Posted on 02/14/2002 1:28:17 PM PST by 45Auto
I know a lot of liberals. Hell, some of my best friends are liberals. And to those liberals, who so often favor gun control and gun confiscation, I have just one simple question....
Have you lost your bloody minds?
Let me tell 'ya a little story 'bout a man named Adolf. In the 20's the National Socialists were heavily armed (heavily for that day, anyway). The Bolsheviks were also somewhat armed, not to the degree of the Nazis. They were both probably better armed than the regular army, which was through the Treaty of Versailles, rendered next to useless.
German gun control didn't begin under the Nazis. It began in large measure because of the Nazis. They did not demand it, though. It was being aimed AT them. Yes. You heard me right. Check your history. The politcal establishment of the Weimar Republic wanted gun control to control undesirables in the population. To disarm them. They all thought it was a peachy idea.
It didn't work. German gun control was aimed at the Nazis and the Bolsheviks, the radical parties of the day. Because the National Socialists weren't about to obey laws that were not in their interest, gun control only wound up disarming what little armory was already in public hands.
What happened? One of the groups who refused to disarm ultimately took over the country. And there was absolutely nothing their opponents could do about it. Because they were without an army and without many firearms.
Now, the Weimar Republic is not a direct comparison to today's United States. But fast forward to today. There are a lot of people, most of them liberals of some type, who say one of the major reasons they want to disarm Americans is because of guns in the hands of "them crazy rednecks", like me. (Even though I'm Black, Indian and Jewish) Well, let's assume for a minute you get your wish. Let's say that HCI and the Brady bunch get everything they want in their political agenda passed into law. Who is and is not willing to obey those laws is of prime strategic importance to the liberal agenda.
Under a gun confiscation, who will likely surrender arms and who will utterly refuse to, cuts sharply across political lines. The liberals will probably cooperate, for the "good of the children", or "the environment", or whatever pablum of the day they're being fed. Maybe a few radical anarchists won't. But most of your mainstream Democrats will comply. After all, they TRUST the government to take care of them.
However, the groups who will not are the conservatives and the libertarians. The conservatives, who prominently feature the Religious Right caucus. The Patrick Buchanan anti-immigration caucus. The anti-gay caucus. And the libertarians who plain and simply represent the "leave me the hell alone" caucus. The libertarians who would if they had their way gut as many liberal government programs as they possibly could.
Of course, the criminals will not comply. Not ever. They never do. They will, of course, profit from the illicit traffic from those who feel the need to have a weapon without the permission of a government bureaucrat or local police official. But I'm not really talking about the criminals here.
So what would happen under strict gun control is that the political groups most likely to be armed to the teeth are the conservatives and the libertarians, and the Religious Right and Buchananites with them. To a distinctly disporportionate degree.
Now, if you are a liberal, ask yourself this question.... do you really feel comfortable about that. Do you really WANT the conservatives to have significantly more guns than you? Because that group of armed individuals will be able to throw out any election they wish: you all complain Bush stole the 2000 election. Well, son, under strict gun control, you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet!!!
And they would likely, in the case of an armed insurrection of any serious import, be the people who take over the government. Either that, or a very organized somewhat fascist element within the government will defeat them, and take power themselves. Where would the liberals fit in the picture? Disarmed, with no power, no agenda and no voice, with their pet programs likely in shambles, with both camps of a civil war who hate them.
The SINGLE STUPIDEST thing that liberals could do for their causes is pass gun control. They would be writing their own death warrant, just as the Weimar Republic did.
I reiterate the question. Does anyone here want their activist movement fully disarmed, and completely trusting the other side in power without the check and balance of the potential for armed revolt? Let me guess: some of you reading this right now, are thinking with your gut. And your gut is telling you: "the more I read of your essays, Liz, the more I see the need for strict gun control. So people like YOU won't have guns."
People like ME won't have guns.
That's a real belly laugh.
People like me, understand, as Mao understood, that power flows from the barrel of a gun. So people like me will NEVER not have guns. Your gut feeling is the same gut feeling the Weimar Republic had about the Nazis. I'm not going to challenge your feeling..If you understand my politics, REALLY, it's in fact, nearly laughable, as someone like Hitler or Stalin is practically the diametric opposite of myself.. But let's go with your feeling for a sec. Say I am the danger. Me and my "conservative libertarian anarchist radical antigovernment whatever" thugs are going to march down and destroy America. So what then...."WE GOTTA TAKE EVERYBODY'S GUNS!", you say. And let's pretend for a bit that you manage to get legislation to that effect. Who will obey it and who won't?
I'll tell ya, who, my liberal friends. You will obey it. The liberals will dutifully obey.
I won't obey it. The libertarians won't. The radicals won't. The conservatives won't. The religious right won't. The gayhaters won't. You may think they will but you don't know them like I do.
I won't obey it because in the end, in addition to saving my own ass, and the asses of people who think like me, I may have to save YOUR asses as well.
Who will have more power, liberal friend, at that point? Who will have more power? The liberals or the conservatives? The left or the right? Because at that point, my side, and whoever happen to be my allies, whatever you think of my side, will have all the guns. Yes, the government will have them, too. But do you really think that the government agencies with the most arms give a rat's ass about the liberal agenda? Do you REALLY think the GOVERNMENT... do you really think that government agents at this point in time, care about benign things such as gay rights, women's rights, racial minorty rights and human dignity?
