so. . .

people who have guns fight better wars?

I fear that with the gap between military grade and ordinary weaponry expanding that even a well armed populace will not be able to resist even a rag-tag army.

Consider the Russian success in Chechnya - when they could not take Grozny they simply shelled it into oblivion.

It takes much more effort to engage in genocide against an armed populace... hopefully so much effort that it won't be undertaken.

Tell that to the Shiites in southern Iraq in '91.

Armen the Armenian is armin'?

Does anyone think this historical event is relevant to the debate over American gun control? I moderately support gun rights, but I'm not sure what this event is supposed to prove.

I think the reason that leftists denigrate the utility of guns for preventing genocide (at least partially), is because genocide is a fundamental part of the leftist goal--exterminating everyone that does not share their views. This has been the leftist modus operandi for almost a century now.

Lets not aggregate the left into one big undistinguesed mass, k? Kofi Annan is not Pol Pot.

For every example of a gun-toting minority annihilated by a bigger-gun-toting majority, there's an example of a gun-toting minority that avoided annihilation.

Sometimes the people with the bigger guns win, especially if, like the Armenians, the defenders have crappy logistics. That doesn't mean guns are useless against armies.

(It's worth noting that from the 1890s to the 1910s, Armenian freedom fighters, or maybe terrorists, armed with guns, engaged in extensive campaigns of rebellion and assassination. That's why the Ottomans were so eager to disarm them--plenty apolitical minorities were left alone during WWI--and also why they were so eager to kill them once disarmed).

That's why the Ottomans were so eager to disarm them--plenty apolitical minorities were left alone during WWI--and also why they were so eager to kill them once disarmed).

One point that is sometimes left out of discussions of the Armenian genocide was that some Armenians (unsurprisingly, because of prewar hostility) collaborated with the Russians when the Russian Army invaded the Ottoman Empire. There is a plausible claim that what started out as unsurprising reprisals against Armenian collaborators after withdrawal of Russian troops soon expanded into genocide that failed to discriminate between collaborators and Armenians.

Your article says the following "fact" is "indisputable: It was gun confiscation that made the atrocities possible." You may be right, but the proof in your article is remarkably thin. You conflate confiscation and demobilization (one might want civilian ownership of guns without wanting all soldiers to retain weapons); explain that gun confiscation was frustrated at least in part by Armenian leaders, diminishing its apparent significance (as your post here says, confiscation was "tried"); and provide no basis for assuming that, had all Armenians retained their weapons, catastrophe would have been averted (bearing in mind, for instance, that they numbered about 10% of the population, to my recollection).

There seemed to be a consensus that it was inappropriate to seize on the Va Tech shootings to make cheap, opportunistic points for or against gun control. Perhaps one needs to be wary of drive-by engagements with historical episodes, too.

Also, the Ottomans were lacking in manpower and mobilized east Anatolian tribesmen to fight the Russians. These tribesmen were paid, to a large extent, in promises of land--the land, as it turned out, came from expropriating Armenians. The genocide may also have begun with reprisals against resistance to these expropriations, and expanded to something organized once the regime got officials and the army out there.

In short, the Armenian genocide bears more resemblance to the Assyrian conquest of Israel, the USA's defeat of the Plains Indians, and Darfur than it does to the Holocaust or the USA's defeat of the Cherokee.

For every example of a gun-toting minority annihilated by a bigger-gun-toting majority, there's an example of a gun-toting minority that avoided annihilation.

Or a gun-toting minority that rose to power and became a murderous or genocidal regime (e.g. the Nazis, Idi Amin, the Bolsheviks, Pol Pot, Mao, The Europeans in most of the rest of the world). Guns also let minorities grab power and ruthlessly suppress dissent.

Not every nation that disarms its targets engages in genocide--but it happens often enough that it seems to substantially increase the risk.

So do you have any kind of empirical data to support this outrageous claim?

Dave D.,

I thought that in this case, Mr. Thomas's opinions were res ipsa. Vast majority people in the Western World...

How many 'western nations' (democratic, so 'the people' speak, capitalistic, advanced) have fewer gun laws than the United States? Or, heck, fewer guns per person?

Snark does not equal substance.

..As usual, the all knowing Mr. Cramer pretends to know what the "left" believes.

That's a disgusting, unwarranted, and unhelpful accusation.

Let's see: the Soviet Union murdered tens of millions of its people, working them to death in gulags, mass executions, and manufactured famines.

The Red Chinese government murdered millions of people directly, and indirectly caused tens of millions of deaths by famine because of the incompetence of their agricultural collectivization programs.

Pol Pot murdered several million Cambodians--some of them for the crime of having marks on their nose that indicated that they had worn glasses.

And while J.F. Thomas will screech that this isn't accurate, read National Socialist Hitler's speeches against the evils of capitalism, and try to pretend that he wasn't closer to the left than the left wants to admit.

Oh yes: the Baathists in Iraq were a Soviet-backed socialist party. And their crimes are recent.

Socialism is an ideology that doesn't HAVE to commit mass murder--but it sure seems to do it a lot.

