Friday, August 26, 2011

Jewish Resistance to Nazi oppression

For the most part, there wasn't too much armed resistance to the Nazis from the Jews. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves “patriotic Germans” for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of “never again” is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.

That's not to say that resistance didn't occur, there were a few ghetto uprisings, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is the best known of the Jewish resistance that arose within the Ghettos in German occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. This was caused by Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp. The uprising began on January 18, 1943. The most significant portion of the rebellion took place from April 19 until May 16, 1943, and ended when the poorly armed and supplied resistance was crushed by the German troops under the direct command of Jürgen Stroop.

The Ghetto fighters (numbering some 400 to 1,000 by April 19) were armed primarily with pistols and revolvers. Just a few rifles and automatic firearms smuggled into the Ghetto were available. The insurgents had little ammunition, and relied heavily on improvised explosive devices and incendiary bottles; more weapons were supplied throughout the uprising or captured from the Germans. Some weapons were hand-made by resistance: sometimes such weapons worked, other times they jammed repeatedly. In his daily reports, Stroop wrote his forces were able to recover the "booty" consisting of:

  • April 20, 1943:...In today's action we caught, apart from the Jews reported above, considerable stores of incendiary bottles, hand grenades, ammunition, military tunics, and equipment.
  • April 22, 1943:...captured 80 incendiary bottles and other booty.
  • April 23, 1943:...We captured apart from valuables and money - some gas masks.
  • April 24, 1943:..and an amount of paper money, especially dollars was captured; this money has not yet been counted.
  • April 25, 1943:..and in one bunker 3 pistols and explosive charges were captured. Further today, significant supplies of paper money, currency, gold coins and items of jewelry were secured.
  • April 26, 1943:...Once again, weapons, Molotov cocktails, explosive devices and large amounts of money were captured.
  • April 27, 1943:...In this operation we captured 3 rifles, 12 pistols, partly of heavier caliber, 100 Polish "pineapple" hand grenades, 27 German steel helmets, quite a number of German uniforms, tunics and coats which were even furnished with ribbon of the East medal, some reserve magazines for machine guns, 300 rounds of ammunition, etc.
  • April 28, 1943:..capturing more arms, ammunition, and military equipment
  • April 29, 1943:..Captured are 2 rifles, 10 pistols, 10 kilograms of explosives, and ammunition of various types
  • April 30, 1943:..Today, we again captured arms and particularly parts of German uniforms from them.
  • May 2, 1943:...arms and ammunition captured.
  • May 3, 1943:...We captured among other things, one German rifle, model 98, two 08 pistols and other calibers, also home-made hand grenades.
  • May 4, 1943:.. We captured 1 carbine, 3 pistols, and some ammunition.
  • May 5, 1943:..Today, we again captured arms and ammunition, including one pistol.
  • May 6, 1943:..One Jew who had escaped from Lublin was caught just outside of the Ghetto wall. He was armed as follows: 1 08 pistol, ample reserve ammunition, 2 Polish "pineapple" hand grenades.
  • May 7, 1943:..We captured 4 pistols of various calibers and some stores of ammunition.
  • May 8, 1943:..We captured about 15 to 20 pistols of various calibers, considerable stores of ammunition for pistols and rifles, moreover a number of hand grenades, made in the former armament factories.
  • May 9, 1943:..Again we captured some pistols and hand grenades.
  • May 10, 1943:..Today, we again captured small arms and some ammunition.
  • May 11, 1943:..Considerable amounts of food were captured or secured, in order to make it more and more difficult for them to get necessary food...We captured several pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition.
  • May 13, 1943:..Booty: 6 pistols, 2 hand grenades, and some explosive charges.
  • May 14, 1943:..some pistols, among them one of 12-mm caliber, were captured. In one dugout inhabited by 100 persons, we were able to capture 2 rifles, 16 Pistols, some hand grenades and incendiary appliances. Of the bandits who resisted, some again wore German military uniform, German steel helmets and "knobelbecher." Apart from the carbines. we captured 60 rounds of German rifle ammunition...Booty: rifles, pistols and ammunition. Further, a number of incendiary bottles (Molotov cocktails).
  • May 15, 1943:.. We captured 4 pistols of larger calibers, 1 infernal machine with fuse, 10 kilograms of explosives, and a considerable amount of ammunition.
  • May 24, 1943:
Seven Polish rifles, one Russian and one German rifle, 59 pistols of various calibers, several hundred incendiary bottles, home-made explosives, infernal machines with fuses, a large amount of explosives and ammunition for weapons of all calibers, including some machine gun ammunition. Regarding the booty of arms, it must be taken into consideration that the arms themselves could in most cases not be captured, as the bandits and Jews would, before being arrested, throw them into hiding places or holes which could not be ascertained or discovered. The smoking out of the dug-out by our men, also often made the search for arms impossible. As the dug-outs had to be blown up at once, a search later on was out of the question.
So, the Jews were able to acquire firearms and other weapons despite Nazi "Gun Control". If they didn't get them prior to the uprising, they could have been able to have captured weapons from the defeated Nazis. Additionally support from the Polish Underground also provided the insurgents with a limited number of badly needed weapons and ammunition from its meager stocks. Jewish fighters from the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) received only from the National Security Corps (PKB) underground police force: 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades. The Polish Resistance also disseminated information and appeals to help the Jews in the ghetto, both in Poland and by way of radio transmissions to the Allies.

