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How can anybody point to the Holocaust as a reason to oppose sane gun control measures? asked a spokeswoman for StopTheNRA.com, Wendy Katz. "It's not only ridiculous. It's a deep offense to the memories of the six million innocent Jews who were tortured and murdered during the Holocaust...."

My wife's uncle was a "guest" at 4 of Herr Hitler's concentration camps, and witnessed the murder of his father and brother. He is the only survivor of his family. He owns full-auto weapons and always carries a gun with him. Who is Wendy Katz to suggest that this man, who carries such awful memories with him day and night, should be disarmed... or that his living relatives should also be disarmed, so that they may also face the power of the State without an effective defense someday?

It is "deeply offensive" to those Jews who resisted the Nazis - or for that matter the Arabs who have more recently tried to exterminate the Jewish State (and all of its residents) - to state that they'd have been better off without guns. It is simply not true - without guns, they'd be DEAD! And as far as those who did die using guns to defend themselves, at least they died on their feet instead of on their knees, at least they had some self respect, and at least they defended with all of their resources that most precious gift from G-d, life itself.

Wendy Katz and all of the other Ghetto Jews can do as they wish, but this Jew will follow the example of his wife's uncle and only be disarmed when he is dead.

"...The rationale behind a gun registration system is to help facilitate criminal investigations.

I'm sure that this was one of the arguments for registration in Weimar Germany. As the article mentioned, the Nazis didn't invent gun control, but they sure benefitted from the neat and well-organized lists of gun owners throughout Germany (and, later, throughout countries that they occupied). Oh, and BTW, I'm also sure that such a claim is cold comfort to those residents of NYC that registered their long guns pursuant to a 1966 law (at which time they were promised that the information would "never" be used for confiscation), when Mayor David Dinkins ordered the police to round up all "assault weapons" in the early 1990's.

Contrary to what the NRA suggests, it is not part of a nefarious, coordinated plot against gun owners modeled after the Nazis' campaign to eliminate the Jews."

That is a hypothesis that cannot be proven. Given the stakes, I'm not willing to take her assurances (or anyone else's) that it is true.

I went to school with a girl whose father took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Her father managaged to escape to Singhapore, met and married, then came to the U.S. and became an American citizen. If he hadn't been armed he would have died. Many of his comrades died, but at least they didn't die like cattle to the slaughter.

It is "deeply offensive" to those Jews who resisted the Nazis - or for that matter the Arabs who have more recently tried to exterminate the Jewish State (and all of its residents) - to state that they'd have been better off without guns. It is simply not true - without guns, they'd be DEAD! And as far as those who did die using guns to defend themselves, at least they died on their feet instead of on their knees, at least they had some self respect, and at least they defended with all of their resources that most precious gift from G-d, life itself.

Several years back an Israeli pal took me to have dinner with the fella who'd been his lifelong teacher and mentor. I expected a teacher or professor, a bookish sort. Boy, was I surprised.

Yeah, the guy enjoyed reading in the sunset of his years, but he'd been a Palmachnik during the formatative days of the Israeli state, and had served if the first two of Israel's wars, in 1948 and 1956. And he still had the six-digit number tatooed on his forearm to remind him of his earlier days, though the Israeli government offered free cosmetic removal of such reminders. He wanted to remember....

And like a good many soldiers, from Israel and elsewhere, he had a few souvenirs of those days. I'd have maybe expected an Israeli Uzi submachinegun hanging over a mantle; again, I was close but not right on target.

The weapon he'd come to favour was the Egyptian *Port Said*, the Egyptian copy of the Swedish M45b subgun known as the *Swedish K* to those spooks, aviators and a few lucky grunts who also used the Swedish buzzguns in Vietnam. If less compact than the Israeli Uzi the Swedish kulsprutepistol b was a little lighter, and thought by many to be more controllable, since it's held between both hands, like the German MP40 burp gun. And the 36-round magazine used in the Egyptian guns was an improvement over the 25-round magazine then most commonly seen with the Uzi, though the Israelis finally fielded a 32-round magazine for their gun in response.

Neither was his trophy- there were bloodstains on it, taken from a shot-up Russian-supplied Egyptian halftrack- a mere wallhanger: he had a bag of a half-dozen loaded magazines for it hanging from the gun's pistol grip, in its place of repose pointing muzzledown leaning against the wall by his apartment's balcony window.

His window overlooked a neighboring school, and this was a couple of years after the Munich Olympic massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes- and the murder of a couple of dozen high school students at Maalot in 1974. It was indeed possible that something of the sortcould also happen in his neighborhood; but it was not very likely that those committing such murderous acts in his neighborhood could get away with it. Likewise, at his advanced age, the once and former soldier was no longer fit to grapple or fight hand-to-hand or with bayonet against those who might come to kill him day or night, as they'd promised, but he and his little friend could make it very expensive and difficult for them as they came up the three flights of winding stairsteps that led to his floor. The old tiger still had a few teeth left.

I suppose he's passed away by now, he was in his late 70s or early 80s back then, just before America's Bicentennial year of 1976. But I expect he remained capable right up to his very last days- and if he's stiull around, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he still has the Egyptian submachinegun he got the hard way- and still remembers how to use it. And those numbers on his arm reminded him why.