Or a gun-toting minority that rose to power and became a murderous or genocidal regime (e.g. the Nazis, Idi Amin, the Bolsheviks, Pol Pot, Mao, The Europeans in most of the rest of the world). Guns also let minorities grab power and ruthlessly suppress dissent.

The Nazis didn't rise to power because of guns, however. They tried that approach in the Beer Hall Putsch. It didn't work. Instead, they rose to power through skillful use of the political process, including the slogan "Common Needs Before Individual Needs," used with great effect in the 1932 elections where they attracted strong support from the newly enfranchised 18 year olds and their usual allies among professors and civil servants.

It is interesting that you point to the use of guns by "the Europeans" and ignore that these were usually governments--which are exempt from gun control laws--and often required imposition of gun control to maintain those colonies. The people of India were prohibited possession of guns, and in the aftermath of World War I, one of the Versailles agreements was that the signatories agreed that no firearms or ammunition would be sold in sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East. Gun control is how governments keep control.

Idi Amin led a military coup. Gun control advocates never advocate disarming the military or police.

Mao, of course, enjoyed the backing of the Soviet government--yet another example of a group that gun control won't touch.

Did you have a real point here, other than that most of your examples were those where gun control did what it was supposed to do--create the opportunity for genocide?

The views of the majority of posters on this site are so far out of the mainstream that you really should get out of your little echo chamber and see what the real world believes.

You sure? According to Zogby Internation, as of August 2007 (which is all of two months ago), 66% of Americans do not believe that new gun laws are needed. (See here.) 38% of Americans believe that more guns would stop tragedies like those at Virginia Tech. (See, here.) While that is not a majority, it strains credulity to suggest that opinions held by two in five people are "out of the mainstream."

Now, perhaps you are talking about different gun control laws, or different views on this site. IIRC, the Volokh Conspiracy asked readers to self-report political ideology a few months back. If someone can dig that up, please let me know; IIRC, readers are largely consevative/libertarian, but there is a reasonable-sized cohort of liberals. Prof. Volokh also administered an informal survey (here), if you are interested.

Loki13,

Nice bait-and-switch. Mr. Thomas began with "mainstream," which would presumably be mainstream for America (as we usually discuss American law here). You then shifted that to the "western world." Not satisfied with that shift, you moved on to "western nations," which gives that half-million people who live in Luxembourg the same authority as the 300 million people in the United States. It's an interesting, Senate-style view of counting heads, but does very little to tell us about the "mainstream."

Mr. Thomas began with "mainstream," which would presumably be mainstream for America (as we usually discuss American law here). You then shifted that to the "western world."

Actually, he began with western world and then shifted to mainstream.

That creates a distinctly different impression from the one you convey. he conveyed that "mainstream" in the western world is much more anti-gun control than the posters here.

But You are correct in saying that doesn't tell us much about the mainstream in the US, needless to say what's "right" and "left" in the US compared to the "western world."

It seems fairly clear - though I am sure some more knowledgeable about the history of the 2nd Amendment can speak to this better - that the Founders included the 2nd Am't in part, if not substantial part, in consideration of the NRO's basic argument - that an armed populace is a good idea because it could ward off some sort of military force operating at the behest of an out-of-control majority. Given the conditions in the late 19th century, this seems sensible.

The elephant in the room here, however, is that the disparity between the amount of force that, say, the rag-tag guys from a town in the 1780s could bring to bear compared with the amount of force that a 1780s American army could marshal is utterly miniscule - trivial really - compared to the amount of force that a group of citizens could bring against the current U.S. military.

Pick the state with the most liberal gun laws in the country. Give each citizen in that state $10,000 to buy all the guns they want. Then have that whole state attempt to resist the U.S. military. The tally will be something like this: U.S. military, zero casualties; X state, 100% killed almost immediately.

My point is that if one's argument is that citizens need to have guns in order to resist "illegal" (or whatever you want to call it) government action on a large scale, the game is over. Average citizens will never - and should never - have cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, fighter jets and laser-guided bombs. Frankly, even if we could order that stuff from a catalog, no one would know how to use it.

I suppose that if the argument is that people need guns to resist more pedestrian government action - like an out of control cop - you may have something there. But that's not the sort of example the NRO's article is putting forward. They're talking about people resisting an army. That's just never going to happen in the U.S. without a pretty radical reduction in the capabilities of the U.S. military.

Pick the state with the most liberal gun laws in the country. Give each citizen in that state $10,000 to buy all the guns they want. Then have that whole state attempt to resist the U.S. military. The tally will be something like this: U.S. military, zero casualties; X state, 100% killed almost immediately.

My point is that if one's argument is that citizens need to have guns in order to resist "illegal" (or whatever you want to call it) government action on a large scale, the game is over. Average citizens will never - and should never - have cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, fighter jets and laser-guided bombs. Frankly, even if we could order that stuff from a catalog, no one would know how to use it.