The problem, the Nazi troops were far better armed and had the ability to resupply, which the Jews in the Ghetto were not.

The upshot:
3,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 residents, most were captured and shipped to concentration and extermination camps, in particular to Treblinka.

Germans 17 killed and 93 wounded.

Sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns. And those who aren't prepared to fight are just crushed.

Despite your giving firearms a godlike quality,they cannot protect you in all circumstances. A firearm is useless against an enemy that is better trained and equipped: especially if that equipment includes armour, artillery, guided missiles, drones, etcetera.

45 comments:

  1. Good to give a realistic historical perspective.

    The pro-gun side likes to think that a rabble of like-minded people armed with handguns and hunting rifles could take on a despot and his army, but that has never worked. Successful overthrows of countries to form democracies happen because of peaceful protest and diplomacy (Egypt, Soviet Union, East Germany, Tunesia, India, eastern block nations), the intervention of other countries to arm individuals with real military weapons (Libya, Afghanistan), or internal coups by military and political leaders (the United States, Haiti, Bolivia, Venezuala, Russia).

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  2. Shall not be infringedAugust 26, 2011 at 10:07 PM

    Sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns. And those who aren't prepared to fight are just crushed.

    So in your sad little mind that makes it right to disarm the people?

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  3. No, fringie, it was an attempt to point out to you that the notion of armed insurrection with the common firearms owned today being successful against our modern military is stupid, hopeless, and irrational.

    But your sad little mind appears to be too small to grasp such concepts.

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  4. Shall not be infringedAugust 26, 2011 at 10:16 PM

    dog gone said...

    No, fringie, it was an attempt to point out to you that the notion of armed insurrection with the common firearms owned today being successful against our modern military is stupid, hopeless, and irrational.


    You are a gun owner DG, why do you own a gun, what situation could you find yourself in that owning a gun would make any difference?

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  5. Fringie, I originally purchased a firearm on the advice of multiple individuals, including law enforcement, in response to a stalker who repeatedly violated restraining orders, both civil and criminal. In practical application, two large intelligent dogs were better effective protection. What made both the firearm and the dogs effective was that the stalker was convinced that I was perfectly willing and able to use my firearm in a lethal manner, and that the dogs were capable of being independently quite lethal as well.

    The perception of effectiveness dissuaded the stalker from continuing the offending behavior.

    I subsequently have owned firearms for the occasional enjoyment of shooting sports, not self defense. I have a healthy and pragmatic appreciation for when a firearm is and is not useful or effective.

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  6. Shall not be infringedAugust 26, 2011 at 10:35 PM

    Why do you still own firearms?

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  7. dog gone, would you be upset if your dogs were to attack and kill someone breaking into your house when you were not there?

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  8. Jim, I would be upset if any of my dogs, past or present, harmed a human being.

    You asked:dog gone, would you be upset if your dogs were to attack and kill someone breaking into your house when you were not there?

    It is highly unlikely that anyone would break in while I was there or not there. However in the event of that happening while I was not present, it is highly unlikely the dogs would kill someone. That was why their behavior on the one occasion was so surprising; it did not make sense until the police advised that the individual they went after was indeed that dangerous, and had a history of extreme violence, including against multiple armed police officers.

    Alternatively, take down and sit on an intruder? Possibly, if the intruder was so ill mannered as to decline to leave on their own initiative. But they would tend not to defend the property against theft nearly as intensively as they defend people (and pack member dogs, especially puppies).

    I have temperament tested dogs for the correct breed response of passive defenders. They do not attack unless defending a human being and then only with the minimum level of force necessary, not lethal force. They would defend me, they would defend other canine pack members, not territory.

    The temperament testing was developed from european shutzhund trials. The correct response to an increasingly threatening situation varies by breed. Other breeds are correctly not passive defenders, and would attack where my dogs would not.

    http://atts.org/about-atts/

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  9. Shall not be infringedAugust 26, 2011 at 11:27 PM

    Why would you purchase a firearm when you know that it would have most likely been used against you?

    You said that the stalker you until you made him realize, "that I was perfectly willing and able to use my firearm in a lethal manner,, how could he possibly know that you were armed?

