But also note, that there are mines and artillery shells. The First World War also used gas.
The Second World War saw even deadlier bombs and the introduction of German Vergeltungswaffe (retaliation weapon). In particular, the V-2 Rocket. The picture below shows the aftermath of a V2 attack in West London, 1944
A firearm was useless against the aerial bombardments that were seen in the war zones of the Second World War and subsequent conflicts.
As I have said in multiple comments to Crunchy's reposting to the astroturfed genocide nonsense--
“this list of alleged genocides is a pitifully weak argument against gun control, simply because most of the victims listed here did fight back. In fact, if there’s a real lesson to be learned from this roster of oppressions, it’s that sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns.“
In more simple terms, which crunchy might be able to understand: Guns do fuck all to stop genocides caused by superiorly armed foes.
The argument that gun control facilitates genocide is right up there with birthers, truthers, and flat-earthers.
ReplyDeleteIt's also easily debunked. For example, gun ownership in Saddam's Iraq was widespread; Iraqi citizens were free to buy fully-automatic weapons. Yet, the Iraqi people suffered under Saddam's tyranny for nearly 40 years.
Many Cubans own military weapons as part of Cuba's civilian militia---yet, hardly anyone would say the Castro regime isn't a dictatorship.
The myth of Nazi gun control is debunked here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html
Gunloon "scholar" Don Kates used to run around saying gun control caused the Holocaust. He doesn't anymore--why? Because Jewish scholars and those who lived through the Holocaust told him to STFU about things he knew nothing about.
People who claim guns prevent tyranny and genocides understand nothing of history and the military. They believe movies like "Red Dawn" are documentaries and that the War of Independence was won by a bunch of farmers with guns.
Actually, there are a few good refutations of the Gun Control=Genocide.
DeleteMatthew White's Which has killed more people: Gun Control or Christianity?
My first reworking of it as Gun control and Genocides
And addition about the Holocaust Astroturfed Genocide
Along with comments such as:
"Well, right off the bat I can see that whoever compiled this tally has a different definition of defenseless than I do. I myself wouldn’t declare the largest military machine on the planet “unable to defend itself”, but by adding 20 million from the Soviet Union, this list does. After all, Stalin’s most infamous terror fell heavily on the Soviet Army, culling tens of thousand of officers, and executing three out of five marshals, 15 out of 16 army commanders, 60 out of 67 corps commanders and 136 out of 199 division commanders. In one bloody year, the majority of the officer corps was led away quietly and shot. It may be one of life’s great mysteries as to why the Red Army allowed itself to be gutted that way, but obviously, lack of firepower can’t be the reason."
"Frankly, this list is a pitifully weak argument against gun control, simply because most of the victims listed here did fight back. In fact, if there’s a real lesson to be learned from this roster of oppressions, it’s that sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns."
That Crunchy could think that this stuff in anyway supports his argument--especially after seeing this post--makes me wonder about his intelligence.
There's a strange, ahistorical belief, held by gunloons, that dictatorships and tyrannies come about because a small group of bad people conquer the population and take away their guns.
DeleteBut the reality is quite different; dictatorships and tyrannies come about because they enjoy some combination of popular and/or tacit support by a majority of the population. For example, Castro "invaded" Cuba with 82 men. How was he able to conquer Cuba which had a US-trained army, large police force and civil militia? The answer: he enjoyed popular and tacit support of most Cubans.
I once again repeat what I posted in response to Crunchy which related to the Holocaust:
DeleteActual armed resistance by Jews during the Holocaust led to mass annihilation. Despite being vastly outgunned and outnumbered, some Jews in ghettos and camps did resist the Germans with force. The failure to halt the genocidal policies of the Nazis has pretty much left Jewish resistance as a footnote to the holocaust. For example, The the largest single revolt by the Jews during the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was crushed by the Militarily superior German forces: Casualties and losses during this uprising were 17 Germans killed and 93 wounded Versus 13,000 Jews killed and 56,885 captured. The captured Jews were sent to Treblinka. So much for armed resistance.
Some people forget that inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva (Lachwa), Kremenets, Czestochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Research into Jewish Resistance during the holocaust pretty much repeats the message that The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily young men and women, died during the fighting. Unfortunately, this resistance did little to stop the German genocide.
I did NOT list genocides. I listed democides.
ReplyDeleteHere is the source:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB1.2.GIF
I am simply making everyone aware that people in civilized countries have used guns to kill 115+ million people in their countries since 1900. I am also making everyone aware that people in the U.S. have not used guns to kill anywhere near that many people in the U.S. since 1900.
Crunchy, given the number of people who belong to groups where only SOME were executed in the holocaust but by no means all, the holocaust meets the definition posited by the originator of the term for democides.
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
Rummel originated the use of the word and was responsible for its acceptance:
Rummel defines democide as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder".
AND NO THOSE WERE NOT ALL KILLINGS BY FIREARM, you twit.
DeleteLaci wrote,
ReplyDelete"... Crunchy's reposting to the astroturfed genocide nonsense ..."
I didn't post or repost anything about an astroturfed website or about genocide. I never used the word genocide in my post unless it was to correct Laci that I was posting about democide.
