Let them defend themselves. As Glenn notes, the proper response of the Jews in the thirties, rather than handing in their guns, would have been no-limit open hunting season on Nazis.
Meanwhile, the Senate is trying to rein in all of the anti-Second-Amendment actions of the administration (and some states). They should just abolish the ATF.
[Update a couple minutes later]
As always, easing restrictions on guns didn’t increase bloodshed in Illinois, either. These gun grabbers are always wrong, but they never learn.
Nope, they never learn because it’s not about controlling guns, but about controlling the masses.
I don’t see how “no-limit open hunting season on Nazis” would have been “the proper response”. Would such a hunting season defeat the Nazis? Would it convince the German public to not support the Nazis? Would it have ended with more Jews still alive? I think the proper response would either be to do something to prevent the Nazis from obtaining power or to flee. And while fleeing was extremely difficult once countries like the US started turning away Jewish refugees, it still seems like the proper response. “Open hunting season” was hard enough for armies. If you want to say that guns might have helped some people flee some of the time, ok, at least I can imagine that.
The answers to that hypothetical don’t matter because we can’t go back in time, we can only change the future. So, the relevant hypothetical is whether or not Jews in Europe would benefit from the basic human right of self defense.
When you look at the types of attacks they have been experiencing, it is very plausible that a person with a gun would be able to defend themselves. They shouldn’t have to wait a thousand years for attitudes to change.
Kristalnacht would have turned out a lot different. It’s one thing to have your hands undirtied because your Nazi goons did it uncontested and a completely different matter to send in your underpowered military forces because your Nazi goons got trounced in street fighting.
I’d say that a no-limit open season on Nazis would have been an ideal way to prevent them from gaining power. Dead people can’t (outside of Cook County) vote, and they certainly can’t hold political office. I don’t know of another way for a very tiny minority, held in contempt by most of their countrymen, could prevent a very popular political party from gaining power.
The lack of such a response led to a no-limit open hunting season on “Nazis” by the Allies, at least one of whom (the United States) had never been bothered by them. And millions more people died than would have had the Jews and others had guns and used them.
If a serious effort were made to take away guns in this country, the ultimate response (if politics failed) would be an armed one. And anyone who thinks the government would prevail in that case is delusional. All of the armed government agents having arrest powers (and there are more than you might imagine), the police, the National Guard, and the three main military branches combined are still outnumbered 20:1 by armed citizens, many of whom can out-shoot the average law enforcement agent. My mother could shoot circles around a friend of hers who was an FBI agent. That is what motivates the anti-gun people in government, and not public safety.
“I’d say that a no-limit open season on Nazis would have been an ideal way to prevent them from gaining power. Dead people…”
I honestly can’t imagine how the Jews would have prevailed in the conflict you are imagining. The test case was the communists who did shoot back. We’ve talked about that case on this blog before, right?
As a starting point, do you see anything factually incorrect or missing from this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Resistance_to_Nazism#Pre-war_resistance_1933.E2.80.9339
I honestly can’t imagine how the Jews would have prevailed in the conflict you are imagining
Well, we honestly don’t have to imagine how the Jews suffered without guns in the German concentration camps. We know they got there at gunpoint by German Gestapo. I don’t think imagination is required.
Yes, at least in the Warsaw ghetto, they took a lot of Germans with them.
“I honestly can’t imagine how the Jews would have prevailed in the conflict you are imagining.”
Probably the same way Finland kicked the crap out of the invading Soviet Union, despite the 3 to 1 advantage the Soviet army had in troops.
Well, if the Jews posseed Finland’s aircraft, tanks, and organized trained army, it would have helped, but given the advantage that geography gave the defending Finns, you know what would have really helped the Jews of Germany resist the Nazis? Having a Finland of their own.
Consider the military aid to Finland from from just Sweden alone: “135,402 rifles, 347 machine guns, 450 light machine guns with 50,013,300 rounds of small arms ammunition;144 field guns, 100 anti-aircraft guns and 92 anti-armour guns with 301,846 shells; 300 sea mines and 500 depth charges; 17 fighter aircraft, 5 light bombers, 1 DC-2 transport aircraft turned into bomber, and 3 reconnaissance aircraft, totally comprising 1/3 of the Swedish air force at the time.”
We’re talking about all out war between armies, not “open hunting season” by armed civilians. I am not impressed with your analogy to Finland.
Yes, Bob-1, you are sorry…extremely so. The Soviets invaded with 2,500 tanks and 3,800 aircraft. The Fins had 32 tanks and 114 aircraft. The Soviets sent in 750,000 troops against Finland’s 250,000. And the Fins kicked the Soviets’ ass. So you can be as sorry as you like, but the fact is, they did it, and so could the Jews have done had they been armed, and had the backbone.
