the point that similar and petty arguments that DO involve guns Do happen over minor transgressions. That is the only point being contested!
“Your task in this discussion, is not to prove that any specific arguments involving guns and someone “digging up a yard” happened.”
A)Wrong. My “task” is to refute any statement that is not factual on its face. If someone, in discussion with me, makes a statement that is false, I will reject it. It is not my “task” to spoonfeed people who are on the opposite side of the argument intelligent, factual things to say to me. I’m not in the habit of doing others’ jobs for them.
B)You need to refrain from attempting to tell me what my “task” is. Or I will have to inform you that your “task” is to plant your lips on my derriere.
Mr. Vazquez,
Once again you are confusing this forum with some kind of legal entity and, if it were, then your task would indeed be to determine the absolute truth. But the comments about “digging up someone’s yard” was not intended to be a specific claim—only an example of certain types of gun crimes which happen over petty and superfluous issues.
“then your task would indeed be to determine the absolute truth.”
Exactly. In argumentation, I only deal in absolute truths. Not opinions. So when you make a statement to me, it must be backed up with evidence, in order to ascertain its literal truth. Opinions are worthless. Hypotheses based on actual evidence have value.
“But the comments about “digging up someone’s yard” was not intended to be a specific claim”
You’re contradicting yourself. The phrase “not intended to be a specific claim” means “it didn’t actually take place”. As I just wrote, I only deal with and address literal truths. i only address positions backed up by evidence. So if a person makes a statement that “is not intended to be a specific claim”, then that person is, in effect, presenting untruths. And therefore, that person’s value in a discussion drops to nil, because it causes everything that person writes from that moment on to be suspect, and untrustworthy.
Again, if you were testifying in court and you said something like “the defendant stole 1 million dollars from me”, and it is found that actually, the suspect only took $100,000, then it would cause everything you attempt to say from that moment onward to be untrustworthy, and you would no longer be of any value as a witness, and may in effect cause the case to be lost completely.
You keep saying “this isn’t a court entity”. Of course it isn’t. But that’s the standard that I argue by. I hold everyone who wishes to address me about topics like these to that same standard– namely, that anything anyone attempts to say to me, and present as a truth, MUST actually and literally be the truth, not opinion, and must be backed up by SPECIFIC evidence. In other words, I don’t tolerate statements like “well, I don’t know if X actually happened, but Y and Z are kinda and sorta like X, so we should pretend that X actually happened!” Or, “I don’t have any evidence that X actually happened, but you should still accept the spirit of my argument!” Or, “I read about X happening in the paper, so it must have actually happened!”
Sorry, but the moment you say something to me that is a falsehood, or at least is something you are unable to prove, and worse yet, something you admit to not being true but that you are attempting to use to further your argument, I will no longer respect you as a truthful person, and I will consider that anything you say after that point is a falsehood. That is the standard that witnesses are held to in courtrooms. (And the standard that academics are held to in presenting their research as well, incidentally). And it’s the same standard I use.
If you want to argue with a person with lesser standards, who is willing to let falsehoods slip by and still play the game, then you are arguing with the wrong person.
Sorry, to argue with me you must be on your “A game”, at all times. Because, as you’ve seen already, if someone attempts to present something as a fact that is not actually a fact, I will smack it down, to use a colloquialism. It’s what happens in court, and it’s what will happen here.
Mr. Vazquez,
Again, if this were an actual court of law I would have much more respect for your type of reasoning. But this is only a forum in which the participants are perfectly free to voice opinions about any topic they want–even if, strictly speaking, an opinion is not defined as a fact.
If we were, for example, discussing wealth in America, i might say something like, “a lot of Americans are millionaires.” That would be an opinion based on my experience and I would not have to prove exactly how many Americans “are” actually millionaires of how many millions they make, or what percentage of the population they represent for the purposes of this forum because, everyone in America knows that there are many millionaires in this country.
What you are doing is acting like every point of argument or contention in every discussion had, must be proven actually true, as lawyers would endeavor to do in a Court room. If we really were discussing facts in that context then I would indeed try to find specific examples of arguments stemming from ” fights over digging a hole in the neighbors back yard” to prove a specific point–especially if the outcome depended on that proof. But you are misunderstanding the vein in which such comments are made.
