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The Second Amendment - Commentaries
Personal Archives | 11-06-03 | PsyOp

Posted on 11/06/2003 6:19:06 PM PST by PsyOp

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To: neverdem
Does anybody have any idea behind Charles Krauthammer's animus towards guns?

I have no idea. The root of all animus against guns is ignorance of facts (on the part of the people) or lust for power (on the part of politicians). Or it could be blind stupidity.

21 posted on 11/06/2003 8:35:06 PM PST by PsyOp ( Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle.)
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To: PsyOp
Thanks for the RKBA ping. Here's a classic:

A Conversation With An Expert On English Language

By J. Neil Schulman, July 17, 1991

I just had a conversation with Mr. A. C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator for the Office of Instruction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Mr. Brocki taught Advanced Placement English for several years at Van Nuys High School, as well as having been a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin. I was referred to Mr. Brocki by Sherryl Broyles of the office of Instuction of the L.A. Unified School District, who described Mr. Brocki as the foremost expert in grammar in the Los Angeles Unified School District--the person she and others go to when they need a definitive answer on English grammar.

I gave Mr. Brocki my name, told him Sherryl Broyles referred me, then asked him to parse the following sentence: "A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed." Mr. Brocki informed me that the sentence was over punctuated, but that the meaning could be extracted anyway.

"A well-schooled electorate" is a nominative absolute.

"being necessary to the security of a free State" is a participial phrase modifying "electorate".

The subject (a compound subject) of the sentence is "the right of the people".

"shall not be infringed" is a verb phrase, with "not" as an adverb modifying the verb phrase "shall be infringed".

"to keep and read books" is an infinitive phrase modifying "right".

I then asked him if he could rephrase the sentence to make it clearer. Mr. Brocki said, "Because a well-schooled electorate is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."

I asked: "Can the sentence be interpreted to restrict the right to keep and read books to a well-schooled electorate--say, registered voters with a high-school diploma?" He said, "No."

I then identified my purpose in calling him, and read him the Second Amendment in full: "A well-regulated Militia, being necesasary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." He said he thought the [original] sentence had sounded familiar, but that he hadn't recognized it.

I asked, "Is the structure and the meaning of this sentence the same as the sentence I first quoted you?" He said, "yes." I asked him to rephrase this sentence to make it clearer. He transformed it the same way as the first sentence: "Because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

I asked him whether this sentence could be interpreted to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to "a well-regulated militia." He said "no." According to Mr. Brocki, the sentence means that the people are the militia, and that the people have the right which is mentioned.

I asked him again to make sure:

Schulman: "Can the sentence be interpreted to mean that the right can be restricted to a well regulated militia?"

Brocki: "No, I can't see that."

Schulman: "Could another, professional in English grammar or linguistics interpret the sentence to mean otherwise?"

Brocki: "I can't see any grounds for another interpretation."

22 posted on 11/06/2003 9:25:48 PM PST by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy.)
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To: PsyOp
Bumped and Bookmarked :)
23 posted on 11/06/2003 9:46:27 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.)
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To: Centurion2000
Referenced by another poster's comment on a good speech ..... this one is REALLY good.

Freedom and Firearms

Senator Tom McClintock
Date: June 9, 2001
Publication Type: Speech or Statement
A Speech by Senator Tom McClintock
Western Conservative Conference, Los Angeles, June 9, 2001

There are two modern views of government that begin from entirely different premises.

There is the 18th Century American view propounded by our nation’s founders. They believed, and formed a government based upon that belief, that each of us is endowed by our creator with certain rights that cannot be alienated, and that governments are instituted to protect those rights. This view is proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and reflected in the American Bill of Rights.

The second view is 19th Century German in origin and expressed in the philosophies of Marx and Hegel and Nietzsche. It is a restatement of philosophies of absolutism that have plagued mankind for millennia. In this view, rights come not from God, but from the state. What rights you have are there because government has given them to you, all for the greater good – defined, of course, by government.

