Anti gun consequences of Paris attack

[Snejdarek]

But then you have the former Soviet states (and others), where subverting the rule of law was the only way to survive for decades (if not centuries in some places), if I understand correctly.

In case of the Czech Republic you have to add 300 years of occupation by the Austrain Habsburgs and Catholic Church.

When it started, 95% of population were reformed, and vast majority Czech speaking. They got the choice: convert, leave or die (and start speaking German). Consequently 1/3 emigrated, 1/3 converted, 1/3 murdered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_Švejk

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Originally posted by barnbwt:
To be fair, it's not like the Germans' assumption is wrong; confiscation was effective in disarming Jews/etc during the Third Reich, and once liberated, confiscation was again effective at the hands of the Allied Forces (there are still a ton of old confiscated guild shotgun bring-backs for sale on Gunbroker to this day;

Actually, neither of those claims are accurate. The Jews did not fight because it was not in their culture to fight -- only when their fate could no longer be concealed or denied did they fight in the Warsaw Ghetto.

And there was little guerilla warfare in Germany because the allies reacted harshly to any such nonsense -- the French, for example, would bring up artillery and bombard the nearest town. The German people saw there was little point in continuing the fight.

 

[Snejdarek]

The Jews did not fight because it was not in their culture to fight -- only when their fate could no longer be concealed or denied did they fight in the Warsaw Ghetto.

50% of Czechoslovak army abroad on the Western front were Jewish.


Otherwise as regards civilians, anywhere you look Jews were disarmed.

Germany - disarmed.
Austria - disarmed immediately after Anschluss (only Jews).
Czechoslovakia - disarmed after occupation (as were all).
Poland - disarmed (as were all).
Further east (Ukraine, Belarus, Baltics - i.e. USSR occupied territories) - disarmed by the communists even before the Germans came in (as were all).

Warsaw ghetto uprising was run by paramilitary Jewish units that were trained by the Polish state to fight for independent Israel in Palestine. They were trained before the war started to infiltrate enemy (British) territory and to undermine its position. That is why Warsaw ghetto uprising was so successful - it was run by well trained professionals who managed to get enough guns in to make it matter.

Now stop typing into the keyboard, turn your palms up, take a look at them and please, just do tell me how you would fight the German War Machine with those.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

50% of Czechoslovak army abroad on the Western front were Jewish.

Yes, but they were an army, not civilians organizing for self-defense.

just do tell me how you would fight the German War Machine with those.

The Parable of the Skydivers​

There were two men who went skydiving. They jumped from 12,000 feet -- one of them without a parachute.

As they fell free of the plane, he shouted to his companion, "Well? Tell me what I should do now!"

And his companion replied, "I really can't tell you what you should do now. But if you'd asked me ten seconds ago, I could have told you what you should not do."

The meaning of this parable is, if you wait until you've jumped before you look for a solution, it may be too late to find one.

 

[barnbwt]

Vern, my only point was that for both the Nazis as well as Allies, confiscation largely worked in the end; and that this was not the case in other areas (especially those where tyrannical governments had been in power for some time). And that this might explain the difference in mindset/perspective between various EU factions on gun control.

TCB

 

[Vern Humphrey]

My point is that the Jews largely had no guns to be confiscated.

The confiscation of guns by the Allies was a crime -- they destroyed guns that were true works of art, and so outdated they were hardly likely to be used by guerillas.

Note that MacArthur ordered the Japanese police RETAIN their weapons, so as to maintain law and order in conquered Japan.

 

[barnbwt]

Jews weren't the only one's targeted for disarmament --yet the efforts were still largely effective.

The confiscation of guns by the Allies was a crime -- they destroyed guns that were true works of art, and so outdated they were hardly likely to be used by guerillas.