For the sake of voicing my OPINION I have every right to use a generalization like, “there are many millionaires in America.” The point is, we live in a country that is much better off materially than most other countries in the world, and I have in the past, glanced at issues of “Fortune 500,” for example, that make me confident this opinion is a valid one. Therefore, I feel comfortable making, and am not abandoning the spirit of effective debate, when I make a point about millionaires in America, because even without consulting the Bureau of Statistics or of the most recent Census figures, I just know that, many Americans ARE INDEED, MILLIONAIRES!
Whoever made the original comment about a gun being used during a fight caused, by someone digging a hole in someone else’s back yard, only meant it as a generic example of a petty argument that might only have been exacerbated by the presence of a such a weapon. It is sort of like saying that, “You will Never, understand me,” because, When I make that statement I don’t need to be observed by you or some authority for the rest of my life to validate using the word NEVER, or, after using the word NEVER, and then (hypothetically) being reincarnated again and again for as long as the universe and time itself exists. And by the way, you STILL DO NOT seem to understand the spirit behind such general statements like the ones we have been arguing about! So, let me just say, that, you will never understand me, and, rather than go on arguing this point forever, I will just respectfully disagree with you!
“But this is only a forum in which the participants are perfectly free to voice opinions about any topic they want–even if, strictly speaking, an opinion is not defined as a fact.”
I never wrote that I thought you were not “free” to voice your opinion. Your freedom to write your opinion is protected by the Constitution of the United States.
What I am saying is that I have no interest in opinions. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that opinions are like anuses– everyone has one. I have equal amount of interest in opinions as I have in anuses.
There are people whose opinion on the use of firearms I respect– police officers (former or current, Federal, state or local), military (current or former), trained security officers or bodyguards or contractors, and other professions which require the expert use of firearms against humans, as well as possibly criminal attorneys and judges, and those who are otherwise trained with firearms and use them regularly, such as myself. I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. If you are a member of one of the above, I would love to hear your OPINION. If you’re not a member of one of those groups, your knowledge of firearms is suspect, but you would still be more than able to make valid points in a discussion with me, but they would have to be a presentation of FACTS, not your opinions. The opinion of someone who has no experience with the topic is useless and uninteresting to me, unless it is backed up by specific falsifiable evidence.
For example, if the discussion is about lion-taming, one would have no interest in the OPINION of someone who has no experience with lion taming, and has never even seen a lion, UNLESS that person backed up his statements with hard evidence– usually provided to him by those who ARE experts.
(Which is what some are attempting to do here– quoting data gathered by POLICE OFFICERS — the “statistics” so often quoted here, the origin of which could only be police officers themselves– but yet, police officer police reports are somehow suspect– UNLESS their reports support your theories? Calling that chain of thought illogical would be an understatement. I am dying to challenge someone on that– those who try to use “statistics” to try to prove X Y and Z, but forget that those “FBI statistics” are actually just data taken from millions of police reports from around the country. Someone who doesn’t believe police reports, and who feels police officers are untrustworthy, and who disregards the expert opinion of police officers, cannot possibly, in the same breath, use FBI statistics, which are nothing but aggregated data from millions of police reports written by local police officers and sent to the FBI, to try to prove their case. Those sorts of people are easy to defeat logically.)
That’s what makes the difference between useless, boring, time-wasting navel gazing, and useful, fruitful discussion. The former involves the trading of OPINIONS by those who don’t know what they’re talking about. The latter, by either experts in the field, or those with good specific evidence, or both.
I’m interested in the latter. Not the former.