    And you had dogs before you had the gun, and yet he still stalked you?

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  10. Shall not be infringedAugust 26, 2011 at 11:47 PM

    I get it now, you own guns because you are afraid, your stalker still scares you.

    Pretty sad excuse for owning a gun, in your eyes.

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  11. Tangled fringie wrote, flailing and failing to understand,

    I get it now, you own guns because you are afraid, your stalker still scares you.

    ROFL, I own guns because having invested the money in them in the first place, I consider them an investment, something I occassionally enjoy for target shooting.

    I was never afraid of my stalker, although I found the person to be unstable, and unpredictable, and simply nuts. Including being a right wing religous nut job. It was incredibly annoying.

    Pretty sad excuse for owning a gun, in your eyes.

    No.

    I simply find relying on my intelligence and innate resourcefulness more useful than carrying guns for my protection.
    I think people like you are just silly.

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  12. Tatty fringie said...
    Why would you purchase a firearm when you know that it would have most likely been used against you?

    That was not a concern.

    You said that the stalker you until you made him realize, "that I was perfectly willing and able to use my firearm in a lethal manner,, how could he possibly know that you were armed?

    Because it came up in court at the time the second, criminal restraining order was issued. The judge kindly explained that with a criminal restraining order, if I shot the stalker it was presumed self-defense, since the stalker shouldn't be anywhere near me.

    And shame on you for being so sexist. The stalker was female.

    At that time I made the observation that if I didn't succeed in shooting the stalker the dogs would. There is some very interesting archeological evidence that I also referenced, from the early middle ages, that suggest exactly how dogs were useful in medieval warfare, based on skeletal remains.

    And you had dogs before you had the gun, and yet he still stalked you?

    Yes. But it wasn't until that point that the person started to realize that the very gentle hairy beasties had another side to them. And so did I.

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  13. Perhaps then we shouldn't be denied the right to have equal equipment. Clearly that gun control was detrimental to the Jewish situation there. You just made a great argument against gun control. Well done.

    (Not expecting this to get approved)

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  14. Shall not be infringedAugust 27, 2011 at 9:01 AM

    I simply find relying on my intelligence and innate resourcefulness more useful than carrying guns for my protection.

    Yet you lacked the intelligence and resourcefulness and took the advice of law enforcement and bought a gun, against all of your "principles".

    I think people like you are just silly.

    You are an even worse hypocrite than LtCC, You betrayed your beliefs about the law and violence even though, "you were never afraid of your stalker, although you found this person to be unstable, and unpredictable, and simply nuts. Including being a right wing religious nut job. It was incredibly annoying."
    you were just annoyed , and for that you took out a restraining orders, took the advise of the police, betrayed your principles of dogs are the ultimate self defense tool, your self reliance and superior intellect and bought a gun, from your words here (paraphrasing) "the weapon of cowards and dullards."



    And I have to call bull-shit on the judge told me I could kill my stalker and that is how she came to know that I had a gun and was willing to use it.

    lets see, you,

    get a stalker,
    get a restraining order,
    the stalker violates same RO,
    police tell you to get a gun,
    you get a gun,

    but this is where your story falls apart,

    How does she know you have a gun?

    Do you get to court for the 2nd RO, and after your testimony about how you stalker, "unstable, unpredictable, simply nuts, as well as being a right wing religious nut job, your honor she is incredibly annoying. but yet your honor I have taken the advise of police and bought a gun.

    Because she was annoying you.

    After that testimony the judge kindly explains, "that with a CRO, if I shot the stalker it was presumed self-defense, since the stalker shouldn't be anywhere near you.

    Funny everything I have ever read is that restraining orders only tell the person that they apply to what they must do to avoid violating it, and that are not licenses to kill for the one protected by the RO, they only direct the police to take direct action against the subject of the RO.

    That being said at the second hearing it sounds like you got your self a very pro individual second amendment rights judge.

    Lucky you, the Second Amendment worked in allowing you to protect yourself against violence, and later "target shoot", shame on you for working to deny others that right.

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  15. Fringie, you don't have enough details about this occurrence to have an informed and intelligent opinion.

    The RO covered all kinds of contact; this person was making numerous, repeated harrassing telephone calls at all hour of the day and night; when phone calls did not give her the contact she wanted, she would show up at my home at all hours. Perhaps you don't find someone on your doorstep at 3 a.m. to be annoying; I do. Hence, the RO.

    Because the individual repeatedly violated the initial RO, it was upgraded to a criminal RO. I think the woman should simply have been put in jail, but the police did not catch her on my doorstep at those inopportune times - in part because I did not make the complaint a 911 emergency. I was directed simply to document the events with the police.

