On Israel, Guns, Terrorist, and Defense

[Cryozombie]

I'll willingly take anyones money, at any odds, against the notion a group of ordinary people, armed with non-miltary weapons and with none of the other kit that makes up part of a modern infantrymans gear, could successfully take on even a squad level engagement with army regulars.

It's an illusion. A comforting one perhaps but an illusion nonetheless. The idea comes from a couple of centuries ago when the disparity between a 'civilian' with a gun and a soldier with a gun was largely a matter of discipline and formation. That no longer holds true.

Which is one of the big reasons we argue that we should be allowed to have the same types of weapons the military has. Which is also why there is a 12+ week wait on AR15 parts right now, and why the AK47 I bought for 250 dollars is selling for almost 1000 here now.

And lets not forget, many of the so-called "Ordinary people" who want these rights are former military. The Military has the latest tech, and would be HARD to beat nowadays because of that, but those are the situations that unconventional warfare has throughout history allowed the underdogs to emerge victorious, even if you have to redefine victory as "Surviving long enough to escape someplace less dangerous."

 

[Sukerkin]

It's a hypothetical, no doubt, Cryo but I do not share your optimistic appraisal of the odds.

It'd be interesting to see some validated statistics as to what constitutes 'many' when it comes to a percentage of the popuation with relevant military training and experience (given that 'many' who serve in the military do not serve in roles that would prepare them for this scenario).

Regardless, it is akin to saying that I could take on a bone fide samurai in a sword fight - I might have a better chance than yourself but I reckon that at best I'll be able to tell you in the afterlife the name of the particular technique he killed me with .

I do like the last point that you make, nontheless. I'm not sure having a smallarm is going to make that all that much easier, however.

What I do have difficulty getting my head around is why the need is felt to come up with these, to me, specious arguments for retaining the right to bear arms when the whole point is that it is written into the foundations of your law.

Further more, what gain is there in, as I said before, beating the drum incessantly here? What I think on the matter is not going to change your governments attitudes on the issue and I'm pretty certain we don't have any members of MartialTalk who also happen to be members of Congress or Senators.

What it does do is convince the rest of 'us' who are not particularly concerned about the matter on a daily basis that there is something amiss with those who support the pro-gun platform when the point is thrust in our faces all the time.

Fanatacism never sells well, especially that of an 'evangelical' cast. Or is that just my own particular reaction?

 

[CanuckMA]

Deaf, you don't have an understanding of what happened then. You can't understand what Tez is upset about. For the record, I find those statements upseting as well. Tez and I are likely around the same age, we share a common bond. Sitting around the dinner table at the Holidays, I look at my and my wife's entire extended family. We are 12. I grew up where my family, all of them was my parents and sisters. The glib statements that Jews should have fought back, that if they had been armed they would have survived hurts. Look how quickly the Germans overpowered countries. What makes you think that being armed would have made any bit of difference? Less may have died in the camps perhaps, they would have been shot in the ghettos.

Why are we sensitive about it? It has taken us 60 years to rebuild our numbers. A large part of a culture was lost forever.

 

[jetboatdeath]

It's such a naive and simplistic thing to assume that having guns would have saved people

Sorry you are upset but...
but it is neither naive and simplistic it is called MATH.
There is proof of this if you would like to see this proof (not made up numbers by the Brady’s) actual fbi records(they are public domain)
proving that guns in the hands of law abiding citizens do save lives I will be happy to flood your mail box with them.

 

[jetboatdeath]

What makes you think that being armed would have made any bit of difference? Less may have died in the camps perhaps, they would have been shot in the ghettos.

Wow not sure how to say this....
But here goes.
WHAT???
What differance would it have made, tons think about it.
All of Germany at the time was Anit-Jew (so anti-Jew that there power to fight was taken) they had no one else to call, no police, no politition, no fire fighter, all they had was them selves and a few symtosizers. Now faced with those odds no chance to get out. I would think a gun would be pretty handy at that point in time.

Put it this given the chance to fight in the face of almost gaurenteed death or submit what would you choose.

The guns were taken away from them for a reason. Because they would have fought if they could have....

 

[elder999]

The glib statements that Jews should have fought back, that if they had been armed they would have survived hurts. .

No where has anyone posted or said that. What was said was:

If Jews in Europe owned guns there would be several million dead Nazis and their collaborators—and far fewer dead Jews.

And it was said by the author of the article in the original post, an American Jew, fervent Zionist, award winning author and NRA member.

 

[Sukerkin]

What is perhaps not being given due consideration here is that these statements are being made with the benefit of hindsight. Noone at the time imagined that what did in fact transpire was going to occur. There was no obvious intimation to these poor people that they were going to their deaths - that deception was how mass rioting, armed or not, was avoided in the first place.

Other than perhaps at such points as Crystal Nacht, the Jews being individually armed and acting as private citizens would not have made all that much difference. Yes, there would have been some more dead non-Jewish Europeans but it would not have significantly altered the path of the juggernaut.

Escaping from the ghetto's, organising and then resisting would have.

I believe Hollywood has made a film recently that covers a very successful (relatively speaking) example of such. On past record, no doubt they will mangle the history abominably but the point is there.

 

[CanuckMA]

Defiance. Yes it was mangled, but the gist was there.

And I'll put what you think happenned against my first hand accounts of what actually happened.

That Zionists said these things do not make them true. The culture and worldview of today's Israeli, is quite different than that of European Jews 70 years ago.

 

[Brian King]

*off topic*

CanuckMA wrote:

"my first hand accounts of what actually happened."