I’ll give you a final example of how I feel during these discussions. Imagine you’re a trained astronomer or physicist, well-versed in your subject matter, having won awards, kudos, recognition from the community as well as your peers, for years and years. You sit down at the local Starbucks, and a local high school Freshman cheerleader, upon hearing that you’re an astronomer, starts making comments to you about how neat stars are, and if I think there are really space aliens, and how awesome black holes are and will they really eat you up and crush you, and asking if a “light year” is a unit of distance or time, and how she thinks the moon landing was faked. Other than thinking “that’s really cute, now run along!”, you aren’t going to attempt to engage that person in a useful discussion about astronomy. In other words, if you’ve ever watched the TV show “The Big Bang Theory”, I feel like Dr Sheldon Cooper, to your Penny, regarding the subject matter of crime and the use of firearms, instead of theoretical physics.
I hope that clears things up.
I had earlier typed a detailed rebuttal to one of your previous posts, but for some reason it disappeared, and was lost. I will have to reconstruct it later.
“Imagine you’re a trained astronomer or physicist, well-versed in your subject matter, having won awards, kudos, recognition from the community as well as your peers, for years and years. You sit down at the local Starbucks, and a local high school Freshman cheerleader, upon hearing that you’re an astronomer, starts making comments to you about how neat stars are, and if I think there are really space aliens, and how awesome black holes are and will they really eat you up and crush you, and asking if a “light year” is a unit of distance or time, and how she thinks the moon landing was faked. Other than thinking “that’s really cute, now run along!”, you aren’t going to attempt to engage that person in a useful discussion about astronomy.”
I’m a biochemist, not an astronomer, but indeed, yes, I WOULD engage her in a useful discussion about astronomy, because:
I would see it as an opportunity to educate her;
I also think stars are neat and black holes are awesome; and
I also wonder if there are “space aliens” (extraterrestrial lifeforms).
I also have an interest in debunking conspiracy theories that I know are wrong.
I guess that underscores the difference between us:
I like to engage people, to learn about them, tell them about me, find out what they think, and tell them what I think.
You appear to me to only be interested in proving other people wrong, browbeating them with your “expert” knowledge, and belittling them out of disrespect.
Mr. Vazquez,
The primary opinion that i and others have been expressing is that you are misunderstanding an earlier reference to “someone starting an argument about digging up someone else’a yard” We have tried to make you understand that it was just a general example of a petty type of argument that could possibly touch of a shooting. To have that opinion does not require anyone of us to have a degree in anything, and thank you, I am already aware that I have a right to express my opinion. All the logic in the world may be well and good when it is used to prove the correctness or error of a disputed fact, but this does not have to do with a disputed fact, it has to do with a general statement which was intended to provide an example a petty dispute–whether it literally happened or not, is irrelevant in the context of the discussion!
Now, I have never claimed to be an expert in anything, because I am not, but when I see an irrelevant argument I can recognize it as well as anyone else. I have great respect for the officers who deal with violent situations as part of their job, and may often have to jump through legal hoops in order to do that job correctly and well. I am not disputing that facts are indeed very relevant in a courtroom—But, are you presenting the idea that this forum is equivalent to a legal entity equivalent to a courtroom? If so, then argue on, but the fact is, IT ISN’T!
Questions of opinion are not necessarily involved with facts, but opinions are formed by an individual’s experience and observations. If I discussed “light years” with someone who knew much less about astronomy, I would have to assert whatever knowledge I had to correct that person, but it he or she, continued to required absolute proof about every remark I made, I would eventually loose interest and not be concerned that this person might not share my knowledge.
That is where I am concerning the thread of this post. You obviously don’t understand the point that I or others are making, therefore, I hope we can end this futile and circular argument.
In a previous post I pointed out that in one of your posts you implied that everyone living in government housing projects were drug users or of a criminal inclination. Excuse me for saying so, but that is merely your opinion, and one that would be in dispute depending what part of the country you live in, as well as the size of your community, its racial and ethnic makeup, and a host of other facts, but what you expressed is only an opinion—one that I disputed by sharing that, at times in my life, I have also lived with the help of government subsidized housing programs, and I am not a criminal, nor am I inclined to believe many other’s in my area who have also received this kind of government aid are criminals. So, may I suggest that you (as well as everyone else) are prone to form opinions based on your own subjective experience.
I would like to dispute the idea that this forum, in which we are all discussing issues concerned with gun laws—in relation to Hitler’s supposed attempt to take away German citizen’s guns–is not a courtroom. As evidence I would suggest that you open your eyes and look at the page that you are reading or typing right now! It will never be part of a court record, and will eventually be tossed into cyberspace when it is no longer captures reader’s interests.
Furthermore, none of us are under any oath, nor are we attempting to argue a legal case. I hope this endless and tiring discussion won’t go on forever!
I’ve been trying to stay out of this discussion, but I feel I must chime in by noting that I find Mr. Vasquez’s suggestion that police accounts are necessarily more reliable than journalist accounts to be quite questionable. I have extensive experience with both fields. I’ve worked in journalism myself, and while I’ve never been a police officer, I’ve worked many years in three different jobs that entailed frequent interaction with police. (In two of those jobs, the interaction was actually part of the job; in the other, I just came under frequent police scrutiny, because they often considered me a “suspicious” person.) More times than I can count, I encountered both ineptitude and blatant dishonesty among law enforcement personnel — which may not be (and I’m sure usually aren’t) sanctioned by the higher-ups, but they most assuredly do occur. I’ve also had a couple of civilian encounters with police that were absolutely surreal in the level of incompetence and corruption they revealed. I don’t consider such episodes to be the norm by any means;I respect and admire police in general. But there are enough incidents of this type to prevent me from idolizing police reports.
yes, I would tend to believe your experiences. Just like many other agencies or organizations, members of the police force may harbor specific prejudice against other organizations and be secretive about the ways they and their Superiors operate.
Another thing I wonder about is whether Mr. Vazquez’s accounts of the many layers and tiers of police responsibility which must be used in order to accurately report crimes such as shooting, may actually just represent many more intersections of authority which potentially might be involved in cover ups and distortions of events.
I do not know it the ‘digging in someone else’s yard’ example actually has happened or not, but in any case it typifies conflicts that happen involving petty disputes and gun aggression. In my own community, there are many newspaper stories which report on instances where someone was only threatened by a knife, let alone threatened with a gun. I would also guess that many periodicals are concerned with their journalistic reputations and require solid sources for their information.
I have been in many taverns where fights have basically started because “someone doesn’t like the way another person looks.” This is may be an unproven cliche, but I have no doubt that many bar fights have started over petty conflicts. And, I don’t think a specific statement from someone who said, “I punched him because I didn’t like the way he looked,” is that easy to find. Never-the-less I find the general type of petty reasoning involved, very believable and quite possible. heaven help us if anyone can someday carry a loaded weapon in a tavern–would that be a nightmare scenario or what? But then, I suppose Mr. Vazquez, wouldn’t respect me for even entertaining such a thought!
Objection noted, but overruled.
I find it difficult to believe that you could have the kind of career you claimed and yet you NEVER experienced or heard of a case in which a neighbor shot another neighbor over some petty dispute, without either of them being felons or any other criminal act being involved.
In the past year alone, I’ve read or heard of at least a dozen such incidents occurring around the country. One assailant even invoked a stand your ground law, and I’m not talking about the Trayvon Martin case. If I remember correctly, the dispute was over a burrowed video camera.
Putting myself in the mind of a juror, I would find your testimony impossible to believe. Hence my attempt to refute your objection before you made it.
But this is nothing more than a red herring to avoid my primary point, namely the obsession people can have with guns, and their “Constitutional” justification for wanting to arm themselves with military grade weapons.
As a former marine and policeman, what are your thoughts on that?
“Objection noted, but overruled.” You are not the judge in this case, you are someone who is attempting to convince others of your point of view. To follow the analogy you are an opposing attorney who is attempting to put your case forward, you are presenting it to the public, or to me, or to anyone who you are trying to convince.
“I find it difficult to believe that you could have the kind of career you claimed and yet you NEVER experienced or heard of a case in which a neighbor shot another neighbor over some petty dispute, without either of them being felons or any other criminal act being involved.”
What you find difficult to believe is irrelevant– if you have an objection to something I’ve written, in order to refute it, you must present evidence of some kind to do so. And sorry, but “I don’t believe you” is not effective evidence of any kind.