    I acquired a firearm because it reassured some of my family members and deeply pro-gun friends. I accepted as persuasive the reasoning that it was possible this individual could go past the tipping point to becoming seriously dangerous, and they wished me to be prepared for every eventuality, including those where the dogs were not present.

    It was sufficient for all concerned that I had such a weapon, that I had completed, successfully, an advanced combat pistol class and was practicing at the range once or twice a week (that part was fun) and, of course, that if necessary, I could and would use it.

    I always had greater faith in the dogs and in myself, still do.

    The other context which you lack for this was how I came to have a stalker. It makes a difference to the argument.

    There is neither hypocrisy or inconsistency.

    Just you, failing to ask the right questions.

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  16. Shall not be infringedAugust 27, 2011 at 3:43 PM

    it was upgraded to a criminal RO,

    Yet no where in the law were you allowed to kill your stalker because of this CRO.

    So there was no reason for you to have this gun.

    I acquired a firearm because it reassured some of my family members and deeply pro-gun friends. I accepted as persuasive the reasoning that it was possible this individual could go past the tipping point to becoming seriously dangerous, and they wished me to be prepared for every eventuality, including those where the dogs were not present.

    And there you go, you wanted a firearm as an individual to prepare for any eventuality, a reason for which you disparage others by actively working to destroy that right.

    You are a hypocrite.

    Guns for thee but not for great unwashed masses.

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  17. Fringie, it was the judge's choice and initiative to upgrade the RO to a criminal RO, not something I sought. Personally, I would have preferred he simply enforce the sanctions of the original RO for frequent violation, and put the woman behind bars, but he did not.

    She violated the criminal RO prohibitions against phone contact within an hour of leaving court. THAT didn't get her put behind bars either, although it should have. But it did cost her the land line phone, through the actions of the phone company, and her existing cell phone, although she just got herself another one after that.

    Fringie wrote:
    And there you go, you wanted a firearm as an individual to prepare for any eventuality

    No.
    Read for comprehension.
    I never wanted a gun or felt I needed one; that was to make other people happy. I did enjoy going to the range with my friends once I had the firearm, but I didn't usually carry it even though I COULD. I have never owned a firearm because I felt I needed one for protection.

    And while I think there ARE people who do - I would include Laci in that group, because he works with sometimes dangerous criminals as a criminal defenes attorney - I do not think most people need one. Even Laci rarely carries, rather like me, relying instead on his powers of observation, and his ability to handle the hazards he encounters.

    I didn't need a firearm for my protection, and I doubt you do either, Fringie, and that would be true of most people.

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  18. Shall not be infringedAugust 27, 2011 at 7:22 PM

    I never wanted a gun or felt I needed one; that was to make other people happy. I did enjoy going to the range with my friends once I had the firearm, but I didn't usually carry it even though I COULD. I have never owned a firearm because I felt I needed one for protection.

    Then why did you get one, you could have just told them you would and then, that's it nothing.

    You did not have to get a gun to make other people happy, a pretty lame reasoning and not a valid reason to own a gun in the world you are trying to establish.

    Fringie, it was the judge's choice and initiative to upgrade the RO to a criminal RO, not something I sought.

    And he did this out of thin air, you did not provide testimony in court, in any form, you did not mention that you had bought a gun at any time during the RO/CRO proceedings?

    Again there was no way your stalker to knew that you had a gun.

    A judge out of thin air, saying that you could kill her because of the CRO, is not giving your stalker knowledge that you own a gun.

    If you told the judge that you bought a gun because of a fear of your stalker, and that testimony was why he granted the CRO, then you committed perjury, because you bought the gun to make your friens and family happy.

    And shame on you for being so sexist. The stalker was female.


    right sexist, 92% of stalkers are men.

    I didn't need a firearm for my protection, and I doubt you do either, Fringie, and that would be true of most people.

    How could you possibly know what most people need, and why do you get to decide?

    And by your own words you did not need a gun, but own one for the aesthetics yet you work to deny the right to others.

    You are a hypocrite.

    Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 14:

    Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.

    Guns for me, but not for thee.

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  19. Shall not be infringedAugust 27, 2011 at 7:26 PM

    No, fringie, it was an attempt to point out to you that the notion of armed insurrection with the common firearms owned today being successful against our modern military is stupid, hopeless, and irrational.

    But your sad little mind appears to be too small to grasp such concepts.


    You need to talk to all of the gun control groups about how all the Winchester .30-06 over the mantel are "military grade sniper rifles" and needs to be banned, why all the fear if they are so useless?

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  20. Laci, this one is being discussed by the Armed Intelligentsia. It's pretty predictable stuff, but interesting.

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  21. Fringie, sniper rifles have a very narrow application of effect; they do not add up to the kind of response that effectively opposes everything from tanks to air force to drones to more high powered equipment and personnel.

