Would you 'send a gun to defend a British home'? [View All]

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The December 1959 issue of GUNS Magazine is now online, and it tells us the story behind the poster in the feature article "Guns in our bundles for Britain," by William B. Edwards. Here are some of the highlights:

"We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and the streets, we shall fight them in the hills-

"We shall never surrendah!"

And they say as the broadcast was momentarily interrupted by applause, Winston Churchill turned sadly and angrily away from the mike and said:

"But I do not know what we shall fight them with ...


http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d2-Would-you-still-send-a-gun-to-defend-a-British-home

Take yourself back to the year 1940. Hitler had launched his blitzkrieg hordes across most of Europe, and occupied France. The Nazi juggernaut paused and stood poised on the shores of the English Channel. On a clear day, you could see the white cliffs of Dover. The Luftwaffe owned the skies and German soldiers were toasting their victories with French wine in sidewalk cafes in Paris. Hitler danced a jig as the French signed the documents of their capitulation in the same little railroad car that saw the formal end of World War I.

On July 16 of that year, Hitler sent a top-secret directive to his military leaders: “Since England, despite her hopeless military situation, still shows no sign of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare, and if necessary to carry out, a landing operation against her. The aim of this operation is to eliminate the English motherland as a base for carrying on the war against Germany, and if necessary, to occupy the country completely.”

****snip****

And the best part of the plan was this: the British people were, for the most part, defenseless. Decades of a culture that taught that guns were bad and should be eschewed had taken their toll. About the only guns extant in England were fowling pieces owned by the privileged gentry. The only tools available for the average British subject to defend his country were broomsticks, spades, and pitchforks. In other words, much like it is today in that country. What to do? Here was the most invincible arm of all time massed across the Channel, ready and willing to invade, rape and pillage a defenseless British populace.

Here, in bold capital print, emblazoned across the page, were the words “SEND A GUN TO DEFEND A BRITISH HOME.” The appeal went on: “British civilians, faced with threat of invasion, desperately need arms for the defense of their homes.” Appealed for were pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns and binoculars. In short, from Britain to America: “Help! Send any arms you can spare, because we haven't a prayer without them when and if we are invaded!”

The full-page ad has a lesson that is clear: Men and women without firearms are defenseless subjects of their government, and at the mercy of any armed opponent. Men and women with firearms are not subjects, but citizens. Citizens who can stand proudly and ably against any foe, foreign or domestic.

By the way, Americans did respond, with thousands of firearms and binoculars, freely and without hope of the return of their goods. We were, and thank heavens, still are the “arsenal of democracy.” And let it ever be so. The postscript to the story is that exactly none of these freely-sent arms were ever returned to their rightful owners. Most were melted as scrap after the war by a British Government that was too blind to see the object lesson.
http://www.twinbuttebunch.org/index.php?fuseaction=misc.sendguns.