Kristallnacht and Arms Control:
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous anti-Jewish pogram in Nazi Germany. In Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews (Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law), Stephen Halbrook details how Kristallnacht was the culmination of years of Nazi success in disarming their opponents by using the "moderate" gun licensing and registration laws which had been enacted by the Weimar Republic. During the Kristallnacht pogram, new regulations were introduced which totally forbade Jews to possess firearms, edged or pointed weapons, and blunt weapons. A magazine article by Halbrook, Registration: The Nazi Paradigm, examines Nazi gun control polices both in Germany and in conquered nations.
But to focus the question away from the loaded rhetoric involved, when it comes to gun registration there are two questions.
First, is it constitutional? If individuals do indeed have a "right to bear arms," is mandatory registration an unconstitutional infringement on that right? I would be interested in Mr. Kopel's and others' viewpoint on this issue. Because if mandatory registration is unconstitutional, then we never get to the policy arguments.
Second, the policy arguments. What we as a nation must weigh in arguing about mandatory gun registration is, on the one hand, the societal benefits of mandatory registration vs. the possibility of a Nazi-like regime coming to power and using gun registries to take away these arms. I personally think the latter possibility is remote to the point of infitesimal.
Given the above quote, it seems to me absurd to blame Weimar-era gun laws for Kristallnacht, unless you want to show some sort of slippery slope connection between the former and the latter.
What part of "never again" entails "ignoring history"? If disarming individuals could have credibly lead to the slaughter of millions, we should not write it off because if offends your sensibilities.
JB:
Kopel is not claiming that the laws caused Kristallnacht. He is arguing that the laws enabled the Nazis to take such acts. Instead of facing an armed Jewish populace, the Nazis faced Jews who were unable to meaningfully defend themselves. The gun laws were not intended, necessarily, to provide that result -- that we agree on. The gun laws intention does not matter, just the later result.
The policy argument is where mandatory gun registration fails, because the Supreme Court in Haynes v. U.S. (1968) ruled that convicted felons could not be punished for failing to register a gun--it violates their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The Court ruled that only people who can lawfully own a gun can be punished for failing to register. So the people about whom you have reason to worry having a gun, are exempt from the registration requirement--and the people about whom there is little reason to worry, are required to register their guns. This makes very little sense.
I should mention that a 1968 survey of the 44 states with either mandatory or voluntary gun registration laws found about a dozen violent crimes solved over ten years using those records. That same survey discovered that New York State officials could not recall a single violent crime solved with gun registration records--in a state that has not only registered but licensed handguns since 1911.
Frequently. I think I know almost as many Jewish gun owners as I know Gentile gun owners. Back when I was a gun dealer, I even had an Orthodox Jewish customer wearing a yarmulke! The saying, "Five Jews, six opinions" applies to gun ownership as well.
Why should anyone be offended by the reminder that disarming the victims is the first step towards genocide?
David -- as a Jew, I would appreciate it if you didn't use Kristalnacht and the holocaust to promote your pro-gun political views.
As A Jew myself, one of the lessons I've learned from the Holocaust is that every Jew should own a gun. I probably could not stop the next Holocaust myself but I'm not going to be herded into a cattle car without taking a couple of SOB's with me.
The constitution can be amended. One process for doing so involves debates and votes in the US Congress followed by debates and votes in the state legislatures. Surely that's not a huge hurdle for genuinely good/effective ideas.
I too am Jewish and I take issue with your statement that “as a Jew” you disapprove of David Kopel use of Kristalnacht and the holocaust to support his views about gun control.
All people have the right to study history, and attempt to draw lessons from it. You are essentially stating that you “own” the history of Kristalnacht; and it can only be used to promote positions that you or the majority of Jews support. The Holocaust is an important field of study. We would have a much more shallow understanding of the Holocaust, and its causes if only ideas pre-approved by Greedy Clerk, were allowed to be presented.
Well, during Saddam's reign most homes at least one assualt rifle and plenty of ammo. Last time I checked, the government ran all over them.
Widespread gun ownership is not a guarantee that the government will behave itself. It should be self-evident that an armed population has a better chance to fighting back against thuggish government than an unarmed population.
2nd, check out http://www.a-human-right.com and http://www.jpfo.org for lots of Jewish gun materials. Unless those websites were registered by the VC boys under fake names, of course.
If we can require that car owners/drivers have a license that indicates proficiency in the use of a car and insurance to cover various forms of injury that can be done with a car certainly a gun can be subject to the same thing.
It's not that an armed citizenry could defeat a government's army, it's that the leadership would have to think about how the armed conflict would be seen by it's supporters.
Without guns there is little risk of resistance and what resistance there is in inconsequential. People will go much more quietly when already stripped of the power to resist.
Warsaw is a bad example, because germany underestimated the Jews there. Had the Nazis gone down with flame throwers or bombs in the first instance, the story would have come out different.