MfK,
the idea that our military or LEOs would follow an ‘order’ that they should go out into the countryside, towns and cities, to do some HUGE gun grab, disregards one very simple truth. The grand majority of those people are gun owners themselves first and foremost. They are also middle Right to far Right voters AND many of their oaths speak to protecting the Constitution and state laws that in EVERY instance in exactly worded clauses that say we have a non-negotiable right to own guns for our own protection. There are very few people who will enforce, follow and adhere to ANY law or rule that is immediately dangerous to the person who is doing the enforcement.
I’ve always wondered if El Jeffe de Jug Ears, or his puppet masters, didn’t know and understand those things, and that is the reason he floated the idea of a Civilian National Security Force. Let’s face it, you can’t be a good savior of the people [dictator] without your own personal heavily armed force who owes its first allegiance to said savior of the people [dictator]. My study of histories of the world, shows that the leaders who are the most dangerous to the population always have a heavily armed paramilitary group with powers that outstrip the laws, and that overwrite every right the people once had, all in some weasel worded legal jargon.
Luckily, our Founding Fathers saw that too. Having just kicked King George in his throne room and come through that war and seeing the devastation of fighting in your own back yard, they wrote the Second Amendment so the people would be equipped to protect themselves from powerful entities, BEFORE it becomes absolutely necessary.
I think the Left in general / anti-gunners regardless of their reported beliefs / outright socialists and communists may be going after our guns for different spoken reasons, but what they really all want the same thing. Power. If it wasn’t about power, then we wouldn’t see the same faces over, and over, and over speaking for or giving monetary support to several different groups. Other than power, WHY would a guy like Bloomberg be supporting ant-gun movements in places were he’s never been and has no interest in going?
I’m having trouble believing that guys like him are really so worried about the welfare of people in AR, NC or LA, that he’s supporting anti-gun laws in states were crime is DROPPING. His group says gun crime in NYC is higher because of guns that get ‘exported’ from NC, and the others. But in truth they aren’t ‘exported’ legally with paperwork. They’re stolen or at least transferred illegally sans paperwork. That’s not ‘exportation’, it’s ‘piracy’. And how taking MY guns will solve the problems of illegal guns going to NYC, or anywhere else, always goes over my head.
the proper response of the Jews in the thirties, rather than handing in their guns, would have been no-limit open hunting season on Nazis.
That is uncomfortably close to where we are, right here, right now. Not merely Jews, but freedom-loving people in general in America.
The totalitarians are running roughshod over us. Who will put a stop to it?
“Yes, at least in the Warsaw ghetto, they took a lot of Germans with them.”
That’s not the case. I keep thinking so too, even though I should remember otherwise by now. But I just checked.
First: It wasn’t a lot of Germans. It was roughly 17 Germans killed, as opposed to 71, 000 Jews killed or deported to concentration camps.
Second: I just found this Holocaust survivor and author who argues that the 220 or so Jewish fighters doomed the rest (and not in accordance with their wishes). 25,000 Jews survived World War II in Warsaw. They survived by not being in the Ghetto. Eli Gat suggests that the people of the Warsaw Ghetto also hoped to similarly survive, and might have if the 220 hadn’t tried to fight. See this interesting article:
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.564834 BUT WAIT, don’t click on the link if you are not a Haaretz subscriber — you might come up against Haaretz’s paywall. Instead, google “warsaw ghetto uprising german casualties” and Eli Gat’s article should be one of the top links.
Haaretz published a rebuttal to Gat’s article by historian Havi Dreifuss, who argues, among other things, that only 2,000 Jews survived the war in and around Warsaw (out of 40,000 in the entire country of Poland who survived the war). Here is the direct link, which you probably shouldn’t click but it is only fair to Haaretz to include it: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.565945 You can find it via google by searching for “Eli Gat” and “Warsaw Ghetto” — as you might imagine, lots of people want to disagree with Gat, since he being iconoclastic, and it is interesting to read what they have to say too.
Moshe Arens, who readers may recall was the Israeli ambassador to the US (and who researches the uprising, and who also is an aeronautical engineer who led the Kfir fighter jet project, and who was also an defense minister and foreign minister) says Eli Gat is at least somewhat right: http://moshearens.com/2013/12/26/the-warsaw-ghetto-revolt-is-no-myth/
Apparently Bob, like many of the servile ilk, is not a fan of the “better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees” philosophy.