In the 20 years I have been actively engaged in public policy, I have seen the growing influence of this 19th Century German view. It disdains the view of the American Founders. It rejects the notion of inalienable rights endowed equally to every human being by the “laws of nature and of nature’s God.” In this view, it is the state, and not the individual, where rights are vested.

I mention this, because of a debate that occurred last week on the floor of the State Senate. It was a debate that occurred under the portrait of George Washington and the gold-emblazoned motto, “Senatoris Est Civitatis Libertatum Tueri” – “The Senators protect the Liberty of the Citizens.”

At issue was a measure, SB 52, which will require a state-issued license to own a firearm for self-defense. To receive a license, you would have to meet a series of tests, costs and standards set by the state.

We have seen many bills considered and adopted that would infringe upon the right of a free people to bear arms. But this was the most brazen attempt in this legislature to claim that the very right of self-defense is not an inalienable natural right at all, but is rather a right that is licensed from government; a right that no longer belongs to you, but to your betters, who will license you to exercise that right at their discretion.

During the debate on this measure, which passed the Senate 25 to 15, I raised these issues. And I would like to quote to you the response of Senator Sheila Kuehl, to the approving nods of the Senators whose duty is to protect the liberty of the citizens.

She said, “There is only one constitutional right in the United States which is absolute and that is your right to believe anything you want.”

I want to focus on that statement. “The only constitutional right which is absolute is your right to believe anything you want.”

Now, compare that to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

What rights have a slave? There is only one: a slave can think anything he wants: as long as he doesn’t utter it or act on it – he may think what he wants. He has no right to the fruit of his labor; no right to self-defense, no right to raise his children, no right to contract with others for his betterment, no right to worship – except as his master allows. He has only the right to his own thoughts. All other rights are at the sufferance of his master – whether that master is a state or an owner.

Now, let us continue to look at this new constitutional principle propounded by Senator Kuehl, under the portrait of George Washington to the delight of her colleagues whose duty, according to the proud words above them, is to “Protect the Liberty of the Citizens.”

She continued, “Other than that, (the right to your own thoughts) government has the ability to say on behalf of all the people – I will put it in the colloquial way as my grandmother used to – your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. It’s a balance of your rights and my rights because we all have constitutional rights. And the question for government is how do we balance those rights?”

Indeed, the right to swing your fist does end where my nose begins. An excellent analogy. Shall we therefore amputate your fist so that you can never strike my nose? And would you deny me the use of my own fist to protect my nose?

Senator Kuehl and her colleagues believe government has the legitimate authority to do so. It is simply the question of balancing.

It is very important that we understand precisely what Senator Kuehl and the Left are saying.

A thief balances your right to your wallet against his right to eat. A murderer balances your right to life against his right to freedom. A master balances your right to “work and toil and make bread,” against his right to eat it. These are matters of balance.

The American view is quite different. In the view of the American Founders, the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow each of us with rights that are inalienable, and we are each equal in those rights. It is not a balancing act. These rights are absolute. They cannot be alienated.

But in a state of nature, there are predators who would deny us those rights. And thus we come together to preserve our freedom. In the American view, the only legitimate exercise of force by one person over another, or by one government over its people, is “to secure these rights.”

Senator Kuehl continues, “My right to defend myself in the home does not extend to my owning a tank, though that would make sense to me, perhaps, that no one would attack my home if I had a tank sitting in the living room.”

Let us put aside, for a moment, the obvious fact that a tank is only an instrument of self-defense against a power that employs a tank. But let us turn to the more reasonable side of her argument: that rights can be constrained by government; that there is, after all, “no right to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. How can a right be absolute and yet constrained by government?

To Senator Kuehl and the Left, the answer is simply, “it’s easy -- whenever we say so.” Or, in her words, “government has the ability to say (so) on behalf of all the people.”

The American Founders had a different view, also, not surprisingly, diametrically opposed to Senator Kuehl’s way of thinking.

The right is absolute. In a free nation, government has no authority to forbid me from speaking because I might shout “fire” in a crowded theater. Government has no authority to forbid me from using my fist to defend myself because I might also use it to strike your nose. And government has no authority to forbid me from owning a firearm because I might shoot an innocent victim.