    I neither believe that such a civilian effort could be effective or should be effective.

    What we have is the right to peaceful assembly and protest, and that is all that we have ever needed. Violence begets violence; less violent peaceful protests have been far more useful in modern history.

    You are looking, Fringie, for every pretext, no matter how implausible and ridiculous, to justify something that is not justifiable.

    You do not understand the circumstances of why, in response to failure,repeatedly, to comply with a RO that the judge decided to upgrade it as he did. We were in court on another matter to which the RO / stalker was tangential, not primary.

    You do not understand why someone else who was concerned for my safety would wish to see me purchase the firearm, and take the firearm class with me, and then join me at regular range sessions, as a social activity.

    I don't tell people about whom I care one thing, and then do another.

    You do not understand because you do not wish to understand and because you have too little detail to understand, and because you are applying the wrong questions, and therefore coming up with the wrong conclusions.

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  22. I would suggest that those who think that the jews of the Warsaaw
    Ghetto, armed with better and more numerous weapons, would have defeated the Wehrmacht in 1943 or at any other time during WWII would do well to read what's at this link;

    http://www.warsawuprising.com/faq.htm

    It's obvious from the tally of dead, wounded, missing and imprisoned as well as the list of destroyed buildings and infrastructure that the nazis were able to maul the poles who WERE relatively well armed and led by experienced professionals. In addittion to those killed in battle, thousands of poles who were trapped in the city died in bombardments and during house to house fighting.


    When one considers what the nazis did in Czechoslovakia after Reinhard Heydrich's assassination (and they considered the czechs to be, more or less, actual people--unlike jews, poles and russians) it does not take a great deal of imagination to conjure up the bloodbath that would have ensued had several thousand polish jews in Warsaw attacked the Wehrmacht.

    Hitler wasted entire army groups in ill considered attacks on Stalin; what he might have ordered against Warsaw had the jews provoked him in the way that the actual polish underground army did in 1944 is not pleasant to contemplate.

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  23. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 12:17 AM

    So in your eyes someone that has a stalker upon advice of the police and the courts should be able to own a firearm after combat gun courses?

    But not otherwise.

    I don't tell people about whom I care one thing, and then do another.

    But you do disregard your core beliefs to make others happy, why were you incapable of standing up for your anti gun beliefs?

    I neither believe that such a civilian effort could be effective or should be effective.

    Tell that to the The Bielski partisans.

    Because again what you believe is of no import, killing the people that come to load me and mine into boxcars would be very effective.

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  24. As usual, the gun banners can't help but be dishonest and deceptive

    The German casualty count of "17 dead and 93 wounded" is from the GERMAN report on their own casualties. Since the Germans had obvious propaganda reasons for wanting to make their casualties seem lower then they really were (they would never want to admit Jews could inflict much damage), this report has no credibility whatsoever and cannot be taken at face value.

    Even more absurd is the notion that armed rebel groups have never overthrown despots. Our own revolution is a good enough example of that. For a more recent example, check out who ended the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. It was a rebel group, the RPF. Guess what they were armed with. It certainly wasn't bows and arrows

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  25. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 7:32 AM

    You do not understand because you do not wish to understand and because you have too little detail to understand, and because you are applying the wrong questions, and therefore coming up with the wrong conclusions.

    Oh I understand, it is actually quite easy and laid out in all the the questions that you will not answer, and in the questions that you answer three different ways.

    So you go on you sad hypocrite, keep telling yourself how, smart and resourceful that you are, we can all see you for the pathetic little liar that you are.

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  26. Even more absurd is the notion that armed rebel groups have never overthrown despots. Our own revolution is a good enough example of that. For a more recent example, check out who ended the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. It was a rebel group, the RPF. Guess what they were armed with. It certainly wasn't bows and arrows

    August 28, 2011 1:42 AM


    Read a little history, moron.

    The RPF was not a product of the Rwandan Genocide. It had been in existence since the late 1980's. Guns aplenty were being used by both sides.

    No comments on the likelihood of the jews of Warsaw being able to defeat the nazis in 1943 when it's well documented what happened to a better armed, numerically superior AND more popular group, the Polish Underground Army in 1944? Hmm, I wonder why that might be?

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  27. The main thing I took from Laci's post is that gun folks often assign a magical and mystical power to the idea of being armed.

    On an individual level we have countless examples of women like Meleanie Hain who were murdered by their partners in spite of having guns available to them for protection.

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  28. democommie: "The RPF was not a product of the Rwandan Genocide. It had been in existence since the late 1980's. Guns aplenty were being used by both sides."