Speaking for only myself, I would value you posting what it was like for you in Nazi Germany or Nazi occupied territory. I have read many first hand accounts and have been fortunate to know briefly several survivors of various concentration and labor camps and have also been fortunate to know several persons that had been prisoners of war held by the Germans and Japanese a one that had been held by the Soviets. I have been humbled by them all and learned a great deal. Please feel free to start a thread based on your first hand knowledge. So often we only get our information second or third hand or a buddy told me that his fathers sister said.

Regards
Brian King

 

[Cryozombie]

Further more, what gain is there in, as I said before, beating the drum incessantly here? What I think on the matter is not going to change your governments attitudes on the issue and I'm pretty certain we don't have any members of MartialTalk who also happen to be members of Congress or Senators.

Well, If I had to venture a guess, since we here are assailed constantly with anti-gun propaganda, fiction and lies, as well as opinions from people both here and elsewhere that "Guns are bad, M'kay?" I think many gun owners feel the need, especially now that we stand under threat of losing our weapons, to speak out. And, right or wrong, as members of this forum, its a place that we are given voice...

 

[CanuckMA]

Brian, I'm too young for that, but I am the child of survivors. I've had to live with the devastting psychological aftermath of having survived the camps.

Things to remember when you ask how could it have been done is that the Jews in Europe had been part of those communities for centuries. They could not imagine that their country could turn against them. Also keep in mind that those communities were fairly isolated and communications in the 30s and 40s were not what they are today, so communities would not know what was happening elsewhere.

 

[elder999]

First off, I recognize the emotive factor of this topic more than any of you might think. I grew up with mostly Italians and Jews, and I heard many of the same stories that others have. Additionally, one of my all time favorite teachers, my sixth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Gold, was in the camps as a child.It was she who encouraged me to write:The Nazis were like monsters to us, they didn't even seem human. In the camp, we told stories to survive.

Things to remember when you ask how could it have been done is that the Jews in Europe had been part of those communities for centuries. They could not imagine that their country could turn against them. Also keep in mind that those communities were fairly isolated and communications in the 30s and 40s were not what they are today, so communities would not know what was happening elsewhere.

Ya know, I'm not so sure. I had a teacher, Mr. Joseph Greenstein, who left Poland for the U.S. around 1907. He'd survived at least one pogrom in Poland before he left, though.

The fact is, long before the first nation-wide pogrom in Germany, in 1938, Jews had suffered violent persecution throughout eastern Europe for a long time-the first reported one was around 1880 in Russia, but with Martin Luther actually calling for such acts of anti-Semitism as an article of faith in On the Jews and Their Lies, in 1543, and describing in detail what should be done: the burning of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. While this didn't have a prevailing influence in Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries, it was an influence elsewhere, and was again in Germany by the end of WWI.

Frankly, when the talk started, when other measures were implemented-one of the first things Hitler did when he became Chancellor, in 1933, was implement the Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service, which removed many Jews from their Jobs-and certainly when Kristallnacht fell in 1938-and basically happened all over the country at once, so there was no need to communicate what had happened elsewhere-these all should have been an indication that their "countries were turning against them."

In fact, it was-an awful lot of Jews left their countries for Great Britain, traditionally neutral European countries, and the United States. It's how we wound up with Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi-while not Jewish himself, most of Fermi's assistants, and his wife were Jewish, and they fled the restrictive, anti-Semitic laws which Mussolini instituted in Italy at about the same time as the Germans. Lisa Meitner, the great and overlooked Austrian born physicist, left Germany for Sweden in 1938, and was not only critical of colleagues who remained and collaborated with the Nazi regime, but criticized herself for remaining in Germany from 1933 to 1938. In one of her more damning statements, she singled out Werner Heisenberg, who collaborated with the Nazis (but might just have hindered their atomic bomb efforts through inaction), saying that, "Heisenberg and many millions with him should be forced to see these camps and the martyred people." She also wrote to her longtime associate, Otto Hahn, the man who recieved the Nobel that she should have been recognized for:

"You all worked for Nazi Germany. And you tried to offer only a passive resistance. Certainly, to buy off your conscience you helped here and there a persecuted person, but millions of innocent human beings were allowed to be murdered without any kind of protest being uttered ... [it is said that] first you betrayed your friends, then your children in that you let them stake their lives on a criminal war – and finally that you betrayed Germany itself, because when the war was already quite hopeless, you did not once arm yourselves against the senseless destruction of Germany

So,while to my mind it would be an even uglier thing to say about the facts of gun-control, the fact may be that more would have lived if more had read the writing on the wall, and run away. I recognize, though, that disbelief and inertia were part of this, and, that for some, emigration was financially impossible. Still, many remained to have their wealth and eventually their lives stripped from them, when it was within their means to go elsewhere, and no longer within their means to resist.

 

[CanuckMA]

So,while to my mind it would be an even uglier thing to say about the facts of gun-control, the fact may be that more would have lived if more had read the writing on the wall, and run away. I recognize, though, that disbelief and inertia were part of this, and, that for some, emigration was financially impossible. Still, many remained to have their wealth and eventually their lives stripped from them, when it was within their means to go elsewhere, and no longer within their means to resist.

Running away was the only way to ensure survival. However many could not believe that it could be so bad.

The Warsaw ghetto is oft-cited as an example of what armed resistance could do. But at the end, it just stalled the Germans a bit, killed a few of them, It did nothing for the survival of the Jews in the ghetto.

And where would they have gone. Countries turned them back, remember the St. Louis? Britain would not let them go to Palestine.

 

[elder999]

And where would they have gone. Countries turned them back, remember the St. Louis? Britain would not let them go to Palestine.

...and this is a great national shame. :asian: