We might think that this is all confected – outrage at pointing out that German Jews were deliberately disarmed and the relationship between this and the Holocaust. But the truth is both sides are making useful points, even if they’re also rather talking past each other. Take this:
Jewish groups denounced the remarks. The Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Wednesday: “It is mind-bending to suggest that personal firearms in the hands of the small number of Germany’s Jews (about 214,000 remaining in Germany in 1938) could have stopped the totalitarian onslaught of Nazi Germany when the armies of Poland, France, Belgium and numerous other countries were overwhelmed by the Third Reich.”
Entirely true that a couple of hundred thousand people with hunting rifles and pistols aren’t going to be able to take on the Wermacht. Equally true that varied Ukrainian and Polish partisans tried it and didn’t get all that far either.
This is also true however:
“He was referencing the fact that when Hitler confiscated firearms from Jewish Germans, those communities were less able to defend themselves,” she said. “He was not implying that an armed Jewish population would have been able to prevent the horrors of the Holocaust, but his intended message is that disarming citizens can have detrimental consequences.”
We can also, if we so wish, think that the Americans are rather quaint in their sticking to the 18th century idea of a well armed militia and thus gun ownership rights.
And yet, and yet. Reading any amount of history will inform you that those who would control a society do go out and rake in all the guns. No, not just Hitler and Jews, every totalitarian society has done its best to make sure that the populace is unarmed, the State heavily weaponed. No, this is not to imply that those arguing for American gun control are totalitarians – Hitler was a vegetarian, this does not mean vegetarians wish to make human soap. But it is still true that those who would be totalitarians do indeed at least attempt to disarm the population.
There being an important corollary to this. Maybe it isn’t true that a few revolvers would have stopped the Holocaust. Nor the Great Leap Forward, the Holodomor or Stalin’s massacres. But the people who carried those things out most certainly thought they might have done, which is why they worked so hard to make sure there were no guns out there in civilian hands. That is, a useful method of judging this is not to concentrate upon what we might be able to do to them, but what they feared from us?
Totalitarians obviously believe that an armed population is a barrier to their control of a society. That does tell us something about the value of an armed population.
Hitler was a vegetarian, this does not mean vegetarians wish to make human soap. Oh I bet they do. Really, I bet they do. Even though the soap thing may be a myth. The ADL is a sh!t organisation and I bet on this subject they are hypocritical. After all, who would not cheer Franciszka Mann? Along with a group of new arrivals, Mann was meant to be taken to the gas chamber for immediate death. During the incident, which was either at the selection ramp, a work area or at the gas chamber, depending on the telling, she managed… Read more »
Jews having guns would have certainly taken the fun out of it.
I’m not exactly sure about this ‘Hitler was a veggie’ thing. I’ve read some where he was put on a veggie diet by his doctor for stomach trouble at some point, hence he did eat veggie food, but it wasn’t by choice, it was a medical thing. So not a bleeding heart liberal worrying about the little fluffy animals…….
I suspect that the prospect of being faced by an armed victim would have curbed some of the enthusiasm of the thugs employed by the NKVD or the Gestapo. Certainly the choice for the victim between dying on his feet (and taking a couple of thugs with him) or surviving (just, and for a short time) on his knees would have made resistance much more likely and widespread.
What makes this rush to disarm the public more sickening is that in the case of the Nikolas Cruz the adminstrative state (FBI, police department, education department)to whom power to protect is being ceded, has manifestly and multipley failed to keep a disturbed boy with a long history of violence at school and home, away from guns and his long proclaimed target. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/966854507744374784.html
This research was originally to work out why Trayvon Martin previously in possession of stolen goods but uncharged was far from home and peeking in windows and reveals the lengths to keep criminal juveniles from official statistics.
Like the opposition to feel-good “gun-free zones,” the desire for an armed populace is not a desire for a lot of gunfights, nor a prediction that the little guy will prevail, but a desire to put uncertainty in the mind of the thug (in or out of government).
The Democratic/liberal/progressive narrative since November, 2016 is that the USA is now in the grips of a totalitarian thug. But evidently being in the grips of a totalitarian thug isn’t enough to stop D/l/p types from demanding that same totalitarian thug disarm the population.
I can’t help but notice that Black Lives Matters, for all their fretting about the slaughter of black folks by racist cops, can’t bring itself to endorse the idea of black folk having the right to arm themselves for protection.
Because BLM are Marxist scum first and foremost with blackness coming a long way second. And then only so long as blackness is a tool useful to CM evil.
Various guerrilla bands in Afghanistan and other places have shown that rag tag groups armed with AK-47s and perhaps some rocket launchers and home made bombs can cause a regular army conniptions.
But that said, I think the end of the era of Americans being able to easily purchase high capacity semi-automatic weapons may be in sight.
“It is mind-bending to suggest that personal firearms in the hands of the small number of Germany’s Jews (about 214,000 remaining in Germany in 1938) could have stopped the totalitarian onslaught of Nazi Germany when the armies of Poland, France, Belgium and numerous other countries were overwhelmed by the Third Reich.”
False dichotomy. German Jews needed to protect themselves. They had no need, nor interest, in stopping the Deutsches Heer invading Poland and France. Not their battle.
ADL’s statement is atrocious.
Right now, the US military in Afghanistan is at a virtual standoff with the Taliban, who are mostly armed with the same sort of weapons that the american left wants to prohibit in the US. It is certainly true that a populace armed with hunting rifles couldn’t defeat the US military in a direct confrontation, but it’s also true that an armed populace can make life miserable for an occupying force, which can be a deterrent to governments who have delusions of grandeur.
>this is not to imply that those arguing for American gun control are totalitarians
But they clearly are.