It's anecdotal, of course, but it seems to me that over the years - at least in the U.S., and even more obviously in Great Britain - the more anti-gun laws that have been passed, the more gun crime has gone up. Possibly because criminals don't give a rat's ass about laws to begin with?
Are you seriously suggesting that without the Weimar laws the Nazis would have been unable to carry out Kristallnacht? Are you suggesting that it was simply the end point of a Nazi disarmament program? These ideas are beyond absurd.
Also, does this argument take into consideration other precipitates of crime (rising poverty, lack of education, unemployment, etc.).
It's a shame that the right to purchase, use, and dispose of a piece of non-contraband property is now seen as something wholly outside the reach of Constitutional protection.
We weren't planning to have a standing army at that time. The intent, as I read it, was to have a militia (think National Guard) in case of attack. This tends to be forgotten in the frenzy over registration and licensing. The country has changed, but I would say if you don't want registration or licensing, you had better be in a guard or reserve (police and sheriff's reserves count) or quit complaining.
Without that willingness to use massive force, urban guerilla operations can take a terrible toll on a regular military. Many soldiers would reluctantly carry out their orders against unarmed civilians that could not fight back for fear of summary execution or court-martial. If the civilians were in a position to counterbalance the hazard of punishment, some significant number of soldiers would change sides.
First of all, aren't crime rates, particularly murder rates, much higher in western nations without effective gun control and registration than with such control and regulation?
Second, the crime argument ignores the toll of non-criminal use of firearms, the accidental deaths of both children and adults, the suicides more easily executed with firearms, etc.
I don't know that registration alone would solve these problems, but registration plus training (analogous to a driver's license) would certainly reduce accidents and suicides.
"Re the 2nd amendment: "A well-regulated militia being necessary...."
We weren't planning to have a standing army at that time. The intent, as I read it, was to have a militia (think National Guard) in case of attack"
Could Mr. Evans please indicate though any citations of well-researched historical or legal publications, that when the writers of the Bill of Rights said "militia" they meant "National Guard"? I had thought it fairly clearly established this was not the case. Or, alternatively, he could quit complaining...
Showin' your true colors there, bucko. In the words of the Kinks,
Paranoia will destroy 'ya.
Clayton, why?
I'm with you. Every Jew should own, at least, a 12 ga. shotgun and a couple boxes of ammo. In my social circle, this is a very unpopular opinion. I stand by it.
CP
I say this only to premptively shield myself from accusations of gun hatred.
Yup. And if every Jewish community in Eastern Europe had been as well-armed as the average American, there would have been severe shortage of Einsatzgruppen to carry out machine gunning the population--and there might have been some rather significant delays in filling the boxcars headed to concentration camps. Even if (and I am making an unwarranted concession strictly for argument's sake) the net effect of Jews fighting back had been that the German Army had murdered millions of Jews in their villages with flamethrowers and artillery, instead of shipping them to concentration camps, what would have been the result?
It would have tied up soldiers in these operations, not fighting Allied forces.
It would have denied the Nazis the slave labor that was the other product of the concentration camps.
It would have, in many communities, caused significant collateral damage among non-Jews, who in many parts of the Soviet Union, remember, initially greeted the Nazis as liberators.
It would have destroyed significant amounts of valuables that were confiscated from Jews by the Nazis, and which helped to fund the German war effort.
The cost of widespread gun ownership - self-inflicted wounds, gun crimes against family and friends, gun crimes against strangers - generally outweighs the benefits of such widespread ownership. But, if a government has genocide in mind, or concentration camps, or violent pogroms, benefits of widespread gun ownership (among the targeted minority) are not rationally deniable.
Does this mean the US can and should encourage widespread gun ownership amongst targeted minorities, such as in Darfur? Perhaps so, assuming we do not increase total guns outstanding. In other words, buy up weapons in Compton, Iraq, etc. and ship them to the right folks in Darfur. Avoid creating new weapons, since they last 40 years with minimal care.
As an online discussion about Nazism grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hillary Clinton approaches 1. At least if Clayton Cramer is around.
In any case, the courts and recognized commentators such as St. George Tucker throughout the 19th century understood that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right not dependent on militia duty. (This created some serious problems for southern courts when having to come up with a justification for some of the first gun registration laws--which only applied to free blacks.)
Should all black people own guns?
Would being in the "unorganized reserves" count? Just asking.
There aren't many western nations in that category. The U.S. is much more relaxed on gun control than many other Western nations--but then again, the U.S. is not much like those other nations in a lot of other respects. We are ethnically quite a bit more diverse than say, Denmark, or Sweden--and oddly enough, when you compare white non-Hispanic murder rates in the U.S. with European countries, or Canada, the difference largely disappears. You do need to compare apples and apples.
Accidental deaths are noise--typically 5% or less of all gun deaths. There is also reason to think that a lot of these may be suicides that are covered up for reasons of either shame or insurance.