At that point in time, the only real battle left will be between the government and the conservatives and their allies. Unless, the conservatives take the government and consolidate absolute power, which Hitler did. So you either will have a government dominated by the conservatives, or dominated by FBI-CIA-DEA types.... or you will have a government in shambles due to a domestic rebellion....and remember that libertarians LIKE to see governments in shambles. And you will have encouraged the only Americans willing to oppose these people to disarm themselves.
At that point in the equation, liberal friend, unless your side is armed, your side won't count. Your side will not only be irrelevant, but to quote former California Governor Pete Wilson, it will be "f***ing irrelevant". And if you disarm Americans, remembering that we won't disarm, you will have no power, and we might very well have all of it.
In the light of what I've just written, liberal friend, let me ask you again. Do you want to disarm the American people so that they will not be able to fight back against a tyrannical government? Or do you want to trust whomever comes to power to not be a tyrant. Germany did the latter and got the Third Reich. What will YOU get?
By the way, lest anyone have a cow, I do not believe conservatives and libertarians can possibly be equated with the Nazis. But I'm comparing the Weimar Republic to America of today, in one aspect, and one aspect only, and that is exposing the fallacy that the political enemies of the ruling government can be successfully disarmed by disarming the society at large, which is what we're really talking about. I am responding specifically to people who say that the NRA, the GOA, myself, and many of our allies are so dangerous that we need to be disarmed, and that that could be accomplished by disarming the populace as a whole.
Targeting the most military styled political enemy you have in a nation with general gun control against everyone actually strengthens the political enemy.
I can also use Weimar Germany and probably a 100 other examples to demonstrate that in most conflicts, that when the "gunphobics" decide to square off against the "gun lovers", the gun lovers almost always win. To beat us, you have to become just like us. Ultimately, to successfully disarm us, you will have to pick up a gun and make it so. Or hire someone and pay them to do the same.
This is why I am so adamantly against the gun controllers. Because I know that. I know ultimately that for them to win, they will have to turn into far worse than whatever they perceive we are. You still think you all will simply talk us out of it or legislate us out of it, but I know better. I know that either you will lose to us or you will beat us by becoming monsters. And I know there will be no other choices.
Remember what I said, people. Nothing you do will cause the hardcore conservatives and libertarians to disarm. Probably, gun control will only cause more of us TO arm. Because we know what happens next if we don't.
Governments in the 20th century have killed 100 million people. Almost all of those governments had one thing in common.....they stripped their eventual victims of firearms. Almost every people who have tried to appease a tyrant have lived to regret it. There is a more important spiritual lesson, in your zest to avoid the sword, that some of you have forgotten...."Put not your trust in princes". By disarming, you are trusting the princes.
I don't trust the princes. Do you?
Hitler probably would have come to power anyway in Germany. However, with a disarmed populace, he came to power with a minority of the vote, and without a check and balance against his power. Had there been an armed populace, he might not have been able to consolidate absolute power. Probably no World War II. Probably no Holocaust. Guns in the right hands could have stopped it all.
Anyone in today's political climate personally strike you as dangerous?
It doesn't really matter who it is, or what party they belong to. Just understand this: gun control strengthens their hand. YOU personally disarming strengthens their hand.
Again, I'll reask the question of those who support gun control. Have you lost your minds?
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I agree. I had no firearms until Y2K and the potential for civil unrest opened my eyes. I have relayed what I have learned to many people, and it seems many of them would be willing to fight for America if it came to that.
Most won't, but some will. The entire point of my response was that an effective resistance movement anywhere in the world doesn't need a large part of the population actively participating to have the desired effect. Such a movement only needs a relatively few who are truly dedicated. Ask the British - they found out the hard way. So did we in Vietnam, and the Russians in Afghanistan. No government can impose its will on an armed populace that doesn't want to live life on its knees.
What happens in that sort of conflict is that a very small group starts a ruckus and the heavy handed methods of the government pushes the rest into the fight. I have a very poor crystal ball. It doesn't work very well so I can't see what this country can do to resolve this conflict. I'm just happy to take the easy way out. Voting, rallies and donating time and money to the causes I believe in, mainly the Second Amendment.
An entire book addresses this assertion quite authoritatively. It is "The Ominous Parallels" by Leonard Peikoff, written in the early 80s. We're even closer to the Weimar experience today than when the book was written. When we are conned, scared, or forced into giving up the bulk of civilian held arms, we'll find out pretty quick that sometimes two parallel lines can indeed cross.
I wonder...
It's already much worse than it was at the time of the Revolution and things seem pretty stable to me.
As long as the people have bread and circuses, they are content.
Our modern equivalent is beer and cable tv. As long as the changes are gradual and we are well fed and entertained who wants to rock the boat.
My main fear is not that our government will become murderously tyranical, but that a subsequent HRC administration will invite the Red Chinese to fill a few container ships and show up to occupy the United States. Most Americans would watch the news coverage of the takeover of the US until they are bored and then ask "What else is on?"
They stayed until they were cooked, over 600,000 of them, and when it got down to the end, there was a fight, but it was too late.
I thank God that GWB is POTUS, and that we are rid of the slicktigula.
My question to everybody is WHY DON'T EVEN THE LIBS/RATS LEARN FROM HISTORY.
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