See above - democide INCLUDESS genocide, dummy.
DeleteYou need to be a whole lot better read than you are when you use terms. Deomocide is a political science term; Laci has a triple degree - one part is logic, and one of the other degrees is political science, and the third is economics.
You are unwise to challenge him on any of the three.
Crunchy, in the light of overwhelming evidence that you have no idea of what you are atalking about:
DeleteI refer you to Matthew White's Webpages:http://necrometrics.com/index.htm
You would find that disease and famine contribute quite a bit to your bodycount.
I can tell you that no firearms contributed to those deaths.
Likewise, a majority of the holocaust victims were either gassed or died of disease or malnutrition (gassing being the most common method of death
Since Laci and Jadegold mentioned the subject of genocide, I'll comment on it. Any battle depends on several factors such as armament, numbers, organization, training, and the will to fight.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of those factors and how they stacked up for or against victims of genocides, I will choose how I will respond to a potential genocide. I don't want Laci or the government making that choice for me. Nor do I want Laci or the government telling me I cannot own/possess firearms because resisting a genocide would be (in their estimation) futile.
The only thing you have persuaded me of is that you are a subhuman who is wasting precious resources.
DeleteI want you to take on a superior foe armed only with a firearm.
Please, Crunchy, collect your Darwin Award sooner rather than later and make the world a better place.
You are a danger because of your stupidity for the same reason we don't allow people with the IQ of a vegetable to use firearms or small children.
DeleteI don't care if you want or don't want Laci, or I or Jade telling you that you can't use firearms to defend yourself agaisnt genocide.
The U.S. Constitution, Article 3 section 3, (the only crime mentioned in the constitution) says you cannot take up arms against the government. Don't you love the Cosntitution Crunchy? Aren't you a good loyal law abiding citizen? Are you a domestic terrorist Crunchy?
Nah, you're just so full of bullshit and ignorance, so appallingly ill-educated and unable to think as a rational informed human being, the idea that YOU have a firearm is truly scary because of your intellectual incompetence.
To elaborate, after deleting the spam filter (which inclded some garbage from Crunchy) and referring to the web site of the most expert source for the meaning of the term democide:
DeleteWhat are the differences and similarities between democide and genocide? As defined, elaborated, and qualified in Chapter 2 of Death By Government, democide is any murder by government--by officials acting under the authority of government. That is, they act according to explicit or implicit government policy or with the implicit or explicit approval of the highest officials. Such was the burying alive of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers, the shooting of hostages by German soldiers, the starving to death of Ukrainians by communist cadre, or the burning alive of Japanese civilians purposely fire-bombed from the air by American airmen.
That confirms what Laci and I both wrote - many of those democide deaths were not from firearms, and more to the point, a firearm wouldn't have prevented those deaths.
This is from the web site of R.J. Rummel, the premier expert on democide:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/GENOCIDE.HTM
If the U.S. government begins a campaign to execute all people of (fill in the blank) decent because they are of (fill in the blank) decent, they are no longer a legitimate government. Thus if I chose to take up arms against the people carrying out that effort, I would not be guilty of taking up arms against the government.
ReplyDeleteTaking up arms to oppose a domestic genocide does not make someone a domestic terrorist. It makes them a citizen.
Apparently that causes many problems in your world.
Hitler also put the mentally disabled into the gas chambers
DeleteThat is far more of a problem for you, Crunchy.
Because you aren't doing too well here.
So, Crunchy, does that mean you no longer consider the U.S. government legitimate because of what it did to Native Americans?
DeleteHow about sterilizing mentally deficient people so they could not reproduce mentally disabled offspring? We did that in this country on a large scale.
And the word is descent. DECENT refers to decency.
You are too stupid to correctly identify when an instance of genocide occurs. Your attitudes make you a potential domestic terrorist, just like some of the crazier fringie militias, not a citizen, not a patriot.
Just an armed idiot.
I noticed my spelling error as I read the replies. Thank you for the correction.
DeleteI am well aware of various genocides. I provided one possible example -- an egregious example at that. I was not attempting to provide an exhaustive discourse on the topic of genocide.
And I was illustrating how responding with arms to such an atrocity would not be "taking up arms against the government" because the people that commit such an atrocity are no longer functioning under the authority of the U.S. Constitution and are thus no longer a legitimate government. Rather it is the citizen responding in arms to defend the U.S. Constitution and stop the atrocity who is legitimate.
It is unfortunate that you despise a citizen who would oppose such an atrocity.
Crunchy, since you made the error more than once, it seemed - and still seems - more like an error than a typo.
DeleteYOU are not the person who is fit or qualified to determine when the government is acting legitimately or not, or what part of it is is. Sorry, but you are too ignorant and ill informed and far too willing to believe without any validity information fed to you that is total and complete CRAP. You clearly do not know fact from fiction or fantasy from reality.
You are gullible, you are a fool - an armed fool, but still a fool.
The U.S. Constitution, with which you appear to be shockingly unfamiliar, has provisions for correcting mistakes and wrong doing by the goernment. It id not up to some delusional self-appointed self-styled ignorant, gullible citizen patriot like you to do that.