Allow me to use another analogy here. You apparently base your knowledge of law enforcement and crime on what you “read or hear” (Read where? Hear from whom?), rather than on experience, or from speaking directly to those with experience. (Which is what I am attempting to impart to you– knowledge about the subject from someone who actually knows what he’s talking about). An analogy would be someone who has based all of their knowledge on paleontology and evolution on what they’ve seen on TV, or read in the Bible, etc. And then, that person, upon being told by actual scientists and paleontologists that dinosaurs and cavemen lived tens of millions of years apart in time, responds “I find that difficult to believe! After all, on all the TV shows I’ve seen and all the Bible stories I’ve read, dinosaurs and humans lived and frolicked together!” Well sorry, but what you’ve “heard”, or what you want to believe, may not be true, to any significant level.
And no, I have never investigated, nor known a case to have been investigated, in my city or even my region of my state, where “a neighbor shot another neighbor over some petty dispute, without either of them being felons or any other criminal act being involved.” Except for some VERY unusual cases, every shooting case I investigated involved 2 or more of the following: 1) Residents of what is known as “projects”, otherwise known as “Section 8″, or “city-funded” housing, 80% of whom are convicted criminals of one kind or another– which is exactly why they are IN government-funded housing to begin with, or 2) Are intoxicated and/or on narcotics of one kind or another– which is in and of itself a violation of their probation, which most of them are on, due to having been convicted of some previous offense (and most Section 8 dwellers are on one kind of probation or another), or 3)In the process of selling or buying narcotics, or attempting to rob a dealer of his wares or money or vice versa, or 4)Are gang members of one stripe or another (in my city is was almost completely East-Coast Bloods and Crips and variations of those) or 5)The suspect was in the process of robbing a completely innocent person (or mostly innocent … such as possibly another gang member, or erstwhile partner in crime etc) and shot the victim in the course of the robbery or 6) One jealous partner/husband shooting the other, usually after there was a restraining order against the offender (or even the victim), but again, I did not deal with a single case where this scenario did not involve individuals who had already been arrested previously in their lives (for anything from drunk in public to narcotics offenses, etc). In other words, there were no cases, that I was aware of, where someone, at age 30 or 40 or 50, who was a fine upstanding productive citizen, with no experience whatsoever with criminality, just suddenly up and shot someone. Sorry, it just doesn’t happen in any significant numbers. To put it another way, for every case you might be able to present, I can present, LITERALLY, 3,000 cases that involved the above-described individuals. Also remember– the great majority of shootings (meaning 75% and up) do NOT result in death. In other words, for every 4 shootings, 3 do NOT result in death, and therefore get very little press coverage.
Which leads me to my next point– you repeatedly mention “hearing” or “reading” about cases. If you are going to present them as evidence, you must cite not newspaper articles or TV programs where these things might have been discussed, because as every policeman will tell you who has worked for more than a week– the press usually gets most of the story wrong, especially initially. Also, newspaper stories or TV news shows cannot be presented in any court as evidence– you would need to present the actual policemen involved in investigating the case as witnesses, or, what are known as IBR’s (Incident Based Reports) that were filled out by the officers investigating the case, and which are available to all– they are public information available to all. Or, if the cases have already been adjudicated, you could present actual court records of what took place in court regarding the case, including the defendant’s CONVICTION– remember, charges and warrants issued by police/judges, and incident reports, are not the final word on a case– the conviction (or dismissal of charges) are. in other words “I heard about a case on Oprah last week” is not acceptable, while “here is a transcript of the trial of the man who killed his neighbor over spoiled sushi, and was convicted for it” WOULD be acceptable.
So, as a former marine and police officer, you have nothing to say about people being so obsessed with guns that they wish to own military ordinance?
By the way, this is not a court of law; it’s a blog. And it’s not your blog; you do not get to set the rules of discussion.
But as a final word on your court analogy, if I were a juror, I would naturally use what I already know to help me judge whether you are a credible witness. And since you say things that are contradicted by that knowledge and experience, I would judge you to have very little credibility.
You can of course dismiss my knowledge and experience as being relevant, but as you said, “I don’t believe you” is not a credible response.