Suicides are, in most years, the majority of gun deaths in the U.S. Guns don't dramatically change how easily suicides take place. To my surprise, the "success" rate for suicides isn't much different for guns and the other leading causes of death. Unless you are planning to prohibit ropes, bridges, and high buildings....
Nope. A training requirement won't solve the accidents that are actually covered-up suicides, and it isn't going to solve the problem of gun accidents involving alcohol and other intoxicants (and these are pretty common). A study of gun accident injuries in Vermont back in the 1970s discovered that there was a very high overlap between people who injured themselves in gun accidents and drunk driving arrests. Surprise, surprise.
How will training reduce gun suicides? These are intentional acts.
This has been dealt with before, but if guns were regulated like cars, (1) gun control would be slightly more strict in some states, but (2) much less strict in others.
1. You would not need a gun license to own or use guns on private property.
2. Licenses to carry and use guns on public property (hunting licenses and concealed carry licenses) would be available for a nominal fee of $10 to $20 (rather than $100 and up), and much easier to obtain than they are now.
3. A gun license (whatever type) would be good in all states (more out of "comity" than a requirement, although Congress could mandate it).
4. Democrats would be demanding that gun licenses be made available to
illegal aliensundocumented workers.If cars were treated like guns,
(1) You wouldn't be allowed to drive within 1,000 feet of a school. Everyone would have heard of Steven Abrams.
(2) Driver licenses would be denied to persons based on the color of their skin, sexual orientation, or lack of donations to the sheriff's election campaign.
(3) Anti-car newspapers would be publishing the names of everyone with a drivers license, because "their neighbors have the right to know."
(4) Newspapers would refuse to run classified ads for cars sold by individuals.
(5) Anti-car-owner bigotry would be acceptable in polite society.
(6) You would need to get permission from the F.B.I. before buying a car.
Hmmm. There's alot of people (myself not included) who would say that Abe Lincoln did just that...
The real benefit of gun control (understood as the essential prohibition of gun ownership) is that it allows one to 'sit out' any threat to his neighbors. Being helpless, we have an excellent reason not to get involved. The people who ignored, for several hours, the screams of Kitty Genovese as she was being murdered in their street suffered no more than the mild inconvenience of disturbing noises because they had been careful to ensure, beforehand, that they lived in a culture of 'civilian' helplessness.
Or they live in a "me only" culture, where people do not care about their neighbors.
The practical problems are:
1. Criminals don't usually leave a gun at the scene of the crime--unless they are at the scene of the crime as well, awaiting medical care or coroner.
2. Serial numbers on guns are rather hard to read when a criminal is using it in a crime. "Excuse me, sir, could you turn that pistol you have pointing in my face to the side so that I an read the serial number? Thank you, sir!" Ballistic registration has its own set of problems which are even more serious.
3. There are occasions when people with no previous criminal history suddenly go out and become robbers or murderers, but this is pretty rare. The vast majority of felonies are committed by minors (who can't legally buy guns), people with previous felony convictions, or who are mentally ill (usually can't legally buy a gun).
4. Without question, gun registration would catch some people who lawfully purchase guns, and then resell them to unqualified buyers. If I could be confident that this would be the only use of such records, I wouldn't have a big problem with mandatory registration. But gun control advocates have long stated that mandatory registration of handguns is a first step towards complete confiscation. See Nelson "Pete" Shields's intervew in the July 26, 1976 New Yorker.
5. A fair number of criminally misused guns are stolen, in burglaries (sometimes from National Guard armories and police departments), from manufacturers, and in transit to wholesalers and dealers--and even some from police evidence rooms! No registration law will do anything about these. There are proposals to mandate better security for guns, and these are in principle fine things--but in practice, they end up punishing people who may have been reasonable in their security efforts.
There came a moment where I almost drew my weapon, because the kidnapper drew a very big knife and threatened someone with a golf club who had also come onto the scene. The guy with the golf club decided that the risk to himself was too high to get himself killed to protect a complete stranger. Fortunately, by this point, the kidnapper was sobering up enough so that he left the scene without his victim.
Would I have risked leaving my wife a widow and my daughter without a father, if I hadn't been armed? Probably not for a complete stranger.
Yes. See e.g. Plassman &Tideman specifically regarding Lott's findings, and more generally, Kleck (e.g. Targeting Guns)and Wright &Rossi (Armed and Consdiered Dangerous).
"Also, does this argument take into consideration other precipitates of crime (rising poverty, lack of education, unemployment, etc.)."
Yes.
Do you think many conservatives would read an article with a title that compares any aspect of any Bush policy to a Nazi program?
Of course no.
Do you think many liberals would bother to read an article that compares liberal positions (on, say, abortion, stem cell research, gun laws or the treatment of the Schiavo case) to Nazism?
Of course not.
When you make a Nazi analogy, you almost always lose the ability to persuade people who disagree with you. And usually, that's perfectly justified.
Shtetl G said:
"As A Jew myself, one of the lessons I've learned from the Holocaust is that every Jew should own a gun. "
Should all black people own guns?