I don't think most people who see private ownership of firearms as a deterrant to tyrrany envision this type of conflict. It more along these lines:

-Tyrranical faction takes control, but can't marshall 100% of military resources due to defections
-Civilian insurgency forms in respone, possibly aided by professional military defectors
-Many weapons controlled by gov't are rendered ineffective against insurgency because of their indiscriminate nature (ICBMs, etc.)
-Gov't has difficulty distinguishing between friendlies and unfriendlies
-Gov't can't control country if 95% of population is violently opposed to it, so it must take political considerations into account when deciding upon tactics (i.e., forgoes razing cities and salting the fields; besides, it wants to have power over wealth, not 6 millions square mile parking lot)
-Tactics gov't is forced to use (patrols, door to door sweeps, etc.) are prone to attack by small arms fire

Let's see: the Soviet Union murdered tens of millions of its people, working them to death in gulags, mass executions, and manufactured famines.

The Red Chinese government murdered millions of people directly, and indirectly caused tens of millions of deaths by famine because of the incompetence of their agricultural collectivization programs.

Pol Pot murdered several million Cambodians--some of them for the crime of having marks on their nose that indicated that they had worn glasses.

And while J.F. Thomas will screech that this isn't accurate, read National Socialist Hitler's speeches against the evils of capitalism, and try to pretend that he wasn't closer to the left than the left wants to admit.

Oh yes: the Baathists in Iraq were a Soviet-backed socialist party. And their crimes are recent.

Socialism is an ideology that doesn't HAVE to commit mass murder--but it sure seems to do it a lot.

Clayton, you desparately need some sort of taxonomy as to what the "left" is. When you discuss what you see as the excesses of "leftism", you cite governments that just about nobody in the US, "left" or not, supports. However, when you discuss the gun control issue, suddenly, all of American liberalism, from the center-left out to the extremes, is the "left".

This would be the equivalent of me claiming that abortion clinic bombers or Christian Identity followers were an indictment of all conservativism.

Seriously, it's possible to be a liberal, and yes, even to support pretty strict gun control (including measures that I oppose on the ground that they violate the Second Amendment), while still opposing Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. Indeed, that probably describes most American liberals.

Really, there are plenty of good arguments against gun control. You can make them without claiming that everyone to the left of you on this issue is a Stalinist.

Clayton, you desparately need some sort of taxonomy as to what the "left" is. When you discuss what you see as the excesses of "leftism", you cite governments that just about nobody in the US, "left" or not, supports.

Today. I'm old enough to remember when leftists were full of excuses for the Soviet Union, Red China, and of course, still, Cuba.

Seriously, it's possible to be a liberal, and yes, even to support pretty strict gun control (including measures that I oppose on the ground that they violate the Second Amendment), while still opposing Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. Indeed, that probably describes most American liberals.

Let's be clear on this: liberalism is not leftism. Liberals support capitalism because it is the goose that lays the golden eggs that fund the welfare state. Leftists oppose capitalism, no matter how regulated.

Liberals believe that there should be limits on majority power. Leftists do not.

As usual, the all knowing Mr. Cramer pretends to know what the "left" believes.

What the left believes:

1. Capitalism is bad. The government should own the means of production.

2. Religion is the opiate of the masses. (A position, by the way, that even Marx didn't take in such a crude form.) Any action taken to suppress or discourage religious belief is okay.

3. All forms of sexuality are equally valid. Anyone that disapproves of homosexuality, bestiality, sex with children, is some sort of narrow-minded Bible thumper who needs to be punished.

4. The U.S. is evil because we don't apologize to Osama bin Laden and friends for doing what the Saudi government asked for--putting troops there to protect them from invasion by Iraq.

If you find that none of these statements apply to you, or most don't, you are probably a liberal, not a leftist.

I dunno. Iraq has pretty liberal gun control laws, and the last I checked, a bunch of ragtag Iraqis, probably spending a lot less than $10,000 per insurgent, has been inflicting a lot of casualties on the U.S. military, and taking a lot less than 100% KIA or dead of wounds.

Keep in mind that this is partly a war by proxy with Iran, who seems to be supplying at least some part of the explosives and firearms. And the evidence of the last few months suggests that the insurgency is losing. But it is losing at least partly because a lot of the Iraqi support (or at least tolerance) of the foreign fighters evaporated because of theocratic prohibitions on tobacco and ice water. (And yes, beheading and rape of your supposed allies isn't helping them any.)

Oren suggests that even a well-armed populace cannot resist an organized army. Er, American Revolution? George Washington's efforts notwithstanding, it was the boys in the woods who won that war.

The Continental Army did most of the heavy lifting, but the militias also played a critical role. If 600 militiamen died in a battle, it was a personal tragedy, but it was easier for the U.S. to get 600 more militiamen into battle than it was for the British Army to replace 600 dead Redcoats because of the supply lines.

I agree that the comparison of 1776 to today isn't entirely accurate, and there are analogy problems with the Iraqi insurgents. But if the reasoning behind the Second Amendment is anachronistic, the solution isn't to interpret it away, but to amend the Constitution.

And while we're at it: does that "search and seizure" provision still make sense in a world where a bad guy can be on the other side of the planet in 12 hours? The Founders could not envisioned the national security needs for warrantless wiretap, of course. And that cruel and unusual punishments clause? They had no idea of the problems that nuclear-armed terrorists might give us.