Government is there to assure that the full force of the law can be brought against me if I discharge that right in a manner that threatens the rights of others. It does not have the authority to deny me those very rights for fear I might misuse them.

Senator Kuehl continues, “In my opinion, this bill is one of those balances. It does not say you cannot have a gun. It does not say you cannot defend yourself. It says if you are going to be owning and handling and using a dangerous item you need to know how to use it, and you need to prove that you know how to use it by becoming licensed.”

How reasonable. How reassuring. How despotic.

We must understand what they are arguing, because it is chilling. They are arguing that any of our most precious rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights – any at least they decide are conceivably dangerous -- may only be extended through the license of the government.

If that is the case, they are not rights. With that one despotic principle, you have just dissolved the foundation of the entire Bill of Rights. You have created a society where your only right is to your own thoughts.

Inalienable rights are now alienated to government, and government may extend or refuse them upon its whim – or more precisely, upon a balancing act to be decided by government. Let us follow – in our minds at least – a little farther down this path.

Hate groups publish newsletters to disseminate their hatred and racism. Sick individuals in our society act upon this hatred. The Oklahoma City bombing killed a score of innocent children. Shouldn’t we license printing presses and Internet sites to prevent the pathology of hate from spreading? Such an act doesn’t say you cannot have a press. It does not say you cannot express yourself. It says if you are going to be owning and handling a printing press, you should know what not to say and prove that you can restrain yourself by becoming licensed.

And what are we to do about rogue religions like those that produced Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown. How many people around the world are killed by acts of religious fanaticism every year? Should we not license the legitimate churches? Such an act doesn’t say you cannot have a church. It does not say you cannot worship. It says if you are going to be running and conducting a church, that you must know how to worship and prove that you know how by becoming licensed.

The only right you have is the right to believe anything you want. The only right of a slave. The rest is negotiable – or to use the new word, “balanceable.”

In 1838, a 29 year old Abraham Lincoln posed the question for which he would ultimately give his life. Years later, he would debate Stephen Douglas, who argued that freedom and slavery were a matter of political balance. But in this speech, he spoke to the larger question that we must now confront:

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

The American Founders worried about the same thing. Late in life, Jefferson wrote to Adams, "Yes we did create a near perfect union; but will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom. Material abundance is the surest path to destruction."

And as I listened to Senator Kuehl proclaim that “the only constitutional right in the United States which is absolute … is your right to believe anything you want,” and as I gazed at the portrait of George Washington, and as I thought about the solemn words, “the Senators Protect the Liberty of the Citizens,” I couldn’t help but think of an aide to George Washington by the name of James McHenry, who accompanied the General as they departed Independence Hall the day the Constitution was born. He recorded this encounter between Benjamin Franklin and a Mrs. Powell. She asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Answered Dr. Franklin, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

For this generation, that is no longer a hypothetical question. History warns us that to one generation in five falls the duty – the highest duty and the most difficult duty of this Republic – to preserve the liberty of the citizens. It is the most difficult, because as Lincoln warned, it is a threat that springs up not on a foreign shore where we can see it – it springs up amongst us. It cannot be defeated by force of arms. It must be defeated by reason.

Have you noticed yet, that ours is that generation? And how ironic it would be that the freedoms won with the blood of Washington’s troops, and defended by so many who followed, should be voluntarily thrown away piece by piece by a generation that had become so dull and careless and pampered and uncaring that it lost the memory of freedom.

The Athenian Democracy had a word for “citizen” that survives in our language today. “Politikos.” Politician. The Athenians believed that a free people who declare themselves citizens assume a duty to declare themselves politicians at the same time. It is time we took that responsibility very seriously.

In 1780, the tide had turned in the American Revolution, and the Founders began to sense the freedom that was within sight. John Adams wrote these words to his wife that spring. He said, "The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."

Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is not about guns. It is about freedom. And the wheel has come full circle. Our generation must study politics that we may restore the liberty that our parents and grandparents expect us to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

If we fail, what history will demand of our children and grandchildren, in a society where their only right is to their own thoughts, is simply unthinkable. And be assured, history will find it unforgivable. A generation that is handed the most precious gift in all the universe – freedom – and throws it away -- deserves to be reviled by every generation that follows – and will be, even though the only right left to them is their own thoughts.