That's not a bad a lesson to learn from the Holocaust too. I imagine a Klansmen in the 1930's wouldn't have felt so free to flaunt the law if he thought he was going to get shot.
Of course, that's no reason to shy away from such analogies when, as here, they are perfectly correct.
Or they live in a "me only" culture, where people do not care about their neighbors.
Well, no. If they didn't care about their neighbors, they'd still care about themselves and so want to be able to defend themselves. Avoiding all personal responsibility for your own or others' safety is the essence of being dependent on government, which is why gun control is so important to Liberalism.
If you don't want to persuade people, why write?
I could make a similar argument that the Nazis depended on secrecy at the highest level, just like Dick Cheney. The Nazis protected domestic insustries just like the US has done with steel and still does with sugar. Etc., etc., etc. The Nazis supported the executive right to detain people the executive thinks are a threat to national security.
These are "perfectly correct" analogies, but they won't persuade anyone of anything. And they diminish the true evil of the Holocaust.
I come back to my point. Even if you have a valid argument, you lose your ability to persuade by making Nazi analogies.
In fact, yes (or at least some).
See Robert J. Cottrol &Raymond T. Diamond, the Second Amendment: Towards an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration. 80 Geo. L. Rev. 309, 341-42 (1991) (in the North, blacks successfully defended themselves against mob violence by bearing arms in their own defense) (cited in Silveira v. Lockyer, 328 F.3d 567, 569 (Kozinski, J. dissenting)).
Well, this is not merely an analogy, it's a concrete historical example and therefore is applicable to at least some degree. Too, it doesn't claim to be conclusive. Only the degree of applicability is debateable, it cannot be summarily dismissed out of hand.
Many of the restrictions on gun ownership in the old South were put in place to make it difficult for the Negro to own a proper weapon. Our Secretary of State has publicly stated that her father, a minister, helped organize armed patrols of Black neighborhoods to stop encursions by the Klan. If you disarm a man, you place him at your mercy.
As long as we're playing the what-if game, we should also consider one big negative consequence of an armed Jewish population in WWII. As Clayton pointed out, it would have thrown a huge wrench into the Nazi war machine. What everyone seems to overlook, though, is that this would also help that other murderous totalitarian regime on the block, Stalin's Soviet Union.
Is it not quite possible that a Nazi regime weakened by a Jewish resistance would have enabled the Soviets to not only defeat Germany but sweep all the way across Europe before the U.S. and Britain ever entered the war on the Continent? (In other words, that after WWII the Iron Curtain would have covered all of Europe instead of just the eastern half?) Granted, armed Jews could have tried to resist that occupation too, but Stalin doesn't strike me as having had any compunctions about crushing a rebellion by any means necessary.
There's several instances in America's history where blacks did use guns to discourage would-be lynchers. One that I remember is that of Gen. Colin Powell's father-in-law, whom he describes in his autobiography as having to sleep with a shotgun on his lap in the front room of his Birmingham house during the summer of 1963 in order to protect his family.
Had there been mandatory firearms registration in place at the time, how difficult would it have been for Bull Connor or George Wallace to order the police go to that house and confiscate said shotgun, all in the name of "public safety"?
Would you support, then, a constitutional amendment along the lines of: "The right to bear arms is a personal right held by every American; this right does not abridge the right of the government to require registration of handguns sold in the United States." [Change wording to taste]
That way, everyone could have their private right to bear arms (even in D.C. or San Francisco, and there would be a clear constitutional prohibition for doing the theoretical "bad stuff" with the registration information.
Well, this is not merely an analogy, it's a concrete historical example and therefore is applicable to at least some degree. Too, it doesn't claim to be conclusive. Only the degree of applicability is debateable, it cannot be summarily dismissed out of hand.
But I still come back to my main point. You will not persuade anyone who already disagrees with you by drawing inferences from Nazi policies.
It was a "concrete fact" that Hitler believed that the executive should be able to detain people who the executive believes are threats to national security. But (justifiably) I'm not going to persuade any conservatives that Bush is wrong about that policy by saying that Hitler believed it too.
If you want to spend resources on something that will make a real difference in violent crime rates, focus on:
1. Preventing physical and sexual abuse of children.
2. Encouraging families to stay together, or at least encouraging fathers to stay involved with their sons after they move out.
3. Identifying teenagers with significant emotional and mental illness problems likely to cause violence, and provide early treatment.
4. Locking up violent felons on their first conviction, and leaving them locked up.
5. Encouraging children to believe that there are some things that are wrong: murder; rape; robbery.
I live in a city (Boise) that has a murder rate that would be the envy of most European cities. We also have effectively no gun control laws, other than requiring a permit to carry concealed in cities. (About 5% of Idaho's population has a permit, and we recognize all conecealed carry permits from other states.) The rest of America can have this situation, if they want it. But for lots of Americans, they find the items I've listed above so distasteful (especially teaching right and wrong to kids) that they prefer gun control.
