Looking back at a world gone mad

[overtone]

 

I have stated on several occasions that it is the constitutional right
deemed by the (second amendment), of any and all sane citizens of the
United States to own a defensive weapon, whether it be a rifle, hand
gun, knife or baseball bat, regardless of race, creed or ethnicity. Quit
trying to make it more difficult than it is.

 

But the difficulty here, however minor, has not been faced: you are using the example of how easily (in your view) the specifically unarmed Jews (and Rom, Reds, etc) were dispossessed, rounded up, and slaughtered by the German government. But there are several less problematic and more familiar examples of reasonably comparable abuse much closer to home, less corrupted and obscured by foreign political circumstances and the aftermaths of war, economic collapse, etc.

 

I mentioned three: the recent (post WWII) segregation and oppression of the blacks under Jim Crow laws in several States of the US; the dispossession, roundup, and concentration camp deportation of yellows in the US during WWII; the dispossession, roundup, and reservation deportation of reds in the US prior to WWI and their subsequent abuse into modern times.

 

These oppressions of the blacks and yellows (if not the reds) were at least as easily accomplished as the Holocaust, employing recognizably similar techniques against people similarly short of weaponry for self defense.

 

And the question asked was not one of "rights", but assessment of circumstances: would we as a country and people, including the blacks and yellows and reds among us, be better off if all else equal the blacks and yellows in particular had been more heavily armed ? - especially: had put up more of a fight, more violent resistance, as people so often wonder at the Jews of Germany not doing either (historical ignorance playing a major role in this wonderment, of course, but the question remains).

[rigney]

As much as I hate to say it, there were more gun related murdered in Chicago in 2012, than all that were killes maliciously in the US during slavery, from the beginning up and through 1865. During that peroid slaves were considered valued property much as a cow, horse or hog might be. Was it wrong? Hell Yes it was wrong! But I don't read history as a science or pity someone, but as an informative piece of literature. Were there atrocities? Hell Yes! Am I glad slaves didn't have arms? Hell Yes! Had they been armed, likely all of them would have been dead, along with a bunch of whites. And what a tragedy that would have also been. If slave and Extermination Camps were ever built in this nation, it was for the RED MAN. They were the ones who really got a screwing.

 

Read the links

 

Slavery in the Americas up and through 1865

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

Jim Crow Laws

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Two Japanese Internment Camps between 1041-1945

http://www.azpbs.org/arizonastories/ppedetail.php?id=8

German Internment Camps in the Us between 1942-1945

http://www.traces.org/germaninternees.html

Indiginous Americans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

Edited February 13, 2013 by rigney

[Moontanman]

 

As much as I hate to say it, there were more gun related murdered in Chicago in 2012, than all that were killes maliciously in the US during slavery, from the beginning up and through 1865. During that peroid slaves were considered valued property much as a cow, horse or hog might be. Was it wrong? Hell Yes it was wrong! But I don't read history as a science or pity someone, but as an informative piece of literature. Were there atrocities? Hell Yes! Am I glad slaves didn't have arms? Hell Yes! Had they been armed, likely all of them would have been dead, along with a bunch of whites. And what a tragedy that would have also been. American Indians are the ones who really got the screwing.

Read the links

 

Slavery in the Americas up and through 1865

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

 

Jim Crow Laws

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Two Japanese Internment Camps between 1041-1945

http://www.azpbs.org/arizonastories/ppedetail.php?id=8

German Internment Camps in the Us between 1942-1945

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment2

 

 

Rigney, are you talking total killings or per capita?

[rigney]

Neither!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2013 by rigney

[Moontanman]

 

Neither!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come on rigney, it has to be one or the other...

[overtone]

 

Am I glad slaves didn't have arms? Hell Yes! Had they been armed, likely
all of them would have been dead, along with a bunch of whites. And
what a tragedy that would have also been. If slave and Extermination
Camps were ever built in this nation, it was for the RED MAN. They were
the ones who really got a screwing.

Slavery was not mentioned, for a reason: slaves were quite often POWs, almost always members of different cultures being attacked from outside so to speak, did have the means and opportunity to fight back when originally captured, were not in general societally or legally disarmed groups prior to their abuse within their society. . So they do not figure into the discussion here.

 

And the eventual employment of concentration camps and oppressions for extermination is not the issue either - as noted above, the yellows in WWII US were unlikely to have been any more clairvoyant than the Jews in WWII Germany. They didn't know what the outcome would be.