Certainly, we'll have to revisit the "freedom of religion" clause, because there were no Muslims in America at the time (except for some slaves).

Medical care was rudimentary in 1776--they had no idea of the costs of decent care today, and we certainly need to guarantee a right to medical care--as well as an obligation of all citizens to do what their doctors order (more exercise, more green leafy vegetables, no smoking, no unprotected promiscuous sex).

You get the picture: revising the Bill of Rights is a pretty major and potentially dangerous undertaking. There are way too many billionaires today in positions of power for me to be comfortable with the resulting Leftist Bill of Rights.

What in the world does that post even mean?

that self proclaimed American "leftists" aren't experts in military tactics?

I would put that in the category of "Duh," even the idea that there is some "left" out there in America that still thinks an armed proletarian revolution is necessary or doable is laughable. (I'm sure they exist, but they're widespread and fully infiltrated by the FBI)

and what's the point of shilling for an armorers company, if you were really concerned about "leftist" revolution, by bother to inform them that they should be educating themselves on gun mechanics.

I posted this in the well-regulated thread. From the SF Chronicle in 2004: Nearly every family in Iraq keeps an AK-47. It's for protection. Even the U.S. Army, in its weapons sweeps, allows families to keep one AK per adult male.

Clayton:

I'm an ACLU member, hold an 03 Federal Firearms License, and can almost guarantee that I have you outgunned. I'm a firm believer in the right to keep and bear arms.

So that's one.

Now let's look at your criteria for defining "Leftists":

What the left believes:

1. Capitalism is bad. The government should own the means of production.

2. Religion is the opiate of the masses. (A position, by the way, that even Marx didn't take in such a crude form.) Any action taken to suppress or discourage religious belief is okay.

3. All forms of sexuality are equally valid. Anyone that disapproves of homosexuality, bestiality, sex with children, is some sort of narrow-minded Bible thumper who needs to be punished.

4. The U.S. is evil because we don't apologize to Osama bin Laden and friends for doing what the Saudi government asked for--putting troops there to protect them from invasion by Iraq.

Can you name one American who believes all these things?

You rail against "Leftists" but honestly, I have never heard of or met a single American who:
- thinks we should apologize to OBL
- wants to punish people who oppose sex with children AND
- is willing to take "any action" (homicide?) to suppress religion

Actually I have never met an American who believes even ONE of those things, although I grant you such a person might exist.

I think that in your usage, Leftist ends up meaning "an imaginary person whom I hate."

If you can't name any people who believe these things, then aren't you ranting against an imaginary group of people, and isn't that a pretty weird thing for you to be doing?

Give us some names.

“people who have guns fight better wars?”

Actually, Ben P., those of us who have had the experience understand that the First Law of War is “War isn’t fun when the other guy gets to shoot back.” If you don’t like confronting this idea presented as reality, I suggest watching “Blackadder Goes Forth,” final episode “Goodbyeee.” Pay attention to Captain Edmond Blackadder’s description of service in the British Colonial Army, which fought natives dressed in grass skirts who were armed with guavas and the most pressing concern was how to ask native women in Swahili [a question I can’t repeat without risking a Title VII violation].

I’ll admit I know little about what the Ottoman Turks did to the Armenians. I’ve wondered about how much of a coincidence it was that that began in 1915, about the same time as UK and French forces invaded the Dardanelles. The Allied powers were systematically dismembering the Ottoman Empire by encouraging and supplying various local tribes to attack Ottoman forces, and so wonder whether there was an encouragement or support provided to the Armenians? If so, it wouldn’t be the first or last time a great power encouraged local tribes to revolt, and then failed to effectively support them.

Prior to deploying to Bosnia and Croatia, I’d given little thought to the 2d Amendment. While there I learned much about the Yugoslav conflict – most of which either wasn’t reported or was inaccurately reported by the US press.

Prior to becoming part of the Serbian Communist Party Central Committee, Milosevic may not have been a Communist – or Nationalist – at all. His wife, rumored to be an illegitimate daughter of Tito, openly questioned his ideology. He was best known for having been President of the New York branch of the Bank of Yugoslavia. After taking power, one of the first things he did, in the 1997 – 1998 time frame, was to disarm the Territorial Armies of 5 of the 6 separate nations and 2 autonomous provinces that formed Yugoslavia. He did not disarm the Territorial Army of Serbia. When Tito took power after WWII, he organized Yugoslavia’s defenses along the lines of Switzerland. All able-bodied persons 18 to 60 first served on active duty and received military training for 2 years, and thereafter remained in the reserves. Reservists had 2 weeks annual duty, and kept their weapons in their homes. There was extensive Karst geology (limestone with numerous caves) in Yugoslavia in which weapons, ammunition and supplies were stored. Years later, we were often finding weapons caches in caves that apparently had been forgotten. Tito realized that Yugoslavia could not defend against an invasion by either the USSR/Warsaw Pact or US/NATO. The Yugoslav active duty forces were expected to defend for 10 to 14 days, and then melt away. The country’s extensive tunnels and bridges would be blown (all had places where demolition charges could be placed built into them), and the reserves would fight a guerilla war similar to the one he fought against the Germans and its allies. The strategy was to make Yugoslavia too costly to invade.

Milosevic disarmed the reservists – most of whom happily turned in their weapons so that they would not have to show up for the 2 weeks of annual training – and turned the weapons to newly formed “Chetniks” or "Cetniks" (militias). There were a large number of these militias formed. While I didn’t trace the history of all of them, those I did had a common factor – the organizers of all of them had extensive criminal histories prior to the conflict’s beginning in 1990. For example, see the Wikipedia entry on Arkan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkan.

The UN’s response was completely ineffectual. The UN declared various “Safe Areas” which usually became among the most violent and dangerous places. Safe Zones were declared around Sarajevo, Tuzla, Srebrenica, Zepa, Travnik, Bihac and Gorazde. Those that survived organized their own defenses using weapons, ammo and supplies that either hadn’t been turned in, were found in caches, were captured, or (in the case of Croatian or Bosnian Croat (Yugoslav “South Slav” Roman Catholic) forces) were smuggled in violation of the UN’s weapons embargo. The UN’s Rules of Engagement essentially forbid aggressive action. See “Kosova Genocide: Made in USA” by Michael Karadjis,
www.laborstandard.org/Vol1No3/KosovaGenocide.htm.
One of the real ironies of the UN's weapons embargo is that before the conflict, Serbia was an arms exporter, and continued to be one for most of the conflict.

Although many of the same European troops that had deployed with UNPROFOR also were deployed with IFOR/SFOR, those units had no problem with preventing violence. Unlike the UN ROEs, the NATO ROEs stated that deadly force “may” (or for some of the IFOR/SFOR forces, “shall”) be used in response to “hostile intent.” Further, the NATO ROEs did not require that the hostile intent be demonstrated as to the IFOR/SFOR forces – hostile intent towards local citizens, NGO personnel or anyone else was sufficient.

The most infamous of the UN failures was the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995. See the Wikipedia entry for a general description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre. The UN deployed the Dutchbat unit (roughly 600 Soldiers, accompanied by 10 armored personnel carriers armed with .50 cal machine guns, but no anti-tank weapons) to enforce the UN Security Council Resolution. The Republika Serpska forces surrounding the area refused to allow Dutch Soldiers who had been on leave to return, so that the Dutchbat unit fell to about 400 Soldiers before the area was overrun in an attack lead by tanks. The UN ROEs only permitted the Dutch troops to fire over the heads of the advancing RS troops. Somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000+ Bosnaik (South Slav Muslims), mostly men and boys, were taken away and killed after Srebrenica was overrun. I learned while deployed that supposedly US aircraft from the Aviano Air Base, Italy, were available to bomb any attack. The US planes were launched and circled in the Adriatic Sea awaiting permission from the UN, ran low on fuel and returned to base, and were replaced by other US planes from Aviano. The UN had represented that it would take no more than 30 minutes to review the situation and approve the use of US warplanes in event of an attack on a Safe Area. After 14 hours, the UN Sec. Gen. still had not given permission, Srebrenica had largely been overrun, and the Dutchbat troops were now prisoners/hostages of the RS forces. The airstrikes never occurred.

Some of the readers may attribute what occurred in Croatia and Bosnia to “ancient ethnic hatreds.” That phrase, oft repeated by the US press, had no basis in fact. They couldn’t tell each other apart by looking, and we couldn’t tell them apart using DNA tests. Yugoslavia meant “Land of the South Slavs." Serbs were Yugoslav Orthodox. Croats were Yugoslav Roman Catholic. Bosnaiks were Yugoslav Muslims. Or, more accurately, that was the religion of their grandparents. There were also a large number of “mixed” people – like Tito whose parents were Croat and Slovene. The surest way to tell someone’s “ethnic” background was by first name. Marias tended to be Roman Catholic, Stanislavs tended to be Serb, and Selmas tended to Muslim (or, their grandparents were), etc. Some 30% to 40% of the population was “mixed,” and there were other groups, like the Sarajevian Jews who came there after being expelled from Spain in 1492. I identified some 19 different groups that constituted separate factions who fought in the conflict – there may have been more – so there were more than 3 “ethnic” groups.