I respectfully disagree. Nazi analogies are overly used, unquestionably. However, when they serve as more specific historic examples or parallels, comparing "apples to apples" (and assuming the historic example is reasonably drawn and explicated), they can be instructive, even illuminating and persuasive. Essentially I'm only calling attention to the difference between hyperbole (exaggerated analogies) and more condign historical parallels.
What is this Children are not taught right and wrong stuff?
"Well, maybe the Holocaust was right for that culture." This was a Jewish woman prepared to defend cultural relativism to its logical extreme.
"To interfere with a democratic's society death camps would be fascist." (A Princeton graduate, defending why private ownership of guns should be prohibited, and explaining why the Holocaust wasn't an argument against.)
In America, a nazi-like movement of any significance seems unlikely.
</blockquote>
Sadly that's just what they thought in Pre-Hitlerite Germany. After all Germany was the exemplar of western civilization and culture and the home of Goethe, Schiller etc...
Even the finest of societies do on occaision go stark raving mad, or even worse, they calculatingly perform acts of the utmost evil. I agree that a nazi-like movement seems remote in America and perhaps even impossible given the American ethic and cultural history, but one never knows. Better safe than sorry in any case.
We are all entitled to study history and learn from past experience. We don't need anyone's permission.
There are the privacy concerns, true, but my argument would hinge more on the chilling effect of registration. Then I'd concentrate on the de facto tax that usually comes with registration or licensing. (Was the case U.S. v Polluck where it was determined that a tax or fee couldn't be required of a constitutionally protected Right?).
Registration of a firearm implies that some future contact concerning said firearm is possible. There are a lot of folks who generally don't like having to deal with such things &would be disauded (or at least be given pause) if firearms ownership could only be done via registration. Add to that any penalties for improperly registering a firearm &overall I think it would have a significant chilling effect on the excercise of that Right to fail a strict crutiny examination.
I know of no registration program or licensing scheme which does not result in additional fees. That would run afoul of Polluck. Even if registration was provided at no financial cost to the gun owner then there'd still be the chilling effect argument to deal with.
Unfortunately strict scrutiny is not appllied to the 2nd, &even fairly conservative folks who claim to be originalists/textualists, etc. argue that it shouldn't ("...cause that'd allow people to own tanks!").
Aside from the constitutional question, registration simply doesn't do that much good to prevent crime. It does prove very helpful in the event of confiscation. &confications have happened in the u.S. NYC comes to mind, as does Cali. &on the federal level there is a registry of everyone who owns machien guns, short barrled rifles &shotguns &sound suppressors. The federal registry has not been used for confiscation, but it very well could. Registration is simply too convenient a method for achieving civilian disarmament. While it has only happened concerning limited types of firearm (assault weapons in Cali &NYC for example) the theorhetical danger far outweigh any perceived benefits.
What Mr. Kopel points out, but is missed by quite a few people, is that a law passed with good intent (regitration/licensing to keep the criminal element from being armed) can turn into a tool for a very heinous government (unarmed Jews being sent to concentration camps). The intent does not have to be present at the time the law is passed. I'm sure no one in 1920's or early 1930's Germany sought to disarm the Jew so they could be slaughtered. But once the mechanism is in place - the tool if you will - then the original intent isn't that important. It's how it's used right now that counts.
The purpose of the 2nd amendment was not to just have a militia ready to repel foreign invaders, but to ensure the people were not outgunned by the military of any government, even (&especially) our own. While the odds are very slim today that the feds will set up camps &herd undesirables into it, in 5 years the odds are a little greater &by 20 years or so the odds are 50/50. We simply do not know. In 20 years it could happen, or it could not happen. What the 2nd does (or should do if properly applied) is to aid in discouraging such an event from happening, or at least giving the undesirables a fighting chance. What gun registration &licensing accomplihes is a negation of the positive effect of an armed populace. The Nazi's knew this &used it to their advantage. So did Stalin, Pol Pot, etc... To paraphrase Kosinski; being unarmed in the face of such a government is a mistake free folk only get to make once.
The problem is that a lot of proponents of gun registration might have some trouble selling registration or background checks if the society as a whole had to pay these costs--because then it might cause legislators to ask, "Can't we get more benefit from other programs that cause this same amount of money?" Canada is now into the billions of Canadian dollars for their gun registry--and it is still hopelessly incomplete. It makes you wonder what else several billion Canadian dollars could have been spent doing instead, doesn't it?
David, as the son of two people who survived the Nazi regime, and one whose family narrowly avoided the Holocaust, I BEG you to continue to point out the parallels between Nazi policies and the "sensible" policies of those who would disarm the next victims of authoritarianism.
Thank you!!!
I am a far lefty, and consort with many - many far lefties, and I have never once heard one arguing that there is no right and wrong and everything is relative, except for purely hypothetical or philosophical discussions. While I do here anti-Christian comments (unfortunately), it is almost entirely limited to the Christian Right (which can be described as a political movement or group in itself). My wife is Christian, as are many lefties, and I do not understand where your editorialisms about what the left does come from.