    Totally meaningless. Whether or not they existed before the start of the genocide has no bearing whatsoever on my point. The point, which still stands, is that a rebel group did in fact stop the genocide by defeating an oppressive government, proving the author's claim in this article is false.

    democommie: "No comments on the likelihood of the jews of Warsaw being able to defeat the nazis in 1943 when it's well documented what happened to a better armed, numerically superior AND more popular group, the Polish Underground Army in 1944? Hmm, I wonder why that might be?"

    Because there is no reason too. No one here is saying the Jews in a section of one isolated city had any chance of beating the entire German Army. Nor is anyone saying that rebel groups always win against governments.

    The point, which again still stands, is twofold. One is that the author is being deceptive by relying on the German casualty report of the Warsaw Uprising. The other is that rebel groups can and do defeat oppressive government forces in certain situations. The fact that they can't do it all the time, or even most of the time, doesn't mean they can't do it ever.

    Meanwhile, the point about the Warsaw residents not being able to win is especially perplexing. What was the alternative to resistance? Just lay down and die? Even when the situation is hopeless, that doesn't mean fighting isn't worthwhile

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  29. Mike: "On an individual level we have countless examples of women like Meleanie Hain who were murdered by their partners in spite of having guns available to them for protection."

    First of all, Hain wasn't armed when she was murdered by her husband. Her pistol was not on her body at the time. Obviously just owning a gun won't help you if you can't use it when it's needed, and no one has said otherwise.

    But more importantly, no one is claiming a pistol will protect you in all situations. That claim is a strawman mentioned only by gun banners to demonize their opponents.

    Obviously being armed doesn't ensure you will survive every leathal assault you might encounter. But it does ensure you have a chance of surviving most of them. For every Melenie Hain story you talk about, I can give you dozens more cases where not having a gun ment a victim had no chance.

    The fact that a gun won't protect everyone all the time doesn't mean it won't protect anyone ever. The fact that some people die in car accidents while wearing seatbelts doesn't mean seatbelts arn't useful. The fact that some people die in house fires in homes that have smoke alarms doesn't mean smoke alarms are a bad investment. Likewise, the fact that some people have been murdered when they were armed doesn't mean armed self defense has no utility.

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  30. Rwanda is nothing like the U.S.; Rwanda is a small, third world country. The U.S. is a world-class country, with extensive supporting allies. This is like comparing apples and axles; there is nothing similar between the two of any significance.

    While the resistance of the Jews in Warsaw were incredibly brave, in month of April and May in 1943 was not terribly successful, they did not stop or win against the Nazis, and further the Nazis were facing fighting on the eastern front, the western european front, and aftica. It's not like the only fighting involved was the Jews in Poland. To suggest that any insurrection within the U.S. would be a parallel event is ludicrous.

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  31. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 6:52 PM

    mikeb302000 said...

    On an individual level we have countless examples of women like Meleanie Hain who were murdered by their partners in spite of having guns available to them for protection.


    And we have countless examples like this 72 year old home owner

    http://www.rgj.com/article/20110822/NEWS01/110822038/Homeowner-held-burglary-suspect-gunpoint-8-hours

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  32. Fringie has a very distorted notion about how many people successfully defend themselves, versus how many people are harmed by guns. There are enormously more people harmed than protected.

    Fringie and other gun nuts makes a false set of comparisons of historical resistance versus military action.

    And the largest misrepresentation is that there have been far far more instances of individuals who claimed to be patriots, rebelling against the U.S. government, when in fact it was those who were rebelling were the dangerous people in the wrong - an example would be the wack jobs in Waco, or domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, or the white supremacists responsible for violence in the northwestern continental U.S.

    The fears that we must arm our citizens to fight the tyranny of government is crap. There is not now, nor has there ever been, in our history any such legitimate need for armed citizenry to oppose our representative government violently. That is a false fear.

    It is the gun nuts who operate on fear, who promote fear, who live by fear, not reality, not a factual basis.

    Not the rest of us.

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  33. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 7:06 PM

    While the resistance of the Jews in Warsaw were incredibly brave, in month of April and May in 1943 was not terribly successful, they did not stop or win against the Nazis, and further the Nazis were facing fighting on the eastern front, the western european front, and aftica. It's not like the only fighting involved was the Jews in Poland. To suggest that any insurrection within the U.S. would be a parallel event is ludicrous.

    So if the evil reichwing rethuglicans manage to win the WH in 2012 and decide to start loading all the edumacated riff raff into boxcars (cause you know deep down in that shriveled up little prune you call a heart, thats all we want to do.) you are just going to jump on in to the boxcar?

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  34. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 7:17 PM

    It is the gun nuts who operate on fear, who promote fear, who live by fear, not reality, not a factual basis.

    Not the rest of us.


    Really what was the factual basis for, Executive Orders 9066 and 9095, good government policy, because there was a "D" after his name?

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  35. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 7:22 PM

    or white supremacists responsible for violence in the northwestern continental U.S.

