Posted on 05/13/2003 12:48:32 PM PDT by FourPeas
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The AAP - Advocacy group pushing for a total ban.
About what I expect from that other school in Ann Arbor.
At this time almost half of all homes in the United States contain guns - close to 250 million guns, these homes contain about 58 million children age 14 and under. With those numbers in hand the anti-gun groups would like you to believe that firearms accidents involving children are at an all time high. But the numbers don't lie.
According to the National Safety Council report from 1998, there were only 30 accidental firearms-related deaths of children under the age of four, and 80 accidental deaths involving firearms for children age 5 to 14. There is no way for these numbers to support the anti-gun groups claims that "15 children a day" (or the current number being quoted on the nightly news) are "killed by guns."
So how do the anti-gun groups come up with their number? They include in their statistics everyone under the age of 19 involved in firearms shootings whether the shooting was accidental or not. These numbers include deaths which occurred as a result of gang violence or during armed robberies. The truth is that more children under the age of four die from drowning in buckets each year than die in gun accidents.
The "Hitler" Quote That Wouldn't Die: "1935 Will Go Down In History!"
"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!"
---Falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler, "Abschied vom Hessenland!" ["Farewell to Hessia!"], ['Berlin Daily' (Loose English Translation)], April 15th, 1935, Page 3 Article 2, Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann [Introduction by Eberhard Beckmann].
This quotation, often seen without any date or citation at all, suffers from several credibility problems, the most significant of which is that the date given (*in alternate versions, the words "This year..." are replaced by "1935..." has no correlation with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration, nor would there have been a need for the Nazis to pass such a law, since gun registration laws passed by the Weimar government were already in effect. The Nazi Weapons Law (or Waffengesetz) which further restricted the possession of militarily useful weapons and forbade trade in weapons without a government-issued license was passed on March 18, 1938. The citation usually given for this quote is a jumbled mess, and has only three major clues from which to work. The first is the date, which does not correspond (even approximately) to a date on which Hitler made a public speech, and a check of the texts of Hitler's speeches does not reveal a quotation resembling this (which is easily understandable when you realize that "Hitler" is commenting on a non-existent law). The second clue is the newspaper reference, which if translated into German resembles the title of a newspaper called Berliner Tageblatt, and a check of the issue for that date reveals that the page and column references given are to the arts and culture page! No Hitler speech appears in the pages of Berliner Tageblatt on that date, or dates close to it, because there was no such speech to report.
Finally, the citation includes a proper name "Eberhard Beckmann," which is sometimes cited as "by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann," which is an important clue itself, because it reveals that the citation was fabricated by someone who had so little knowledge of the German language that they were unaware that "Einleitung" isn't the fellow's first name! The only "Eberhard Beckmann" which has been uncovered thus far did indeed write introductions, but he was a journalist for a German broadcasting company after WWII, and he wrote several introductions to photography books, one of which was photos of the German state of Hesse (or Hessia), which may be the source of the curious phrase "Abschied vom Hessenland!" which appears in the citation. This quotation, however effective it may be as propaganda, is a fraud.
[GunCite note: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, a gun rights group, acknowledges the quote as bogus in the second item of their FAQ.]
The only problem here is that (1) "Child" is defined as someone UNDER 25 years old! and (2) Most of these deaths and injuries are self-inflicted.
Der größte Unsinn, den man in den besetzen Ostgebieten machen könnte, sei der, den unterworfenen Völkern Waffen zu geben. Die Geschichte lehre, daß alle Herrenvölker untergegangen seien, nachdem sie den von ihnen unterworfenen Volkern Waffen bewilligt hatten.
[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.] -- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)
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