 

So the question remains: we have post Great Depression examples of scantly armed groups being abused by their better armed and government supported neighbors, right here in the US. Prevention of such abuse is the common justification of widespread and lightly regulated gun ownership withn the US. Does it work, on this evidence? Do we agree that more heavily arming the reds, yellows, and blacks of the Treaty abuses, Pearl Harbor aftermaths, and Jim Crow establishments, would have been of benefit to the country or its people?

[rigney]

I think we should simply look at the issues as history has produced them. The asians weren't looking through rose colored glasses in 1941 when Japan started a war with the US. They had seen and heard glitches of the atrocities perpetrated in Germany beginning in the early 30s. Sadly, the Japanese were doing the same thing in China, but much worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II#Forced_workers

[Moontanman]

Rigney and I come from the same area of the US, we are "hillbillies" guns are just a fact of life there in the rural areas at least. hand guns were never a big thing when I was growing up but at least a 1/2 dozen long guns were in the house all the time and most of them were loaded all the time. I can't make myself see a reason to take guns away from every one.

 

Now if the assertion is that by having guns the government has to fear it's people that is hogwash. Few people I know are going to step and and die to fight the government, some of them say they will but I am skeptical... The government can and will squash civilians like bugs if they wanted to.

 

The really sad thing is that any changes that come about will be so slow and moderate that at no point would most rational people want to take up arms.. (yes i know slippery slope) I think it's important to stand up now and be counted at the ballot box to avoid being targeted by a drone in the future.

 

Reasonable men should be able to decide who can own a gun, and while I do agree that any sane rational person should be able to own a gun, that doesn't mean you should just be able to walk in and buy one, it should be at least as difficult as getting a license to drive a car...

 

A gun represents power, power demands responsibility, rights require responsibility, you don't have rights if you can't be responsible...

Edited February 15, 2013 by Moontanman

[rigney]

Rigney and I come from the same area of the US, we are "hillbillies" guns are just a fact of life there in the rural areas at least. hand guns were never a big thing when I was growing up but at least a 1/2 dozen long guns were in the house all the time and most of them were loaded all the time. I can't make myself see a reason to take guns away from every one.

 

Now if the assertion is that by having guns the government has to fear it's people that is hogwash. Few people I know are going to step and and die to fight the government, some of them say they will but I am skeptical... The government can and will squash civilians like bugs if they wanted to.

 

The really sad thing is that any changes that come about will be so slow and moderate that at no point would most rational people want to take up arms.. (yes i know slippery slope) I think it's important to stand up now and be counted at the ballot box to avoid being targeted by a drone in the future.

 

Reasonable men should be able to decide who can own a gun, and while I do agree that any sane rational person should be able to own a gun, that doesn't mean you should just be able to walk in and buy one, it should be at least as difficult as getting a license to drive a car...

 

A gun represents power, power demands responsibility, rights require responsibility, you don't have rights if you can't be responsible...

How sensible things sound when stated correctly.

[overtone]

 

it should be at least as difficult as getting a license to drive a car...

 

A gun represents power, power demands responsibility, rights require
responsibility, you don't have rights if you can't be responsible..

That plausible sounding line of argument is why the right to keep and bear arms was written into the Constitution - so that any future government attempting to accrue to itself the power to decide who is "responsible", what features would characterize "responsible" gun ownership , etc, would hit the wall of the explicitly granted right.

 

You don't have to prove that you are responsible to speak freely, assemble peaceably, rest secure from search and seizure in your own home, etc. Having to prove oneself "responsible" according to some government functionary's criteria is exactly what enshrining a right in the Constitution forestalls.

[john5746]

It should be repealed. Founding fathers were wrong about some things and ignorant of many things that we know today. This was one of them.

[rigney]

It should be repealed. Founding fathers were wrong about some things and ignorant of many things that we know today. This was one of them.

 

rigney: Sorry John, but I had to give you the minus - on your answer. It's hard for me to believe that you, being a senior as myself, would see the issue of gun control in such a malignant manner. Yes!, Our founding fathers deliberated to great length on many issues, knowing their wisdom would be questioned. Yet, we as a growing herd of sheeple people dare to question the most bizarre mandates coming from our government today, especially the executive orders coming fast and furiously from the white house.

Edited February 18, 2013 by rigney