Since I haven’t studied all cases of genocide, I can’t say that in all or even most cases the ruling power has first disarmed those it then kills. But, allowing yourself to be voluntarily disarmed isn’t a good step in protecting yourself against it.

vaduz -- for your article you may find the demographics of pre-conflict Yugoslavia interesting. Education and literacy levels were generally higher than in the US. Standards of living were comparable to the US and Western Europe. Socialized medicine existed. There was heavily subsidized housing. Industry and employment were heavily subsidized. Many people were bi-, tri- or quad-lingual and had been educated or lived and worked in other nations (West Germany being apparently one of the places Yugoslavs most often lived and worked) consistent with Tito's policy of encouraging this so that they would send back hard currencies to Yugoslavia. The "Bosnian Serb" leader Radovan Karadzic (who was neither Bosnian nor Serb) received his doctorate in Psychology in Denmark. To the extent that pst-WWII Yugoslavia is an example of facts what are important, it puts the lie to most assumptions and assertions about the important causes of genocide. My conclusion is that the Yugoslav conflict was a land and power grab. For over 40 years Yugoslavia played the US/NATO off against the USSR/Warsaw Pact -- getting aid and grants from one, then the other, which allowed the Yugoslav economy to remain inefficient and obsolete. When the USSR/Warsaw Pact fell apart, and so could no longer provide aid, and so the US/NATO didn't need to continue providing aid, Yugoslavia's economy collapsed, and groups tried to take and hold what they could. In 5 years, Yugoslavia starting with a pre-conflict population of about 20 Million, the results were about 250,000 dead, 750,000 wounded, and somewhere between 3 and 5 Million internal and external refugees. Impressive figures for the land of "Brotherhood, Unity and Socialism".

My point is that if one's argument is that citizens need to have guns in order to resist "illegal" (or whatever you want to call it) government action on a large scale, the game is over.

Some people who have changed history with a pistol or rifle are:
John Wilkes Booth
Charles J. Guiteau
Leon F. Czolgosz
Lee Harvey Oswald
Sirhan Sirhan

You're a very smart person.

I wouldn't be so sure about this if i were you.

While I don't agree with everything Clayton said in the thread he is at least partly right that some "leftists" - socialists, communists, collectivists, etc. - have an agenda to eliminate those that resist their initiatives or ideologically oppose them.

Had Cramer used the modifier 'some' in his rant, not many here would have disagreed with him. He didn't.

..wfjag, Thankyou for a truly enlightening post.

I'm still waiting to read what the folks who think that guns are useless against tyranny and/or folks bent on genocide plan to do after their stern letter to the editor is ignored.

Use of the Sean-Hannity-invented term "Islamofacism" basically disqualifies one from serious debate.

More questions for Clayton Cramer: which of the genocidal regimes in history met all of your definitions of "leftism"? How many didn't?

And I (and although Clayton hates me, I don't meet a single one of his leftist critera) would like to clarify my point about guns and the use of the same to prevent genocide. My point is that if it comes to the point where you need to use guns to prevent genocide, it is too late, you are already fucked. You might be able to forestall it for a few days (eek out a few more man hours of life--but really, you're not bidding on a contract, getting a bullet to the back of the head two days from now instead of today after hiding out in a cave with no food or water isn't much of an achievement).

The way to prevent genocide is to have strong democratic institutions and the rule of law, not stockpile weapons and start to look forward to the day when society collapses and you can finally set things right and take care of all those leftists who have been mocking you and destroying society for all these years. Because you know what that sounds like--that you are looking forward to war and genocide, not worried about preventing it.

Recovering law grad:
Pick the state with the most liberal gun laws in the country. Give each citizen in that state $10,000 to buy all the guns they want. Then have that whole state attempt to resist the U.S. military. The tally will be something like this: U.S. military, zero casualties; X state, 100% killed almost immediately.

Sure, just like we won easily in Vietnam and are having no trouble in Iraq, right? It's not impossible for the military to win in situations like that, but one of two conditions must apply:

-- Willingness and the full support of your own people for a very long, hard, and expensive fight. In recent years, the US government hasn't been able to get that level of support for killing foreigners. Against Americans, I think that soldiers would refuse orders, manufacturers would refuse to ship military supplies, trucks would "break down", and pretty soon Congress would be looking for scapegoats to blame for starting the whole thing. And that's assuming that people in other states don't get really pissed off - many of them have rifles, too.

-- Or a willingness to kill everyone and flatten everything. A few nukes or a few thousand B52 sorties with conventional weapons and it would be over - except for that angry lynch mob from all the other states converging on the White House, that is. You can't use B52's to defend a particular target without destroying it...

J.F. Thomas writes:

The way to prevent genocide is to have strong democratic institutions and the rule of law, not stockpile weapons and start to look forward to the day when society collapses and you can finally set things right and take care of all those leftists who have been mocking you and destroying society for all these years. Because you know what that sounds like--that you are looking forward to war and genocide, not worried about preventing it.

Look forward to? You must be kidding. Armed revolutions are ugly, bloody messes, and they generally turn out to the benefit of those who are the most brutal, and most willing to kill, maim, and torture (usually the crowd that keeps screaming "religion is the opiate of the masses"). For that reason, they are a last resort.

Unfortunately, democracy can lead to tyranny and genocide, especially when the notions of self-discipline go away. That's part of what led the Weimar Republic to put the Nazis in power--the "anything goes" mentality of places like Berlin meant that most Germans were no longer particularly bound by any notion of loyalty to the system. Hitler misrepresented himself as a traditional values kind of guy, and the masses were prepared to listen.

wfjag:
I’ll admit I know little about what the Ottoman Turks did to the Armenians. I’ve wondered about how much of a coincidence it was that that began in 1915, about the same time as UK and French forces invaded the Dardanelles.