But if we succeed in this struggle, we will know the greatest joy of all – the joy of watching our grandchildren secure with the blessings of liberty, studying arts and literature in a free nation and under God’s grace, once again.

Ladies and Gentlemen, isn’t that worth devoting the rest of our lives to achieve?

 


24 posted on 11/06/2003 9:53:47 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.)
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To: PsyOp
Ping!
25 posted on 11/06/2003 9:57:13 PM PST by lainde
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
Right...but you want them per 1,000 people.

I can't get Florida felonious crime rates per 1,000 people for the given year. However, It must be around 100 felonies per 1000 people and then we can quibble about the percentage of actual felons within a population.

Suddenly the felony rate of CCW people shows that gun owners are *less* likely to commit *any* felony than non-gun owners.
26 posted on 11/06/2003 9:59:02 PM PST by Maelstrom (To prevent misinterpretation or abuse of the Constitution:The Bill of Rights limits government power)
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To: PsyOp
Whooopeee...Another PsyOps list! Many thanks for my coming werekend reading!
27 posted on 11/06/2003 9:59:19 PM PST by lainde
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
Sorry guys but the Supreme Court has made several decisions based on the Constitutions of other nations.

These unchallenged acts rendered our Constitution null and void.

The 2nd and any other, if they conflict with other nations constitutions, will be rendered null and void.

Your attempting to draw rights from a constitution of a nation that no longer exists.

The USA is every bit a part of the past as say the USSR, Yugoslavia or the Austro-Hungarian empire.
28 posted on 11/06/2003 10:09:10 PM PST by Kay Soze (Revolt is the only way now that Supreme Court renders decisions based upon other nations laws.)
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To: Kay Soze
Sadly, I think you are correct .... the question is no longer if .... but when.
29 posted on 11/06/2003 10:12:09 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Resolve to perform what you ought, perform without fail what you resolve.)
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To: PsyOp
"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, Berlin Day speech, April 15, 1935. "

Not true.

This has been debunked numerous times on FR.

The 1928 German Gun Laws required gun registration and licensing --- several yers before Hitler got power in 1933.

30 posted on 11/06/2003 10:15:59 PM PST by gatex
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To: PsyOp
"The root of all animus against guns is ignorance of facts :
I think it's always fear.
FEAR of being responsible for protecting one's self.
FEAR of not being up to the task in a pinch.
FEAR of seeing someone's attacker being splattered on a wall or illegal point of entry.

FEAR of POWER.
FEAR of HONEST PEOPLE USING that POWER... and thus empowering them to avoid becoming victims. CRIMINALS FEAR GUNS in the hands of their potential victims. Would be evil doers fear what might happen to them if they act on their evil impulses and an armed citizenry KILLS them while they pursue their evil desires.
Some of THOSE evil doers, are our politicians, who went into politics for the very purpose of victimizing citizens for the pursuit of their personal power...

Such evil doers live in FEAR of having POWER used against them, if they were to attempt to carry out their evil deeds on would be victims. This includes tax raising politicians, who are robbing us at political gunpoint.... and want to rob us even more aggregiously... but FEAR the power of an armed citizenry, and its ability to stop theft, murder and extortion... even by political leaders.

The founders were wise to caste our rights to self defense... in constitutional concrete.... though we are in a season of aggressive deconstruction of the bill of rights.

The founders feared tyranny. and tyrants FEAR guns.
Nice quotes pal... very very nice.


31 posted on 11/06/2003 10:20:13 PM PST by Robert_Paulson2 (robert... the rino...)
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To: Liberal Classic
Great post!

Brocki: "I can't see any grounds for another interpretation."

Conclusion: Among other things (like being bad at math), liberals are bad at English.

32 posted on 11/06/2003 10:30:23 PM PST by PsyOp ( Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle.)
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To: gatex
This has been debunked numerous times on FR.

Really?

Hitler’s Control
The lessons of Nazi history.

By Dave Kopel & Richard Griffiths

Yhis week's CBS miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil tries to explain the conditions that enabled a manifestly evil and abnormal individual to gain total power and to commit mass murder. The CBS series looks at some of the people whose flawed decisions paved the way for Hitler's psychopathic dictatorship: Hitler's mother who refused to recognize that her child was extremely disturbed and anti-social; the judge who gave Hitler a ludicrously short prison sentence after he committed high treason at the Beer Hall Putsch; President Hindenburg and the Reichstag delegates who (except for the Social Democrats) who acceded to Hitler's dictatorial Enabling Act rather than forcing a crisis (which, no matter how bad the outcome, would have been far better than Hitler being able to claim legitimate power and lead Germany toward world war).

Acquainting a new generation of television viewers with the monstrosity of Hitler is a commendable public service by CBS, for if we are serious about "Never again," then we must be serious about remembering how and why Hitler was able to accomplish what he did. Political scientist R. J. Rummel, the world's foremost scholar of the mass murders of the 20th century, estimates that the Nazis killed about 21 million people, not including war casualties. With modern technology, a modern Hitler might be able to kill even more people even more rapidly.

Indeed, right now in Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe tyranny is perpetrating a genocide by starvation aimed at liquidating about six million people. Mugabe is great admirer of Adolf Hitler. Mugabe's number-two man (who died last year) was Chenjerai Hunzvi, the head of Mugabe's terrorist gangs, who nicknamed himself "Hitler." One of the things that Robert Mugabe, "Hitler" Hunzvi, and Adolf Hitler all have in common is their strong and effective programs of gun control.

Simply put, if not for gun control, Hitler would not have been able to murder 21 million people. Nor would Mugabe be able to carry out his current terror program.

Writing in The Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law Stephen Halbrook demonstrates that German Jews and other German opponents of Hitler were not destined to be helpless and passive victims. (A magazine article by Halbrook offers a shorter version of the story, along with numerous photographs. Halbrook's Arizona article is also available as a chapter in the book Death by Gun Control, published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.) Halbrook details how, upon assuming power, the Nazis relentlessly and ruthlessly disarmed their German opponents. The Nazis feared the Jews — many of whom were front-line veterans of World War One — so much that Jews were even disarmed of knives and old sabers.

The Nazis did not create any new firearms laws until 1938. Before then, they were able to use the Weimar Republic's gun controls to ensure that there would be no internal resistance to the Hitler regime.

In 1919, facing political and economic chaos and possible Communist revolution after Germany's defeat in the First World War, the Weimar Republic enacted the Regulation of the Council of the People's Delegates on Weapons Possession. The new law banned the civilian possession of all firearms and ammunition, and demanded their surrender "immediately."

Once the political and economic situation stabilized, the Weimar Republic created a less draconian gun-control law. The law was similar to, although somewhat milder than, the gun laws currently demanded by the American gun-control lobby.

The Weimar Law on Firearms and Ammunition required a license to engage in any type of firearm business. A special license from the police was needed to either purchase or carry a firearm. The German police were granted complete discretion to deny licenses to criminals or individuals the police deemed untrustworthy. Unlimited police discretion over citizen gun acquisition is the foundation of the "Brady II" proposal introduced by Handgun Control, Inc., (now called the Brady Campaign) in 1994.

Under the Weimar law, no license was needed to possess a firearm in the home unless the citizen owned more than five guns of a particular type or stored more than 100 cartridges. The law's requirements were more relaxed for firearms of a "hunting" or "sporting" type. Indeed, the Weimar statute was the world's first gun law to create a formal distinction between sporting and non-sporting firearms. On the issues of home gun possession and sporting guns, the Weimar law was not as stringent as the current Massachusetts gun law, or some of modern proposals supported by American gun-control lobbyists.

Significantly, the Weimar law required the registration of most lawfully owned firearms, as do the laws of some American states. In Germany, the Weimar registration program law provided the information which the Nazis needed to disarm the Jews and others considered untrustworthy.