As for cultural relativism, I find libertarians, objectivists, and anarcho-capitalists to be the biggest pushers of cultural relativism. Additionally, cultural relativism is a tool used by anthropologists to understand cultures on their own terms. It is not simply a license to say all is neither right nor wrong.
Sorry, but that's not the color of the sky in Planet California. Cultural relativism is the term used by leftists to justify that right and wrong are purely relativistic terms, and whatever a majority (or a majority of the Supreme Court, depending on the issue) wants is okay.
Now, I will concede that liberal means different things in different places. Most self-described liberals here in Idaho would qualify as moderates or conservatives by California standards. An acquaintance from Massachusetts taught in Boise for a year, and noticed that the left end of Idaho politics was to the right of the right end of Massachusetts politics.
Fair enough. I have never been to Sonoma County. I can only speak about liberals in the Midwest, DC, Ohio, Europe and a few other places.
As far as the liberals spouting the stuff you say that they say, I have a better word - dumbass.
YES! along with all brown, white, yellow and red people.
The question is whether gun control would reduce violence. Are there any instances of violence going down dramatically after its imposition?
The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values by Tammy Bruce
In case you aren't aware, Bruce is a self-described 'pro-choice, lesbian feminist' who has been virtually run out of 'the cause' for questioning the ultimate moral relativism, egotism, self-centrism, and lack of personal responsibility that numerous, 'liberal causes' prosyletize; e.g., feminism, homosexual activism, etc. She portrays a 'culture' of liberalism that uses the foundation of "thou shalt not judge" as their touchstone morality. Unfortunately, as a number of posters have alluded to, the only 'judgment' allowed is, ultimately: left-wing liberalism = good, right-wing conservatism = bad, left-wing moderates = 'temporarily misguided, remonstrate for redemption,' right-wing moderates = 'not beyond redemption, but definitely seduced by the dark side.'
Now, if that's what you wish to portray as liberals teaching good and bad, then so be it. It's kind of a vague morality. But, then again, so is the term "far left winger." Based on the comments I repeatedly see from self-described 'far lefties' who are offended when they perceive themselves as being lumped with the 'radical left,' I wonder what would happen when these 'chic' or moderate lefties actually came face to face with the realities of the true, far left.
Of course, there's Norman Barry's article on "Political Morality as Convention." Then you could look to Maldonado and Lacey's article entitled "Defining Moral Leadership: Perspectives of 12 Leaders." There are numerous others.
In the end, definitions of 'right and wrong' ARE highly relative to the perspectives, backgrounds, exeriences, and cultural 'training' of individuals. The culturally relevant utility of an individual's morality lies in its effects, consistency of application, and its relevance to the individual's life as a functioning member of society. As has been said: consistency is the key to predictability - predictability is the key to credibility.
This is the problem with the moral relativism of the left to which Cramer and others are referring. It is not predictable because it is perceived as highly malleble (inconsistent) based on circumstances. An example is that the death penalty is wrong, but abortion is an absolute 'right;' meaning an individual choice which speaks to a sense of 'relativity' in that the individual, not society, must CHOOSE between a set of 'good and bad' effects.
More broadly, government should respect MY privacy to get abortions, smoke pot, engage in a variety of sexual behaviors, etc. The individual has a 'right' to CHOOSE between a set of 'good and bad' effects. But, government (society) should disregard an individual's right to CHOOSE between 'good and bad' effects' based on the specifically enumerated (as opposed to judicially "found"), Constitutional rights when I/we (the left) view such a choice as inherently leading to bad effects; e.g., gun owners (right to own, privacy, etc.) or publically vocal (conservative) Christians. Isn't that a morally relative position based on a different set of beliefs as to what makes sense in a specific culture?
Of course, these are obvious, disparate examples. The true issue comes to the fore when dealing with the "gray" areas. Sexual predators who come up to a 7-year old on the street and ask if they touch themselves should be prosecuted; but, one must try to 'understand' why they did such a heinous thing and punish them accordingly. School districts who ask 7-year olds if they touch themselves are 'understood' to have the child's best interest at heart. Law-abiding individuals should not be allowed to own guns, because guns kill people. But, the individuals who kill people with a gun should be prosecuted, but only punished to the degree that it is 'their' fault. But, since guns kill people, how 'responsible' are the individuals? Ad infinitum.
This inconsistent application of morality is what leads many to question its credibility. "Lefties" bellow that 'thou shalt not judge' an individual's behavior, while screaming that the behaviors of those who oppose them are bigotry, homophobic, fascist, anti-Christian, repressive...WRONG.