Except it didn't begin in 1915, it just started again. The Turks had been massacring Armenians on and off since the 1890's, if not for longer.

Did the Allies encourage an Armenian revolt in 1915? If you look at the map, you'll see that it just wasn't possible for the western Allies to do so with anything but words - not unless there were Turkish officials willing to smuggle weapons across the battlefront, and then across the Empire on Turkish trains, all to arm their own enemies. Perhaps there were Turks that were so corrupt, but I've never seen a hint of it actually happening. I'm not so sure about the Russians, but by 1915 they were having problems with merely keeping a functioning army in the field against Germany. I suspect that, as in the 1840 Sepoy revolt in India, they would have sent out agents to help stir up trouble wherever it was already building, but they'd supply nothing but hot air.

I thnk Korean grocers did quite well defending themselves, their families, and their businesses from the rioters in Los Angeles. Government was not able to protect them, the threat was imminent, and they used their own guns.

Others organized their own neighborhoods and fired warnng shots from hunting rifles at would-be looters who tried to enter their neighborhoods. Government was not able to protect them, the threat was imminent, and they used their own guns.

I used to live in rural Alaska. There was one state trooper assigned to a 150 mile stretch of highway plus all the secondary roads. Occasionally, groups of people would come into town and threaten various citizens. The rest of the very well armed residents easily persuaded them to leave without any further problems. Again, no government, imminent threat, and personal guns.

markm: Thanks. I'm familiar with the general history, but wondered if there are any books or articles -- not written with an obvious partisan perspective -- that provide more detailed history.

Sometimes little more than words are all that have proven necessary. T.E. Lawrence's only apparent qualification was a certain level of fluency in Arabic and having traveled in the region. It appears that the British Army General Staff's primary reason for approving his mission to aid Bin Saud was that they considered him to be a loon and were happy to get him out of Cairo. The British Army provided very little in the way of logistical support. Similarly, the Germans sneaking Lenin into Russia didn't look like much, either.

I agree that by late 1915 the Czarist Army's logistical failings were apparent. However, the rapid mobilization of its reserves in 1914 and move into Poland caught the Germans completely by surprise. That forced the Germans to divert corps that were to be follow-on forces into France to be diverted to the Eastern Front to save Prussia. A very possible result was that because the Germans then lacked the Troops and supplies to do a repeat of the Franco-Prussian War, the stalemate of the Western Front developed. Later, the Germans had to save the Austro-Hungarian Army from the Russians. So, while the Russian logistical system was horrible, except when the Russians were facing German troops (and their logistical system), the Russians weren't facing armies that were in any better shape when fighting the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman armies.

The Allies were far from shy about making promises. Much was promised to the Kingdom of Serbia -- and little was delivered.

When conventional means fail, it isn't uncommon for unorthodox methods to be approved -- usually conducted by people like Lawrence, who are interesting characters (and not infrequently range from the merely eccentric, to megalomaniacs, to the truly deranged). A person with a vision, like Lawrence or Lenin, whose abilities and grasp of the realities exceed any short comings, can powerfully motivate desperate people. However, a person with a vision, but lacking the abilities and grasp of the realities, can lead desperate people to disaster. I was wondering if something like this occurred? Of course, there are other historical examples, like the ancient Spartans, who periodicly decimated their subjugated populations to keep them from becoming too strong. Right now, all I know is that a lot of Armenians were killed, but I don't have knowledge of the underlying facts and dynamics.

Considering that was practically about the chance you had of dying if you were a German in World War II (and that was out of general population, it was much higher if you were in the military, especially on the Eastern Front),

So you are saying that it would be best to just accept being murdered. Great.

It is exactly because of people like you, people who believed that Hitler and his ilk promised order and discipline and salvation from the leftists and "degenerate" society that leads democracies down the path to tyranny--especially when you apparently believe there are so many degenerate leftists out there.

I've had some conversations with Ron Paul backers that have made the hair on the back of my neck go up. I don't think that Ron Paul is that sort, but some of his fanatical fan base is quite worrisome.

You might consider the possibility that a society where the elites are creating rationalizations for why adults having sex with children is good for them isn't a good idea. But why get in the way of having fun, right?

Sometimes little more than words are all that have proven necessary. T.E. Lawrence's only apparent qualification was a certain level of fluency in Arabic and having traveled in the region.

More than a certain level of fluency. He was able to pass himself off as a Circassian.

The next time someone says something nasty about the KKK, I do expect Waldensian and friends to respond with, "Not every KKK member murders people. And some of them like black people."

If there is anything that typifies the left (those who oppose capitalism) in the last century it has been the willingness to commit mass murder. Anyone who identifies with this death cult and then insists, "But that's not typical of the left" is like the idiot in a white robe and hood who claims that he's just making a statement of white pride.

Your response to my post is so evasive, so intellectually dishonest, and so utterly NOT the work of an intelligent person, that I believe the troll diagnosis is now confirmed.

You continued defense of the idea that Communism isn't a mass murder cult is disturbing indeed.