Please address the main point above.
“By the way, this is not a court of law; it’s a blog. And it’s not your blog; you do not get to set the rules of discussion.”
In order to have a meaningful discussion, you must obey the rules of evidence– if you make a statement, you must be able to back it up with facts. Not personal opinion. So far, you have failed to present any falsifiable evidence to prove your case. And yes, if you wish to discuss anything with me, you must follow my rules– simple rules of evidence. Very simple– you make a statement, back it up with facts. You have not done this.
“..I would naturally use what I already know to help me judge whether you are a credible witness. And since you say things that are contradicted by that knowledge and experience,..”
Again I ask– WHAT knowledge and experience? Knowledge of what? Knowledge from what exactly? What experience? What experience do you have? How long have you served as a police officer, or a judge, or academic who studies these subjects? I have already stated my own experience and knowledge– it is based on firm, real, actual, experience. What is yours based on? Again, simply state what your “knowledge and experience” is. As long as that “knowledge and experience” isn’t “what I read in newspapers and see on TV”, then perhaps you have something to go on. If not, your argument is weak to the point of failing miserably. Sorry, but in court, “the suspect is guilty because the newspapers say he is” isn’t acceptable. You need to present evidence. Very simple concept.
“So, as a former marine and police officer, you have nothing to say about people being so obsessed with guns that they wish to own military ordinance?…Please address the main point above.”
Let me get this straight. You just implied that I have no credibility. You have just implied that I am a liar. But now you want my opinion on something? An analogy would be an attorney who has just accused a police officer or witness of being a liar, of having no credibility or believability– in other words, of committing perjury…. but then wanting his testimony on something that requires absolute credibility and believability. “Yes, you are a liar and I don’t believe what you say… but tell the court what time evidence shows the victim was killed… give us some sworn testimony.”
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. If you feel a witness has no credibility and has perjured himself, that witness and everything he says becomes useless in court– because any and all of his testimony is then suspect and worthless.
If you want my opinion on something meaningful, you must play by the rules. If you don’t feel I can be believed, it would be ludicrous to ask my opinion on anything.
Yes, yes, I understand you’re playing a game to avoid the real issue.
Let’s take a step back for a moment. You criticized the validity of the term “gun addict”, suggesting that people own guns, not because they need to satisfy a psychological need to feel safe, but to make them safe from real physical dangers.
I responded by pointing out that there are people who are so obsessed with guns that they believe they have an inalienable Constitutional right to own military ordinance without restriction, and I backed that up with evidence, an actual statement by one such person. I also pointed out that these people believe they must own such weapons so they can overthrow the government if it turns tyrannical.
You claim to be a former marine and police officer (a claim you have not supported with evidence despite your demands that everyone else abide by your rules). Assuming that is true (and I am willing to take it on faith for the sake of the discussion), what is your opinion about such people?
Do you agree with them?
Do you believe they need military hardware to be safe from the real physical danger of government tyranny?
Or do you believe they are being paranoid, or are using it as an excuse to feed an obsession for guns?
If the latter, how is that different from the psychological need to feel safe associated with gun addiction?
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
You already implied that I am a liar and untrustworthy. How could you possibly want someone’s opinion when you cannot trust them? If I think someone is a liar, I wouldn’t want their opinion on anything, because it would be suspect and worthless.
If you want to continue this conversation with me, then you must accept what I have stated as true and trustworthy. Then I’d be glad to share my opinion with you about what you’re asking. But sorry, you’ve insulted me by implying that I’m a liar, and I don’t have much incentive to make conversation with rude and disrespectful people. I don’t know where you’re from or how you were raised, but I for one don’t call someone a liar, and then attempt to make pleasant conversation with them. That would be either rude or crazy.
And I don’t take anything “on faith”– who served in the military (I served in the Marine Corps and Army) and when, as well as in local law enforcement, is public information and available to anyone who cares to seek it out. I don’t expect anyone to take anything “on faith”. If you want proof, I’d be glad to provide you with my full name so you can look it up yourself. I don’t hide behind anonymity.
Sorry, but as I said before, this is not your bl