This is the point in using historical incidents like Kristallnacht as 'cautionary' tales. They provide insight into the spatial-temporal realities and cultural vagaries of 'right and wrong.' If "the road to hell is paved with 'good' intentions," then it is vital that we recognize the historically consistent road signs created by those 'good' intentions; 'good' being a derivative of perceived 'right and wrong.' This is precisely why the Founding Fathers ensconced in our Constitution certain, unalienable 'rights,' so that 'We, the people' could protect ourselves from 'wrongs.'
In the end, "an individual human's beliefs and activities make sense in terms of his or her own culture" (cultural relativism) when "moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths but instead are relative to social, cultural, historical or personal references" (moral relativism). This is why social policies such as gun control (or lack thereof) must be tied to culturally relative/relevant references such as an historically contextual understanding of our Constitution for those policies, which are, in fact, moral or ethical propositions, to be personally relevant and understandable ('make sense') within our culture.
I remember once being brought up short by a G. K. Chesterton article from (I think) the 1920s. Chesterton quoted what he said was an American popular song. I think the words were
There once was a bold n*gger-boy
And that bold n*gger-boy had a gun,
And he wandered in comfort and joy
In de woods where de waterfalls run.
Chesterton's own point in mentioning this was that the descendants of slaves had a liberty free Englishmen did not, since there wasn't much "comfort and joy" for poor men wandering around in the woods with guns under the Game Laws. But it does paint a picture, that lyric, of a gun as the sort of natural equipment of a free man. Interesting.
Now that's a challenge. How would one discuss Kristallnacht in a National-Socialist-free way? The NSDAP sort of comes with the territory, doesn't it?
This is genuinely vile.
Tell me that wasn't an American who posted that. Any American worthy of the name should know that fundamental civil rights apply to everyone.
This was, of course, the original purpose of the National Rifle Association, the oldest and most prestigious civil rights organization in America.
Thanks to its standing up for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms regardless of race, the NRA's first political opponent was the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan lost: almost a century before the repeal of Jim Crow, the NRA brought the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms to all Americans.
Today the names of the gun grabbers have changed but their purpose remains the same — but the NRA stands strong, now as always, to ensure the vile political arc that begins with gun control and ends in Krystallnacht, lynching, and looting never gets off the ground.
I am proud to be a member of an organization with such a prestigious history. Then, as now, the NRA is on the forefront of the civil rights movement.
In public fora such as this, you're generally not trying to persuade your opponent, who's usually already dedicated to the opposite position to the point of inflexibility. You're trying to persuade the people in the middle. Who might just not have enough emotional investment in gun control to be personally offended by having gun control's nasty consequences and history (Started out as a Jim Crow law, remember?) pointed out to them.
Are there any prospects of a Nazi like movement in the US? Sure there are! It's more of a slippery slope phenomenon than waking up one morning and deciding to commit genocide, after all. And this IS a country where not long ago the government slaughtered a not insignificant number of people down in Waco, and demonstrated in the process that they were quite capable of dehumanizing them to the point where the political fallout would be minimal. Today it would be even easier in some respects, as we've less freedom of speech now, and more secret police.
The link between gun control and democide deserves to be discussed. Any such discussion will necessarily involve discussion of despicable regimes, since only despicable regimes commit democide. If that meant that such discussions could never be persuasive, it'd be a very sad thing; the histories of such regimes, of how they came to power and how they were able to commit their atrocities, provide useful object lessons. Happly, I don't believe that's the case.
I agree that knee-jerk, spurious comparisons to tyrants and tyrannical regimes (e.g., "Bushitler") are unpersuasive to all but a few extremists. But that's not the sort of argument Kopel is making. I don't read him as saying, "the Nazis used gun control to facilitate democide; therefore, modern American gun control proponents are Nazis attempting to commit democide." Instead, I understand him to be suggesting that even gun control laws propounded by well-meaning people have, at various times, later been used by others to facilitate democide and that, therefore, we ought to be wary of gun control, even where its proponents are well-intentioned. That's a perfectly valid point, and it's far different from the sort of knee-jerk Nazi analogies that most people rightly condemn. If you can't see the difference, I don't think it speaks well of you.
Nazi analogies rarely help much because the Nazis engaged in pretty much every government restriction on liberty. By necessity, government impinges on liberty. Nazi analogies are as strong (perhaps stronger) to warrantless searches, "national security letters," indefinite detention without trial, and the "war time" (and non "war time) powers the Bush administration supports. And we shouldn't not forget Bush's opposition to anti-torture legislation.
But when Sen. Durbin made a Nazi analogy, he was rightly criticized (although some of the criticism went over the top). But if Nazi analogies are instructive on the issue of gun control, perhaps Durbin's remarks were more fair than I thought.
Matt22191, you could easily modify your statement to sayYou could insert any number of other issues, including the death penalty, search and seizure laws, tax laws, etc., etc., etc.
Other issues don't have the inherent capability to hinder the implementation of unconstitutional and/or tyrannical actions. Detention-without-trial, death penalty, search and seizure laws; all can be implimented before, after, or never. Only arms control is a prerequisite to easy demicide.