I despise stupidity, I despise the ignorant who presume to act violently. There are far more legitimate ways than the one you propose to oppose an atrocity -- that is an illegal, unethical, and immoral response you are proposing, above and beyond the stupidity of it.
No matter how you try to put lipstick on that pig, you are talking the same kind of bullshit treason as Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Murrah building. It is illegal for someone like you to decide this government is no longer operating under the authority of the Constitution; Article 3 section 3 is very clear:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
It derived from various historic rebellions such as Shay's rebellion where people took it on themselves to decide if the government was acting consistently with the Constitution.
Taking up arms as you suggest against the government meets the definition of levying war, as an individual or as a member of a group.
He was absolutely sure he was opposing the U.S. Government when it was no longer functioning under the authority of the Constitution. I despise him and spit on his grave. He shouldn't have had a grave; he should have been fed to swine.
But more than that, this idea that you are going to heroically oppose the tyranny of this govenment, should it occur, (like making you buy smaller servings of sugary drinks?) is a gunners fantasy, as delusional as the notion that you are going to have to go all vigilante on someone -- probably an innocent teenager in a hoodie, with a beverage in his or her hand -- to be the hero saving the day shooting someone that might be maybe kinda sorta possibly committing a crime, or thinking about it.
The scenario of taking up arms against the governemnt isn't going to happen. The second scenario is only microscopically less likely than the first.
You are an idiot, and an extraordinarily ignorant one at that.
I don't support an armed citizen attacking the U.S. because a government law enforcement agent arrested someone or because someone made some nebulous accusations about the failings of government. I was referring to a blatant overt heinous effort of government to execute an entire class of people for immoral reasons.
DeleteI recognize that one person acting on their own isn't going to be effective. I also condemn killing a bunch of children in a daycare center ... along with everything else that T.M. did. (I refuse to write his name.)
The ideal response would be lawsuits to stop the program before it started. If those failed, the next best response is entire states responding with an organized force -- perhaps the governor of a state/s calling forth the national guard. If there is no response at the state level, I would implore my County Sheriff and community to organize and intervene. If that failed, I am not sure exactly what I would do.
The difference is that you uphold the state before the people. I uphold the people before the state ... because without the people there is no state.
The difference is that you uphold the state before the people. I uphold the people before the state ... because without the people there is no state.
DeleteNot even remotely accurate. For example I actively advocate for less big money drowning out the speech of individuals, and the influence of individuals by having a greater ability to get those elected to office in both the legislative branch and the judicial branch to do their bidding. I advocate actively for more people to be voting, and against voter suppression that disenfrachises legal voters.
You haven't the faintest idea or understanding of what I support, and you can't get your brain past your gun fetish to begin to do so.
Here's why Cap'n is wrong: the victors get to write the history.
ReplyDeleteNRA hero Timmy McVeigh decided the Govt of the US had become an unbearable tyranny. He bought into the NRA propaganda that his guns were going to be taken away and we'd all become slaves to the UN. So, he went to war with the US.
He lost. And--aside from the NRA--McVeigh is regarded as a delusional nutjob. A terrorist.
What gunloons fail to understand is that warfare isn't just about guns and weapons. It's mostly about public support. That's why if a bunch of NRA-types get it in their heads to one day decide they're going to declare war on the US Govt--they'll be consigned to the same trash receptacle as McVeigh.
I don't support an armed citizen attacking the U.S. because a government law enforcement agent arrested someone or because someone made some nebulous accusations about the failings of government.
ReplyDeleteMcVeig believed the U.S. government was no longer legitimately acting on the authority of the Constitution, due to Waco, Ruby Ridge and other incidents -- a pattern of conduct by the U.S. government, with much of his information inaccutate.
He made statements that sound like some of yours, notably this one :
"When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw." He told a student reporter:
The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.[24]
McVeigh defended the practice of owning multiple guns, saying it was like the common practice of keeping an assortment of screwdrivers in one's toolbox; one needed to be sure of having the right tool for the job. He said that five particular guns were essential: a semiautomatic, magazine-fed rifle (for defending against large mobs); a bolt-action hunting/sniper rifle (for killing large game or defending against an entrenched marauder); a shotgun (for fowl hunting); a .22 caliber rifle (to hone shooting skills and bag small game); and a pistol (for close-in self defense). He viewed guns as the first tool of freedom, necessary to protect supplies in the event America fell into chaos.[30]
He produced videos detailing the government's actions at Waco and handed out pamphlets with titles like "U.S. Government Initiates Open Warfare Against American People" and "Waco Shootout Evokes Memory of Warsaw '43."
the above are from wikipedia, but he held a similar antipathy to the U.N.
You Crunchy are gullible, believing things told to you that you should recognize on the face of them are false. You don't know how to properly fact check, and you don't make an effort to do so either.
Therefore NO, I don't believe you are a credible citizen patriot capable of correctly determining when the heck it would be appropriate to take arms against the government, nor do I believe you could successfully do so.
You are a gun nut who holds stupid ideas. Your beliefs are wrong, your assumptions are badly mistaken, and you live in a delusional fantasy world as you relate to firearms and your own capabilities.