The Nazi disarmament campaign that began as soon as Hitler assumed power in 1933. While some genocidal governments (such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) dispensed with lawmaking, the Nazi government followed the German predilection for the creation of large volumes of written rules and regulations. Yet it was not until March 1938 (the same month that Hitler annexed Austria in the Anschluss) that the Nazis created their own Weapons Law. The new law formalized what had been the policy imposed by Hitler using the Weimar Law: Jews were prohibited from any involvement in any firearm business.

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis launched the Kristallnacht, pogrom, and unarmed Jews all over Germany were attacked by government-sponsored mobs. In conjunction with Kristallnacht, the government used the administrative authority of the 1938 Weapons Law to require immediate Jewish surrender of all firearms and edged weapons, and to mandate a sentence of death or 20 years in a concentration camp for any violation.

Even after 1938, the German gun laws were not prohibitory. They simply gave the government enough information and enough discretion to ensure that victims inside Germany would not be able to fight back.

Under the Hitler regime, the Germans had created a superbly trained and very large military — the most powerful military the world had ever seen until then. Man-for-man, the Nazis had greater combat effectiveness than every other army in World War II, and were finally defeated because of the overwhelming size of the Allied armies and the immensely larger economic resources of the Allies.

Despite having an extremely powerful army, the Nazis still feared the civilian possession of firearms by hostile civilians. Events in 1943 proved that the fear was not mere paranoia. As knowledge of the death camps leaked out, determined Jews rose up in arms in Tuchin, Warsaw, Bialystok, Vilna, and elsewhere. Jews also joined partisan armies in Eastern Europe in large numbers, and amazingly, even organized escapes and revolts in the killing centers of Treblinka and Auschwitz. There are many books which recount these heroic stories of resistance. Yuri Suhl's They Fought Back (1967) is a good summary showing that hundreds of thousands of Jews did fight. The book Escape from Sobibor and the eponymous movie (1987) tell the amazing story how Russian Jewish prisoners of war organized a revolt that permanently destroyed one of the main death camps.

It took the Nazis months to destroy the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw ghetto, who at first were armed with only a few firearms that had been purchased on the black market, stolen or obtained from the Polish underground.

Halbrook contends that the history of Germany might have been changed if more of its citizens had been armed, and if the right to bear arms had been enshrined it Germany's culture and constitution. Halbrook points out that while resistance took place in many parts of occupied Europe, there was almost no resistance in Germany itself, because the Nazis had enjoyed years in which they could enforce the gun laws to ensure that no potential opponent of the regime had the means to resist.

No one can foresee with certainty which countries will succumb to genocidal dictatorship. Germany under the Weimar Republic was a democracy in a nation with a very long history of much greater tolerance for Jews than existed in France, England, or Russia, or almost anywhere else. Zimbabwe's current gun laws were created when the nation was the British colony of Rhodesia, and the authors of those laws did not know that the laws would one day be enforced by an African Hitler bent on mass extermination.

One never knows if one will need a fire extinguisher. Many people go their whole lives without needing to use a fire extinguisher, and most people never need firearms to resist genocide. But if you don't prepare to have a life-saving tool on hand during an unexpected emergency, then you and your family may not survive.

In the book Children of the Flames, Auschwitz survivor Menashe Lorinczi recounts what happened when the Soviet army liberated the camp: the Russians disarmed the SS guards. Then, two emaciated Jewish inmates, now armed with guns taken from the SS, systematically exacted their revenge on a large formation of SS men. The disarmed SS passively accepted their fate. After Lorinczi moved to Israel, he was often asked by other Israelis why the Jews had not fought back against the Germans. He replied that many Jews did fight. He then recalled the sudden change in the behavior of the Jews and the Germans at Auschwitz, once the Russian army's new "gun control" policy changed who had the guns there: "And today, when I am asked that question, I tell people it doesn't matter whether you're Hungarian, Polish, Jewish, or German: If you don't have a gun, you have nothing."

— Richard Griffiths is a doctor of psychology with research interest in gun issues. Dave Kopel is a NRO contributing editor.

33 posted on 11/06/2003 10:38:25 PM PST by PsyOp ( Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle.)
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To: Robert_Paulson2
I think it's always fear.

