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The US never had communism, nazism, tyrants governing the country. Try to pull off concentration camps against your own people like Hitler or Stalin did when th

The US never had communism, nazism, tyrants governing the country. Try to pull off concentration camps against your own people like Hitler or Stalin did when they are heavily armed. There is no way people wouldn't defend their families from going to concentration camps if they were armed. History shows that this holds true. The Government is afraid of armed people as it should be. That is a good thing. Not bad.

odiroot 14y ago
Tell that to the unfortunate Americans of Japanese descent who where thrown into "internment" camps after Pearl Harbour. I doubt any guns would've helped them change government's mind.
- adventured 14y ago
  The point is that any given Japanese individual would have been perfectly justified in defending their self with a gun, versus being put into internment. Jews having guns in Germany would not have stopped Hitler due to their relatively small numbers, but it would have been completely proper for them all to defend themselves instead of having their families sent to slaughter. If a dozen people are coming to attack my home, I'll probably lose that fight, but it doesn't mean I won't attempt to defend myself with a gun if I can rather than just capitulate to their brutality. Of course there's also a drastic difference between Hitler and Stalin's gulags vs the Japanese internment camps. While a complete violation of their rights, there was never any consideration toward committing genocide against the Japanese in the camps.
loevborg 14y ago
I'm not sure if you are being facetious. However, on the assumption that you are serious, there is no reason to think that more arms would have helped the minorities in Germany persecuted by the masses. The groups targeted by the Nazis were small (by comparison) and would never have had any chance of successfully defending themselves against the aggressions of the state and its citizens, no matter how well armed.
desas 14y ago
While the US didn't treat people in concentration camps as poorly as Stalin or Hitler did, there were 110,000 Japanese Americans put in concentration camps in 1942. Were they just not heavily armed enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
This is a foolish post - sorry to be so blunt. Civilians standing alone do not stand a chance against the combined arms of a standing army. Does not matter if they all have guns or not. What counts is explosives, range, airpower - oh and the idea that one side has their families to worry about. There was armed resistance to the rounding up - look at the warsaw ghetto. [1] This was armed civilians fighting an invading army, which took a huge German effort to subdue. But they did subdue it - in a way horrifically reminiscent of the US in Fallujah. (No I am not comparing US Army in Iraq to Nazis. But watch the footage on both events and then try to not worry) If you think that the right to bear arms is there to stop tyranny, you should expand it to the right to bear Semtex, armoured vehicles and aircraft. That is why Afghanistan and Iraq were / are such a mess - the other side is fighting back with real weapons, not pop guns. Armies are frightened of other armies. Not armed civilians. Oh, and the rise of UAVs is going to make the next insurgency a very different prospect. Add in to this mix the basic human desire to think it is all going to go away, and no-one is that crazy. There is a story of a village running from the massacres in Rwanda, and they reach a river, and only one teenager crosses, the rest think they will be safe. The teenager is the only one left to tell the story. Look at it this way - Hitler started small, targetting the criminals and the undesirables. Have you taken up arms to overthrown the White House now that Cuba is used for torture? What is your trigger point ? How do you find out that there are death camps? Warsaw happened because they rounded up Jews into one place before shipping them out. The Nazis learnt from that. Evil has analysts too. What is the difference? It is not the grunts in the army. It is the need to have enlightened people in government. If we cant have that we will make do with sane politicans. The insane ones are harder to spot. You know Nixon used to end dinner chat at the white house with the line, "I could walk out of here and 45 minutes later, 500 million people would be dead?" [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Did Hitler or Stalin used "explosives, range and airpower" to move people to concentration camps? How you imagine this? Let's say there are 200 houses in a neighborhood. You know that in house #47 and in house #186 there are families that are Jewish/suspected anti-communists, etc. You need to get them out to the concentration camp. You do it by bombing the whole neighborhood? Let's say in Berlin or Moscow? Please explain how having weapons would NOT help families in these houses. Because what I'm telling you and what history tells us is that Secret Police (NKVD/Gestapo) will be sent there with guns to get these people at the gun point to their destination. And number two: let's say you are a President of the USA. Let's say you do something really evil against the will of the people. Like - theoretically - sending all Mexicans to the camps. You say Mexicans are armed or not - no difference. Interesting.
cafard 13y ago
There were a lot of weapons in private hands in Weimar Germany, and that was not the least of the factors that made it chaotic. And once Hitler was in power, it really didn't matter who had a rifle or a pistol stashed in the house--with the police and military willing to take extreme measures, private firepower had no real chance.