The NRa was started in the 1870's by some Union generals who wished to improve basic riflery skills amongst the populace. Seems they weren't impressed with how a lot of yankees were shooting in the war twixt the states. It wasn't until the 1970's that it became officially active in politic, though in the 1950's soem NRA chapter were started by black folk who wanted to repel the klan (&ended up doing just that). Personally the NRA supports way too much gun control for my tastes. But I admit as an instructional organization they do good work.
PD,
Waco was nothing more than a bungled attempt at getting publicity in time for the appropriations bill by the ATFU. It involved an alleged $200 tax. &by all account the ATFU were the ones who started shooting first. Also I don't recall them ever finding machine guns there, let alone being ued. Well I take that back; two ATFU agents were hot with machine gun. But those belonged to another ATFU agent who had a flash bang thrown in the room he was in by those two agents he shot (this is the video of the agents on the roof) . But regardless you're not saying that force should have been initiated in such a manner &with such results over a $200 tax are you?
But move on to the Weaver case, or the thousands of people in jail not over violently (&imho justly) resisting an armed attack by government agents, but over simple paperwork violations (i.e. clerical errors, such as putting a previous address on a form out of habit). Matter of fact a felow named Wrenn is going through a bit of a hassle with the ATFU over such matters. Matter of fact Wrenn would highlight the chilling effect that registration can have on gun ownership. granted it's a subset of overall gun ownership (machien guns specifically) &the administrating agency (the ATFU) would have to study hard to even make it up to being incompotent, but the overall point is there; registration can led to undesirable legal complications for the registereee &therefore discourage folk from risking such hassle.
&a very good case can be made that the ATFU tries to make it harder to comply with the registration (or more precielt the regulations concerning it) in order to discourage gun ownership. Again this particular registration only applies to autmatic weapons, short barreled shotgun, large bore weapons (over .50, including field artillery) rifles, nonconventional firearms (cane guns, pen guns, etc...) &sound suppresors but if it were aplied to gun ownership generally I think a lot of folks would opt to not be gun owners rather than risk the potential legal hassles from making an honest mistake, or a the Wrenn case seems to point to, doing everything right but having the admistrating agency change the rules just to prosecute you.
And yes, the FBI made mistakes in both the Waco and Weaver cases. But in both cases, no one would have been hurt if the subjects had peacefully surrendered.
I guess that exludes the ACLU from "any American worthy of the name."
If you look at their web site (right-hand column), they have "rights" categorized for the following groups:
HIV/AIDS
Immigrants' Rights
Int'l Human Rights
Lesbian &Gay Rights
Prisoners' Rights
Racial Justice
Rights of the Poor
Voting Rights
Women's Rights
Not "Rights for All Americans," but different rights for different groups.
But then, as Nadine Strossen said back in 1994, "I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."
Have you ever heard of Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership?
http://www.jpfo.org
The issue with the "moderate" Weimar gun registration laws is that it made the job a lot easier for the Nazis. The the rise of the Nazis in Germany is an example of what could happen here if we are not vigilant.
As Will Rogers said of uS Congressmen: "America's only native criminal class." What if they decide to get organized?
Why make it easier on the tyrants?
Afraid of firearms? Do not own one and, if you ever find yourself needing one, I hope dialing 911 does not give you a busy signal.
"Come and Take It" - The men at Gonzales, Texas to the Mexican Army.
http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewittflgs2.htm
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Other quotes from FirearmNews.com
http://www.firearmnews.com/quote/
"When Xerxes offered to spare the lives of Leonidas, his 300 personal bodyguards and a handful of Thebans and others who volunteered to defend their country, if they would lay down their arms, Leonidas shouted these two words back: Molon Labe! They mean, 'Come and get them!'"
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." - Dalai Lama, Tibet
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crime." - Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas Jefferson
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." - Thomas Jefferson
I'm afraid you will be waiting a very long time to get an affirmative answer from anyone favoring gun control. In short, the answer is no.
PD opines
The ATF was not interested in a peaceful surrender in Waco - they wanted to prove that all the money that had gone into their Ninja suits/equip and training was not wasted. They were STAGING a violent take-down for the media. It was the U.S. Marshalls that [first] screwed up at Ruby Ridge. The FBI handled both of the follow-ups exceedingly poorly. Was malice their intent - very probably not. But what is most disturbing is that afterwards, people got promoted not punished for the bad actions/outcomes.
Lastly, the point of the original post is that the Weimar gun laws (instituted with the best of intents) were utilized by bad people for evil purposes. Only of late have liberals come to learn that an all-powerful federal govt has it's disadvantages - particularly when it is in the hands of your political opponents.
Conservatives, not liberals, have been working hard to make it easier for the government to put you in prison or kill you.
Conservatives (with a few exceptions), not liberals (with a few exceptions), have been pushing for laws and court rulings giving the police more authority to search you, your car, your papers, your electronic records, and your home.
If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.
--Joseph Sobran (1995)