You have a point. But I would respond that fear is, in itself, a by-product of ignorance in most cases.

34 posted on 11/06/2003 10:41:29 PM PST by PsyOp ( Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle.)
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To: PsyOp
"This has been debunked numerous times on FR."
" Really? "

Really --- from your own post ---

" The Nazis did not create any new firearms laws until 1938. Before then, they were able to use the Weimar Republic's gun controls to ensure that there would be no internal resistance to the Hitler regime. "

35 posted on 11/06/2003 10:49:07 PM PST by gatex
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To: PsyOp
link to guncite --Bogus Gun Control Quotes

"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. ....(continued)...."

36 posted on 11/06/2003 11:16:08 PM PST by gatex
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To: PsyOp
A government that fears arms in the hands of its people should also fear the rope!

--General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA

********************************

Any government that would attempt to disarm its people is despotic;
and any people that would submit to it deserve to be slaves!

--Stephen F. Austin, 1835

**************************

There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

--Marcus Tulius Cicero, 106-53 BC

-archy-/-

37 posted on 11/06/2003 11:28:56 PM PST by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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To: gatex
The article was not an attempt to say that you were wrong, but to show that the Nazi's, in fact, took the Weimar laws further. If the quote is bogus, then I want to know. Thank you for pointing out a source for your assertion.
38 posted on 11/06/2003 11:42:48 PM PST by PsyOp ( Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle.)
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To: Kay Soze
Sorry guys but the Supreme Court has made several decisions based on the Constitutions of other nations.

These unchallenged acts rendered our Constitution null and void. Your attempting to draw rights from a constitution of a nation that no longer exists.

Then they no longer have any constitutional authority to make any valid rulings. We can there fore disregard anything done by them following that first unconstitutional act, and following that action, there was no legitimate federal judiciary.

Should the executive branch attempt to enforce such rulings it and those employed from it can be disregarded in exactly the same manner.

The USA is every bit a part of the past as say the USSR, Yugoslavia or the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Constitution can be fixed, even if the Supreme Court can't; though all the constitutionally-offered methods of correction have not yet been tried.

But if it comes to that, so long as we still have the guns, the problem can be resolved. And a new set of Supreme Court Justices can be appointed to replace the ones hanging from the lampposts and other utility poles.

With the constitution gone, as you describe, there is no source for the legitimacy of laws against disposing of such persons as you see fit. The laws are as moot as the rights enumerated in the constitution they trashed.

Note that during the 4-month Finnish Civil War of 1918, those who were trying to subvert that country's constitution and turn it over to the forces of Russian communism were often dealt with by bayonetting rather than hanging. This gave inexperienced rookie soldiers the practice in the use of one of the tools available to them for preventing such activity in the future. And it's very likely that's the real reason many of those in the gun control movement are so frightened by the thought of bayonet attatchments on rifles in the hands of American citizens.

-archy-/-

39 posted on 11/06/2003 11:47:24 PM PST by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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To: PsyOp
The article was not an attempt to say that you were wrong, but to show that the Nazi's, in fact, took the Weimar laws further. If the quote is bogus, then I want to know. Thank you for pointing out a source for your assertion.

Note, though, that those attempting to consider some of those reported Hitler quotes in the original sources named were stymied by a lack of copies of origuinal material, many publishers and libraries collections having been destroyed during the war; particularly by aerial bombing.

In attempting to locate alternate reports of some of those quotations from N.S.D.A.P. party leader Hitler, the obvious source to try would seem to be the official N.S.D.A.P. newspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter, which would have been the medium most likely to have carried the text of Hitler's speeches, somtimes long-winded and borin, in full, if perhaps not on the exact same date as that given for when such quotes occurred in other newspapers, but at least closely so.

That the Volkischer Beobachter in its many editions has not also been so considered as a possible location for verification of Hitler's reputed words suggests to me that there are those on either side of the question afraid of that which they might find.

40 posted on 11/07/2003 12:03:36 AM PST by archy (Angiloj! Mia kusenveturilo estas plena da angiloj!)
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