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Death by "Gun Control"
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Death by "Gun Control" A book review By Robert A. Waters 011.30.0
In recent years, a substantial body of work has been published which casts serious doubts on the prevailing myth that gun control is a workable solution to America's crime problem. Academics such as Dr. Gary Kleck, Dr. Richard Wright, and Dr. John Lott, Jr. have shown great courage in swimming against the tide of political correctness that threatens to smother dissent on the subject of guns. Their research has proven invaluable to those seeking the truth about firearms and crime.Attorney Richard W. Stevens has also contributed important insights into the debate. His first book, Dial 911 and Die, illustrated the folly of depending on the police for self-protection. Now comes a second book, Death by "Gun Control": The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament, published by Mazel Freedom Press with noted author Aaron Zelman. This book provides a handy and readable resource designed to prove that governments always disarm their own citizens before enslaving them. The two most infamous examples are Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. R. J. Rummel, in his book, Death by Government, estimates that 169,000,000 human beings were slaughtered by their own governments in the Twentieth Century. Think about that in human terms: the child left orphaned; the wife without a husband; the unspeakable tortures endured by individuals who had been disarmed so they could not fight back. In Germany, for example, there were numerous examples of courageous dissent, among both non-Jews and Jews. The authors describe the case of "The White Rose Society." In 1942, several college students led by Hans and Sophie Scholl decided to protest Hitler's war policies. They began publishing, in secret, a newspaper called "The White Rose." The protesters flooded downtown Munich with their writings. But after months of playing cat and mouse with the Secret Police, the organizers were caught and executed. In any totalitarian society, dissent must be snuffed out. Hitler's Germany was no exception. Guns had long ago been confiscated giving Hans and Sophie Scholl few options except to act in secret for as long as possible. According to the authors, several common factors emerge from a study of the history of police states and totalitarian regimes. The authors have labeled these factors "The Genocide Formula". They consist of Hatred + Government + Disarmament = Genocide. The formula goes like this: (1) hatred is fomented against an outside group which encourages the marginalization of members of that group; (2) government becomes the moral authority, allowing it to decide that certain groups may be legally or extra-legally attacked; (3) government exercises power to disarm certain segments of a population, thereby rendering them helpless to resist incursions of their rights and lives; (4) finally, genocide, or the annihilation of a group becomes acceptable.This book describes, often in chilling detail, mass murders committed by or sponsored by governments as diverse as China, Guatemala, Rwanda, the Ottoman Empire, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, to name a few. One of the highlights of the book is the publication (many for the first time) of the official edicts, or statutes, of each government mentioned above describing their gun control laws. Almost without exception, disarmament began slowly, then became more restrictive until citizens were no longer allowed to own firearms of any kind. These gun control statutes, culled from the dustbin of history, tell a story almost too horrible to imagine. How many of our own ancestors went into the gas chambers or walked to the firing lines or were starved to death because they were unable to defend themselves? To illustrate what happens when a government turns against its own citizens, the authors quote Malcolm Muggeridge, who in 1933 viewed the Soviet Union's disastrous attempts at collectivization: "I saw something of the battle that is going on between the government and the peasants. The battlefield is as desolate as in any war and stretches wider; stretches over a large part of Russia. On the one side, millions of starving peasants, their bodies often swollen from lack of food; on the other, soldier members of the [Party] carrying out the instructions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They had gone over the country like a swarm of locusts and taken away everything edible; they had shot or exiled thousands of peasants, sometimes whole villages; they had reduced some of the most fertile land in the world to a melancholy desert." Unable to resist because their guns had been confiscated, these skeleton peasants had only one choice: die from starvation. Other chapters include discussions of the morality of self-defense; Biblical authority concerning the use of firearms; the agenda of the United Nations; as well as other issues related to guns and self-defense.While I definitely agree with the large picture presented by the authors, the figure of 169,000,000 deaths was inflated by including the deaths of communist insurgents in countries such as Cambodia and Guatemala. (Given the murderous history of communists once they come to power, any country would, in my opinion, do well to crush them.) I also wish the authors had included a chapter on the Cuban dictatorship. And what of the larger question of how an armed population could possibly fight off an army of fighter bombers? It has been done--maybe another book could be published on this subject. And yet these are mere quibbles. The important question is, Do gun control laws make it easier for governments to murder their own citizens? The authors make a compelling case that the answer is yes! Can it happen here? Given the right circumstances, anything is possible. Civilian disarmament is the goal of many of our politicians. Ask yourself why they wish to disarm us. Ask why their policies fly in the face of reason. Is there a sinister motive behind their proclamations denouncing guns and gunowners, or are they attempting to marginalize law-abiding gunowners for other reasons? Whether you agree with the authors or not, you need to confront the facts in this book. And if you have a friend who favors restrictions on our right to own firearms, give him or her a copy.