J.F. Thomas: My point is that if it comes to the point where you need to use guns to prevent genocide, it is too late, you are already fucked. You might be able to forestall it for a few days (eek out a few more man hours of life--but really, you're not bidding on a contract, getting a bullet to the back of the head two days from now instead of today after hiding out in a cave with no food or water isn't much of an achievement).

Clayton E. Cramer's response: What you are missing is that making genocide costly may forestall it a long time. Obviously, if you are .1% of the population, your chances of forestalling genocide with weapons is pretty slim. But what happens if 5% or 10% of the population decides that they are going to kill at least one attacker before they die?

Here's what I think JFT was getting at: Once you're at the point where being well-armed is no longer a significant protection against your own slaughter or your people's genocide, then keeping up the fight is no longer about self-protection, it's about making life as miserable for your enemies as you can for as long as you can. In other words, prolonging the war merely for the sake of doing so.

Setting aside the moral implications of this (e.g. as they relate to innocents stuck in the war zone, upon whom you're imposing for that much longer), and whether or not this is really what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they crafted the 2nd Amendment (which I rather doubt), the potential added cost to your enemy is a deterrent only if it's enough to outweigh his desire to see you and/or your kind wiped out. Otherwise, your resistance is a pointless and futile gesture, as your enemy need only concern himself with the inevitable final score: Your Enemy 1, You 0.

Another thing to chew upon: It occurs to me that if ethnic or religious groups can organize and arm themselves to resist the government and/or their fellow citizens who mean them harm, then so can any manner of other special-interest groups, and even gangs of common thugs, who think they can fashion themselves as victims of society and/or government, who need to take up arms against their putative "oppressors". Multiply this by thousands upon thousands of such armed and "oppressed" groups, and civil society has a big problem. Earlier in this thread, Clayton brought up NAMBLA. Do we really want to enable them to perhaps someday recast themselves as the North American Man-Boy Liberation Army?

> Once you're at the point where being well-armed is no longer a significant protection against your own slaughter or your people's genocide

In other words, there are points where being well-armed IS a significant protection against your slaughter and/or genocide.

prolonging the war merely for the sake of doing so.

Setting aside the moral implications of this (e.g. as they relate to innocents stuck in the war zone, upon whom you're imposing for that much longer)

What is this supposed to mean? Once the war is over all will be sunshine and kittens? If your opponent is anything like the Red Army in WW II, all the women will be raped, and everything of value will be looted and pillaged.

"Once you're at the point where being well-armed is no longer a significant protection against your own slaughter or your people's genocide, then keeping up the fight is no longer about self-protection, it's about making life as miserable for your enemies as you can for as long as you can. In other words, prolonging the war merely for the sake of doing so."

The more miserable the murders are, the greater the chance that they will stop their murdering, another power will come to your aid, or members of your group will be able to escape. When facing the decision to resist, the ultimate outcome is unknown.

For those who oppose using guns in these situations:
What's your view of the Jews who fought the Nazis in the Warsaw uprising in WWII? What would you have recommended they do when the Nazis came to kill them.

A second question:
Under what circumstances do you approve of violence being employed in personal self defense?

For those who oppose using guns in these situations:
What's your view of the Jews who fought the Nazis in the Warsaw uprising in WWII? What would you have recommended they do when the Nazis came to kill them.

I think that you, and all you other gun-rights absolutists, are missing my point entirely. DK's contention appears to be, and he has repeated often, that private ownership of guns is what prevents governments from becoming genocidal. I am not arguing that as a last gasp of a dying ethnic group that guns will give the victims one last chance at forestalling for a few days or weeks, their ultimate demise, maybe even long enough to be rescued by outside forces. But the notion that without private ownership of firearms societies are vulnerable to tyranny and oppression leading to genocide just has no basis in fact. Guns do not prevent the circumstances leading up to genocide, strong democratic institutions and the rule of law do. Once the people lose faith in the government or are so fearful that they think that the only way they can protect themselves is through private action, that is when the conditions for genocide or mass murder begin to appear, because that is when you start blaming a group (be it the Jews the Armenians, the Kulaks, or the left) for the problems that plague society. Then you turn to a strong man who promises to rid the country of the cancer destroying society.

But the notion that without private ownership of firearms societies are vulnerable to tyranny and oppression leading to genocide just has no basis in fact.

Then WHY do all the people that have tried to commit genocide disarmed those who they were going to try and kill??

"democratic institutions and the rule of law" only survive for as long as people are willing to support them. There are some on the Left that don't care about such democratic institutions and the rule of law. They want the Law to mean whatever they say it means and that those democratic institutions support THEIR view of how things should be run. The Law and the institutions get subverted. Then WHAT DO YOU DO??

It is like in California, it is impossible because of gerrymandering to effect the political makeup of the California legistrature. If One party controls the government and controls the gerrymandering, how can they be controled? How can they be stopped from imposing their will on the State? Answer that! They have a lock on power.
What good do your democratic institutions do against that?

Speaking of Germans and the rule of law, Mr. Kopel co-wrote a good survey article on how Hitler used Weimar Republic gun control laws to disarm the Jews here.