odiroot 14y ago

Tell that to the unfortunate Americans of Japanese descent who where thrown into "internment" camps after Pearl Harbour. I doubt any guns would've helped them change government's mind.

adventured 14y ago
The point is that any given Japanese individual would have been perfectly justified in defending their self with a gun, versus being put into internment. Jews having guns in Germany would not have stopped Hitler due to their relatively small numbers, but it would have been completely proper for them all to defend themselves instead of having their families sent to slaughter. If a dozen people are coming to attack my home, I'll probably lose that fight, but it doesn't mean I won't attempt to defend myself with a gun if I can rather than just capitulate to their brutality. Of course there's also a drastic difference between Hitler and Stalin's gulags vs the Japanese internment camps. While a complete violation of their rights, there was never any consideration toward committing genocide against the Japanese in the camps.

loevborg 14y ago

I'm not sure if you are being facetious. However, on the assumption that you are serious, there is no reason to think that more arms would have helped the minorities in Germany persecuted by the masses. The groups targeted by the Nazis were small (by comparison) and would never have had any chance of successfully defending themselves against the aggressions of the state and its citizens, no matter how well armed.

desas 14y ago

While the US didn't treat people in concentration camps as poorly as Stalin or Hitler did, there were 110,000 Japanese Americans put in concentration camps in 1942. Were they just not heavily armed enough? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

This is a foolish post - sorry to be so blunt. Civilians standing alone do not stand a chance against the combined arms of a standing army. Does not matter if they all have guns or not. What counts is explosives, range, airpower - oh and the idea that one side has their families to worry about. There was armed resistance to the rounding up - look at the warsaw ghetto. [1] This was armed civilians fighting an invading army, which took a huge German effort to subdue. But they did subdue it - in a way horrifically reminiscent of the US in Fallujah. (No I am not comparing US Army in Iraq to Nazis. But watch the footage on both events and then try to not worry) If you think that the right to bear arms is there to stop tyranny, you should expand it to the right to bear Semtex, armoured vehicles and aircraft. That is why Afghanistan and Iraq were / are such a mess - the other side is fighting back with real weapons, not pop guns. Armies are frightened of other armies. Not armed civilians. Oh, and the rise of UAVs is going to make the next insurgency a very different prospect. Add in to this mix the basic human desire to think it is all going to go away, and no-one is that crazy. There is a story of a village running from the massacres in Rwanda, and they reach a river, and only one teenager crosses, the rest think they will be safe. The teenager is the only one left to tell the story. Look at it this way - Hitler started small, targetting the criminals and the undesirables. Have you taken up arms to overthrown the White House now that Cuba is used for torture? What is your trigger point ? How do you find out that there are death camps? Warsaw happened because they rounded up Jews into one place before shipping them out. The Nazis learnt from that. Evil has analysts too. What is the difference? It is not the grunts in the army. It is the need to have enlightened people in government. If we cant have that we will make do with sane politicans. The insane ones are harder to spot. You know Nixon used to end dinner chat at the white house with the line, "I could walk out of here and 45 minutes later, 500 million people would be dead?" [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
Did Hitler or Stalin used "explosives, range and airpower" to move people to concentration camps? How you imagine this? Let's say there are 200 houses in a neighborhood. You know that in house #47 and in house #186 there are families that are Jewish/suspected anti-communists, etc. You need to get them out to the concentration camp. You do it by bombing the whole neighborhood? Let's say in Berlin or Moscow? Please explain how having weapons would NOT help families in these houses. Because what I'm telling you and what history tells us is that Secret Police (NKVD/Gestapo) will be sent there with guns to get these people at the gun point to their destination. And number two: let's say you are a President of the USA. Let's say you do something really evil against the will of the people. Like - theoretically - sending all Mexicans to the camps. You say Mexicans are armed or not - no difference. Interesting.

cafard 13y ago

There were a lot of weapons in private hands in Weimar Germany, and that was not the least of the factors that made it chaotic. And once Hitler was in power, it really didn't matter who had a rifle or a pistol stashed in the house--with the police and military willing to take extreme measures, private firepower had no real chance.