In recent years, a substantial body of work has been published which casts serious doubts on the prevailing myth that gun control is a workable solution to America's crime problem. Academics such as Dr. Gary Kleck, Dr. Richard Wright, and Dr. John Lott, Jr. have shown great courage in swimming against the tide of political correctness that threatens to smother dissent on the subject of guns. Their research has proven invaluable to those seeking the truth about firearms and crime.Attorney Richard W. Stevens has also contributed important insights into the debate. His first book, Dial 911 and Die, illustrated the folly of depending on the police for self-protection. Now comes a second book, Death by "Gun Control": The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament, published by Mazel Freedom Press with noted author Aaron Zelman. This book provides a handy and readable resource designed to prove that governments always disarm their own citizens before enslaving them. The two most infamous examples are Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. R. J. Rummel, in his book, Death by Government, estimates that 169,000,000 human beings were slaughtered by their own governments in the Twentieth Century. Think about that in human terms: the child left orphaned; the wife without a husband; the unspeakable tortures endured by individuals who had been disarmed so they could not fight back. In Germany, for example, there were numerous examples of courageous dissent, among both non-Jews and Jews. The authors describe the case of "The White Rose Society." In 1942, several college students led by Hans and Sophie Scholl decided to protest Hitler's war policies. They began publishing, in secret, a newspaper called "The White Rose." The protesters flooded downtown Munich with their writings. But after months of playing cat and mouse with the Secret Police, the organizers were caught and executed. In any totalitarian society, dissent must be snuffed out. Hitler's Germany was no exception. Guns had long ago been confiscated giving Hans and Sophie Scholl few options except to act in secret for as long as possible. According to the authors, several common factors emerge from a study of the history of police states and totalitarian regimes. The authors have labeled these factors "The Genocide Formula". They consist of Hatred + Government + Disarmament = Genocide. The formula goes like this: (1) hatred is fomented against an outside group which encourages the marginalization of members of that group; (2) government becomes the moral authority, allowing it to decide that certain groups may be legally or extra-legally attacked; (3) government exercises power to disarm certain segments of a population, thereby rendering them helpless to resist incursions of their rights and lives; (4) finally, genocide, or the annihilation of a group becomes acceptable.This book describes, often in chilling detail, mass murders committed by or sponsored by governments as diverse as China, Guatemala, Rwanda, the Ottoman Empire, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, to name a few. One of the highlights of the book is the publication (many for the first time) of the official edicts, or statutes, of each government mentioned above describing their gun control laws. Almost without exception, disarmament began slowly, then became more restrictive until citizens were no longer allowed to own firearms of any kind. These gun control statutes, culled from the dustbin of history, tell a story almost too horrible to imagine. How many of our own ancestors went into the gas chambers or walked to the firing lines or were starved to death because they were unable to defend themselves? To illustrate what happens when a government turns against its own citizens, the authors quote Malcolm Muggeridge, who in 1933 viewed the Soviet Union's disastrous attempts at collectivization: "I saw something of the battle that is going on between the government and the peasants. The battlefield is as desolate as in any war and stretches wider; stretches over a large part of Russia. On the one side, millions of starving peasants, their bodies often swollen from lack of food; on the other, soldier members of the [Party] carrying out the instructions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They had gone over the country like a swarm of locusts and taken away everything edible; they had shot or exiled thousands of peasants, sometimes whole villages; they had reduced some of the most fertile land in the world to a melancholy desert." Unable to resist because their guns had been confiscated, these skeleton peasants had only one choice: die from starvation. Other chapters include discussions of the morality of self-defense; Biblical authority concerning the use of firearms; the agenda of the United Nations; as well as other issues related to guns and self-defense.While I definitely agree with the large picture presented by the authors, the figure of 169,000,000 deaths was inflated by including the deaths of communist insurgents in countries such as Cambodia and Guatemala. (Given the murderous history of communists once they come to power, any country would, in my opinion, do well to crush them.) I also wish the authors had included a chapter on the Cuban dictatorship. And what of the larger question of how an armed population could possibly fight off an army of fighter bombers? It has been done--maybe another book could be published on this subject. And yet these are mere quibbles. The important question is, Do gun control laws make it easier for governments to murder their own citizens? The authors make a compelling case that the answer is yes! Can it happen here? Given the right circumstances, anything is possible. Civilian disarmament is the goal of many of our politicians. Ask yourself why they wish to disarm us. Ask why their policies fly in the face of reason. Is there a sinister motive behind their proclamations denouncing guns and gunowners, or are they attempting to marginalize law-abiding gunowners for other reasons? Whether you agree with the authors or not, you need to confront the facts in this book. And if you have a friend who favors restrictions on our right to own firearms, give him or her a copy.
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