    Yeah those ELF guys are a real bunch of violent rethuglican scumbags.....

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

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  36. Shall not be infringedAugust 28, 2011 at 7:24 PM

    Fringie has a very distorted notion about how many people successfully defend themselves, versus how many people are harmed by guns. There are enormously more people harmed than protected.

    Take a good hard look and filter out the 14-20YO violence and suddenly your argument does not hold water.

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  37. Dog Gone: "Rwanda is nothing like the U.S.; Rwanda is a small, third world country. The U.S. is a world-class country, with extensive supporting allies. This is like comparing apples and axles; there is nothing similar between the two of any significance."

    Well seeing as the only person who is making that comparison is you in this statement, it seems you are criticizing yourself. Nice job.

    Dog Gone: "While the resistance of the Jews in Warsaw were incredibly brave, in month of April and May in 1943 was not terribly successful"

    Again, it's already been established that the Jews in Warsaw were in a no-win situation. But seeing as the alternative to fighting also involved death, clearly resistance was still worthwhile.

    Meanwhile the larger point still remains: The fact that rebellions don't always succeed doesn't mean they never do.

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  38. Stapledclown:

    "The point, which again still stands, is twofold. One is that the author is being deceptive by relying on the German casualty report of the Warsaw Uprising. The other is that rebel groups can and do defeat oppressive government forces in certain situations. The fact that they can't do it all the time, or even most of the time, doesn't mean they can't do it ever."

    Nice job of backtracking. Neither I or anyone else said that the jews of Warsaw weren't brave, resourceful and tenacious. They were, however, wiped out. Would they have died in any case? yes, probably--that's not at issue. You and your fellow gunzloonz repeatedly cite the jews of Warsaw (and Germany) as having been slaughtered after having their right to bear arms infringed. They were slaughtered--are you ready for this--because the average german, pole, russian, lithuanian, latvian, frenchman, rumanian, yugoslavian and other nationals in nazi occupied europe were either complicit in, or acquiescing to, the nazis' program of extermination of european jewry. Had the people in those countries not been willing to allow (or unable to stop) the depradations of Hitler and his murderous thugs it would not have happened the way it did.

    I mentioned, in a previous comment, that the germans had engaged in a program of reprisals against the czechs, following the assassination by czech partisans working with the british SOE of Reinhard Hedrich. One of the reasons that the reprisals were not far worse was that the Germans depended upon the czech workers to help arm the reich's military. Czechs were not deemed "disposable", jews were--and too damned few objected to the plight of the jews.

    Hiter was able to murder jews with impunity, not because of their lack of arms but because of their lack of support from their countrymen. Those brave souls who spoke truth to power and took common cause with the jews, against the nazis, were far too few in number.

    Blaming the outlawing of the ownership of arms for the holocaust is a hideous lie.

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  39. Shall not said, "And we have countless examples like this 72 year old home owner."

    My countless is bigger than your countless.

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  40. Staple wrote: "Meanwhile the larger point still remains: The fact that rebellions don't always succeed doesn't mean they never do. "

    It does mean that arguing for the necessity and right to have guns for purposes of insurrection and rebellino are 1) illegal; and 2) so largely unsuccessful as to be the exception that proves the rule.

    Anyone who wishes to purchase a firearm for this reason should be denied such purchase on the grounds that it is illegal to use a firearm for that purpose, just as if they had argued they were going to buy a gun to shoot their mother in law like the Virginia army officer we just reported.

    On the grounds that they are crazy, have too poor judgment to be trusted with a weapon, and don't know what is lawful versus lawless behavior.

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  41. I wrote:
    "You do not understand because you do not wish to understand and because you have too little detail to understand, and because you are applying the wrong questions, and therefore coming up with the wrong conclusions."


    Fringie wrote:
    Oh I understand, it is actually quite easy and laid out in all the the questions that you will not answer, and in the questions that you answer three different ways.

    So you go on you sad hypocrite, keep telling yourself how, smart and resourceful that you are, we can all see you for the pathetic little liar that you are."

    Fringie, I have written about this before, your questions have been asked and answered, more than once.

    I was granted a RO, and then a criminal RO, because a person did not like the very effective and quite legal manner in which I made use of a ower of attorney on someone else's behalf.

    In open court, in addition to the messages they had recorded themselves which were harrassing and occassionally threatening, the woman openly made further threats.

    She then tried to tell the judge what the judge could legally do and not do - and was highly inaccurate in those assumptions (reminds me of you fringie).

    When the judge had his little rant in provoked response, which inlcuded the statement about any further violation of the RO that resulted in the stupid person being shot with the presumption of self defense on my part.