Destroyed? Ha! They flat-out stole a good number of them, also; you'll see them on Gunbroker/etc regularly, some old German family's prized heirloom lifted by an officer or enlisted & spirited back home sans compensation (unless the lead variety), and passed down as the heroic 'war trophy.' Maybe some were trying to save them out of respect, but too many were cut down to fit duffel bags for me to buy that explanation. Injustice happens in warfare & it's unavoidable & to be expected...but it doesn't change what it is.

The Parable of the Skydivers

I like that. I'd also like the variation; "dammit, I told you what not to do ten seconds ago, but would you listen?"

TCB

 

[Snejdarek]

My point is that the Jews largely had no guns to be confiscated.

We don't have any statistics on that but we do know that Nazis enacted laws ordering Jews as well as any other non-German person in occupied territories to surrender guns or be executed. That years before they started mass killings.

Yes, but they were an army, not civilians organizing for self-defense.

They were civilians who decided of their free will to leave Czechoslovakia when the government surrendered after Munich Agreement to German, Polish and Hungarian invasion, and who went on a perilous journey to join the Czechoslovak army abroad.

 

[vaupet]

First thing the Germans did in 1914 when they entered Belgium, (note: the Germans, there were no Nazis at the time) was to order the surrender of all firearms (with dead penalty to anyone), next they stole the horses and most of the food.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

And this tells what people are really after when they want our guns.

 

[old lady new shooter]

There aren't any wolves in Australia -- almost all Australian native mammals are marsupials. There are feral dogs, Dingos, who came over with the Aborigines

^^^

Um, how did Australia get into the conversation?

 

[RoscoeBryant]

^^^

Um, how did Australia get into the conversation?

Maybe I should check my backyard for Dingos and Aborigines

 

[old lady new shooter]

Maybe I should check my backyard for Dingos and Aborigines

See if they "speak Australian" as President Obama once mentioned...

 

[RoscoeBryant]

See if they "speak Australian" as President Obama once mentioned...

Sorry, couldn't find any - but found this sign instead

 

[old lady new shooter]

Haaaaaaaaa, that is great!

 

[Bohemus]

50% of Czechoslovak army abroad on the Western front were Jewish.

I doubt it, do you have any source?

 

[vito]

I have no idea how many of the Czech army were Jewish, but I do know that in Czarist Russia, prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, a sizable portion of the Army was Jewish. The Czar's government used involuntary conscription, with quotas by region, then district, then down to the smallest political entity.

The Russian police were charged with coming up with the required number of conscripts, and knowing that service in the Russian Army was almost like a death sentence, especially during the Russo-Japanese War in 1906 where Russian casualties were staggering, the police would routinely go to Jewish villages and parts of town and literally take young Jewish boys off the street to meet their local quota without having to have their own sons taken.

My own grandfather was taken at age 14, as a blacksmith apprentice, and inducted for a 20 year term. Because the local police chief was somewhat friendly with his father, my grandfather at least got to go home to say farewell to his parents and siblings. Serving in the artillery, he was promoted to Sergeant, and when all of the officers in the Company were killed, he was given a battlefield promotion to Lieutenant, becoming one of the very few Jewish officers in that army.

(As soon as his conscription was over, sometime in 1910 or 1911, he returned to his village as a 34 year old, immediately was married to a younger woman he been betrothed to, and made plans to leave the poverty and discrimination through pogroms for the land of opportunity. My father was actually born on the ship sailing to America, making me a first generation American on my father's side.)

 

[old lady new shooter]

The Jews did not fight because it was not in their culture to fight.

It's not a question of culture. Throughout most of Jewish history in Europe choosing not to fight was a rational, if painful, decision, given that Jews were a tiny and persecuted minority with NO civil rights, prohibited from owning land or engaging in most trades. There were exceptions, two that I know about had in common that the Jews made common cause with the non-Jews in their city, against outside aggressors. In both cases, the non-Jews then made side deals with the outsiders allowing them to kill the Jews but were subsequently themselves slaughtered by the outsiders:

