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"Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily." - Charles Krauthammer, columnist, "Disarm the Citizenry".

This to me is a shocking quote from him. Makes me want to send the NRA some more money, and I don't even own a gun.

And one other thing; 'not come easily' is a huge understatement. The Second is the guarantor of them all, and she won't fall without copious bloodshed.

The Second is the guarantor of them all, and she won't fall without copious bloodshed.

Yep!

If congress passed a law tomorrow requiring every gun owner to surrender their firearms --and-- if 90% of the population complied, there would still be 6+ million gun owners owning 20+ million firearms.

In reality, it would be unlikely if even 50% complied to such an order.

The effort to seize guns from the non-compliant would be a bloody undertaking indeed!

"Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily." - Charles Krauthammer, columnist, "Disarm the Citizenry".

This quote is from an article where he praises the "Assault Weapon Ban", because, while it does nothing to reduce crime, it gets Americans used to the idea that the government should decide who has guns or not.

He gives no rational for his statement that a civilized society must disarm its citizenry. A clear current counterexample is Switzerland.

This statement flys in the face of most of history, where many civilizations started down the road to tyranny after they disarmed their citizens.

Machiavelli (a source I rate higher than Krauthammer) says in The Prince "When you disarm your subjects, however, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you"