    The judge then, in open court, asked if I had a gun and gun permit, to which I responded in the affirmative. It is factually true that I purchased that firearm to make other people more comfortable rather than my own concerns about self defense, but I was trained, did have the permit, and did own a firearm which I indicated in legal circumstances I had been trained and was prepared to use - but only if absolutely necessary.

    As to this person knowing about the dogs, she had known me since I was 8 or 9 years old, and had met the dogs on a number of occassions.

    I have answered every one of your questions, you simply don't understand the answers - and you don't ask the right additional questions to make it clear to you.

    No inaccuracy, no hypocrisy, no contradictions on my part; you are the victim simply of your own assumptions about the situation.

    People like you fringie live your lives premised on fear, an an expectatin apparently of inadequacy.

    I do not. I trust my brain to think faster and better than other peoples', I trust myself to think clearly and effectively and even more rapidly while on my feet in a crisis. I've done more than a few risky things in my life, so it is not as if I have no basis for an objective comparison in making that conclusion.

    You rely too much on guns; I rely on myself, and occassionally, on back up from dogs. The absolutely only legitimate reason, except for those specialized professions which require it, that one should have secured firearms is for enjoyment of shooting sports.

    For all other uses against crime, we should employ law enforcement; well trained resourceful and intelligent law enforcement.

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  42. Shall not be infringedAugust 29, 2011 at 5:41 PM

    Anyone who wishes to purchase a firearm for this reason should be denied such purchase on the grounds that it is illegal to use a firearm for that purpose, just as if they had argued they were going to buy a gun to shoot their mother in law like the Virginia army officer we just reported.

    On the grounds that they are crazy, have too poor judgment to be trusted with a weapon, and don't know what is lawful versus lawless behavior.


    But wanting to get a gun because,

    "you were never afraid of your stalker, although you found this person to be unstable, and unpredictable, and simply nuts. Including being a right wing religious nut job. It was incredibly annoying."

    is a great reason.....

    but say if a stalkers were, unstable, and unpredictable, and simply nuts, including being a left wing alf/elf nut jobs, that attacked a molecular biologist and his family, including two small children, they were forced to escape a smoke-filled house using a second-story ladder after a firebomb was intentionally set off, police said. One family member sustained injuries requiring brief hospitalization, and police are calling the firebombing, which occurred shortly before 6 a.m., a case of attempted homicide.

    Is a bad reason because it only happened once.

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  43. Unhinged, you like to make it sound as if this 20 million figure of people who died from Hitler's aggression just quitely went into boxcars to be gassed, but as I pointed out this happened durign World War II.

    You never cite a source for this number, but...

    Consider that approximately 4 million of that number were prisoners from the Soviet Red Army--If you know anything about Stalingrad and the campaign on the Eastern Front, you could hardly say the Soviets were captured without a fight.

    In fact, your 20 million figure probably includes a fair amount of Soviet Civilians. The Cambridge History of the Soviet Union give the following tally of deaths under German occupation: 13.7M, including

    "killed in hot or cold blood": 7.4M, incl.
    "taken to Germany and worked to death": 2.2M
    "died of overwork, hunger and disease": 4.1M

    As I said, these were civilians in a very active and hotly contested war zone: Bomb and artillery shells are not very discriminating in who they kill.

    While you may think it a smart idea to tote a gun in a war zone, unhinged, there is a big problem--especially in an area with partisan warfare that anyone who is not in uniform is likely to be a target for both sides.

    The usual action for civilians is to head toward whatever side they take for safety, preferably long before the advancing troops arrive.

    Anyway, the question is how many of these people were POWs, but most of them were not German nationals. The number of German Jews during the Holocaust is 142,000. Most Jewish victims of the Holocaust came from Eastern Europe, in particular, teh Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The number from those countries account for roughly 4.9 million of the Six Million total.

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  44. BTW, unhinged, Dog Gone is correct, this post is to point out a few things:
    1) There was resistance
    2) German gun control cannot be blamed for the deaths of people from other nations
    3) That armed resistance against a well trained and equipped military is pointless.

    You are stupid to think that you could fight a tank or army equipped with artillery firing high explosive rounds and not be wiped out.

    But if you are stupid enough to try, then you more than deserve your Darwin Award.

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  45. You and your fellow gunzloonz repeatedly cite the jews of Warsaw (and Germany) as having been slaughtered after having their right to bear arms infringed. They were slaughtered--are you ready for this--because the average german, pole, russian, lithuanian, latvian, frenchman, rumanian, yugoslavian and other nationals in nazi occupied europe were either complicit in, or acquiescing to, the nazis' program of extermination of european jewry. Had the people in those countries not been willing to allow (or unable to stop) the depradations of Hitler and his murderous thugs it would not have happened the way it did.

    I couldn't have said it better.

    Furthermore, most of the Victims of the Holocaust were not German Nationals.

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