1. 1000 Jews of Tulchin (Tulczyn), Poland, along with local Poles, were tortured and massacred by Cossacks, 1648. An agreement between the 2,000 Jews and 600 Christians of Tulczyn to defend their town at all costs succeeded in preventing the Cossacks from capturing it. Kryvonos, the Cossack leader, contacted the local governor and offered to leave the Poles alone if he handed over the Jews. The Jews found out about the plan and only through the intervention of their leader Rabbi Aharon (who feared reprisals) persuaded them not to kill the local leaders. Instead, Rabbi Aharon convinced the governor to take a high ransom and give it to the Cossacks. Kryvonos accepted the ransom, entered the town, killed a large number of the Jews and then killed the Poles for betraying the Jews.

2. The Haidamak (the paramilitary bands) Massacres in the Ukraine, 1768. The peasant serfs and Cossacks rioted much in the same vein as Chmielnicki 120 years earlier. At Uman, the Poles and Jews defended the city together under the Polish commander, Ivan Gonta. The next day, convinced by the Polish revolutionary Zheleznyak that only the Jews would be attacked, Gonta allowed the fortified city to be entered without a fight. Approximately 8,000 Jews were killed, many of them trying to defend themselves near the synagogue. As soon as the Jews were all massacred, the Haidamaks began to kill the Poles. Although they killed about 20,000 Jews altogether, the Haidamaks were Ukrainian nationalists who are still celebrated in folklore and literature.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

It's not a question of culture. Throughout most of Jewish history in Europe choosing not to fight was a rational, if painful, decision, given that Jews were a tiny and persecuted minority with NO civil rights, prohibited from owning land or engaging in most trades.

That's why non-resistance became part of their culture.

 

[Snejdarek]

I doubt it, do you have any source?

You are right, that is the number for 200th Anti-aircraft Regiment.

The number for the Czechoslovak Foreign Army in UK was 15.7% before the 200th was transferred to UK.

 

[Snejdarek]

It's not a question of culture. Throughout most of Jewish history in Europe choosing not to fight was a rational, if painful, decision, given that Jews were a tiny and persecuted minority with NO civil rights

This is often repeated and hardly ever put into context.

Not being Christian in the countries where Jews were facing these circumstances normally meant being killed for heresy, i.e. any other person than a Jew would very likely be instantly executed for not adhering to the correct faith.

Given that, Jews were generally privileged people, although they sometimes had to pay a high price for this privilege - but still they faced illegal mob rather than legal execution for heresy.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Jews were generally privileged people, although they sometimes had to pay a high price for this privilege - but still they faced illegal mob rather than legal execution for heresy.

That's correct -- which is why passivity, not active defense, became part of their culture.

 

[old lady new shooter]

That's why non-resistance became part of their culture.

To me, "culture" implies how a group acts without first reflecting, and would have roots in the belief system. Normative ("orthodox") Judaism prescribes self-defense as a positive obligation, "If someone is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first". Passivity contradicts that, and was only adopted because it was intellectually understood to be a better means of survival under the circumstances.

 

[danez71]

^^^ Behavior due to environment rather than behavior due to belief.

 

[old lady new shooter]

This is often repeated and hardly ever put into context.

Not being Christian in the countries where Jews were facing these circumstances normally meant being killed for heresy, i.e. any other person than a Jew would very likely be instantly executed for not adhering to the correct faith.

Which explains the decline of Spain following the Inquisition.

Given that, Jews were generally privileged people, although they sometimes had to pay a high price for this privilege - but still they faced illegal mob rather than legal execution for heresy.

The monarchies needed financing, but the church prohibited lending at interest. Jews being prohibited from most other trades ended up becoming the bankers. That was only a select few though. A larger number were involved in what today would be called distribution -- buying goods in location A and selling them in locations B, C and D, an activity also understood by the rulers as being beneficial to their respective realms. Jews had a slight edge in this occupation by virtue of being able to trust and be trusted by their co-religionists in other cities and countries, as well as speaking a common language. But the majority worked in less "glamourous" occupations within their own communities like being a tailor or a water carrier.