A: They don't! For example, under Saddam Hussein, Every man and woman 25 and older with a "good reputation and character" was entitled to own one firearm, including a fully automatic AK-47 assault rifle. U.S. administrator Paul Bremer decided to leave the law in place, with the unfortunate consequences of which I trust you are all aware.
In Russia, firearm ownership is legal although registration is required. About 9% of Russians own firearms, not all of them legally. There is a substantial illegal traffic in firearms in Russia but the government has so far not done much about it, although there is talk of tightening enforcement after a recent mass shooting. Nothing has happened yet. And of course our friend Maria Butina was campaigning openly to further loosen Russian gun laws until she was imprisoned in the United States as a spy. Hmm.
Hitler actually repealed the restrictive gun ownership laws of the Weimar Republic:
The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition,” [University of Chicago law professor Bernard] Harcourt wrote. Meanwhile, many more categories of people, including Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether, while the legal age of purchase was lowered from 20 to 18, and permit lengths were extended from one year to three years.Of course, Jews were not allowed to own guns, but I'll just quote Brian DelPozo:
The idea that armed German Jews specifically would have been able to fight back against the Holocaust is highly unlikely. The Nazi Germany war machine was one of the most powerful military systems ever constructed, especially prior to and in the early years of World War II, and it would have been able to quash almost any armed resistance. In fact, the largest revolt by armed Jewish citizens during the war — the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising — was ended in less than a month and resulted in the death of 13,000 Jews versus less than 300 Germans.I could go on -- firearm laws are more restrictive in many western European nations than they are in some dictatorial regimes. There doesn't seem to be any consistent relationship. Dictatorial regimes restrict firearm ownership pretty much for the same reasons democratic regimes do so -- for public safety. They maintain power by outlawing and persecuting organized political opposition and political speech. That's why Saddam was not afraid of private citizens with firearms -- they could not organize to use them against the regime. Vladimir Putin evidently feels the same way.
As Brown University’s Omer Bartov succinctly put it to Salon: “Just imagine the Jews of Germany exercising the right to bear arms and fighting the SA, SS, and the Wehrmacht. The Red Army lost 7 million men fighting the Wehrmacht, despite its tanks and planes and artillery. The Jews with pistols and shotguns would have done better?”
It's the first Amendment that is most essential to our freedom, along with the Fourth and Fifth, and of course the 13th and 14th. If you have a political cause, organize! Don't collect firearms.
BTW: Here's a photograph of the Tienanmen Square incident in 1989. As a thought experiment, how would the outcome have been different if this guy had a gun?
Further update: Quoting somebody who says something idiotic on TV is not an argument.
Also, premise shifting: If we aren't arguing about whether armed citizenry can defeat a national army, why are we talking about Venezuela?
9 comments:
I don't know where all the other commenters are on this blog ... but thank you for a cogent, fact-based, beautifully written post today.
See the difference now?
George Washington, our first president, said:
“From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable . . . the very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good.”
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.”
---Adolf Hitler April 11, 1942
“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”
- Mao Tze Tung, Nov 6, 1938
Josef Stalin, the sole leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953, said: “If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.” In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
I publish this because it represents a serious effort. However, it takes history out of context and is entirely beside the point. In the case of Mao, he was writing in the context of civil war. There were actual armies that the CP was fighting. If Chinese civilians had weapons today, believe me it would not pose any threat to the party or the Red Army. Similarly, Stalin took power in the context of civil war. As you know, the current dictatorial government does allow civilians to own firearms. Hitler is referring to the "subject races," as I clearly acknowledged. And in the quote you provide, he is not talking about German subjects at all but about Russians in occupied territories, and saying that they will not be allowed to have their own law enforcement capacity. He isn't talking about civilians at all. (Can you read?)
The history of the "well regulated militia" is too complicated to get into here but I suppose I will have to do it eventually. Basically Washington is talking about defense against Native Americans and rebellious slaves.
Let's get to the point.
Venezuelans are now in the street with rocks and they're having an impact.
How can anyone make the argument that an armed populous would not make an even bigger impact?
And it also begs the question as to why guns were outlawed by the government in 2012 in the first place?
Venezuela outlawed civilian gun ownership in 2012 because it had one of the highest rates of gun violence on the planet. The move was popular at the time, and the country still had a functioning electoral republic.
Throwing rocks is not "having an impact," and if those rock throwers were shooting at the soldiers they would now all be dead. What will have an impact is if the army leadership defects.
Don't be obtuse. This is how it works:
http://www.davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/american-revolution-against-british-gun-control.html
"The Royal Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, had forbidden town meetings from taking place more than once a year. When he dispatched the Redcoats to break up an illegal town meeting in Salem, 3000 armed Americans appeared in response, and the British retreated. Gage's aide John Andrews explained that everyone in the area aged 16 years or older owned a gun and plenty of gunpowder.
Military rule would be difficult to impose on an armed populace. Gage had only 2,000 troops in Boston. There were thousands of armed men in Boston alone, and more in the surrounding area."
Exactly doofus, you aren't getting it. The British army was not expecting a mass insurrection and they were outnumbered and outgunned by the militia. Once the war started they had to ship soldiers (and Germans) across the ocean in wooden sailing vessels, during which time the colonists built their own army. It was the Continental Army under a guy named George Washington (ever hear of him?) who ultimately defeated the British occupiers, not the men and boys of Salem. The British basically decided it wasn't worth it to try to hold on to colonies 3,000 miles away across the ocean.
We are not talking about that situation. We are talking about the people of a nation versus their own national army. If any plausible number of Venezuelan citizens tried to fight the Venezuelan army using their personal firearms, they would be slaughtered. And if you and your Patriot Militia were to try the same thing, you are also, I hope, smart enough to know what the result would be.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
But not for lack of trying on Cervantes's part.
I find that people who think as "conservatives" or "libertarians" are especially good at not hearing anything that diverges from their perspectives. No matter what they hear or read! They see what they want to see.
Cervantes seems willing to entertain an opposing point of view, as long as it does not controvert accepted truth, such as anthropogenic climate change.
But some people, like "Soshulist," above, seem instransigent to the point of being a broken record. Doesn't matter what they hear or see, they keep playing the same tune--no matter what.
So what's the point of trying to converse with them?
And why is it right-leaning people who seem, primarily, to have these habits?
I'd posit that it's precisely the fact that they have their specious views--which deny reality or facts, or rationality--that is the problem. In order to hold an irrational, false view in the first place--like the "economists" that Krugman debunks on a regular basis, the ones who predicted "runaway inflation" over the past decade or two, who were wrong, who can't admit it (there are the ones the Republicans support)--one has to proceed from faulty premises. And once you've gone down that road, there are only two choices: admit your error, or stick to your faulty perspective. And the former can only come from within.
Right-leaning folks are fear-based. That is why they almost never change their views: they are "thinking" emotionally, not rationally. And you can't reason someone out of something he didn't reason himself into in the first place.
My brother and I had little single-shot .22 rifles from a very young age. Our father took us out shooting often -- not hunting; we never hunted. Today I have a number of firearms, including a .22 lever action Marlin, which holds a lot of memories. But I have never understood the fanaticism of gun enthusiasts. I don't imagine that I'm going to overthrow a government turned against the people -- who in hell thinks there is any danger of that anyway, except maybe from a right-wing demagogue. I don't consider possession of a firearm to make me a more virile man. I haven't actually fired any of those guns for years, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings, or my ego, to give them all up. So what's going on with gun nuts? I sense a lack of something rather than an excess of something, but, as I said, I don't understand it.
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