What would have happened if when Hitler began invading countries...

[NNN0LHI]

...all the citizens defending those countries had AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs?

My guess is Hitler and his thugs would have never made it out of Poland. They still might have burned down Warsaw but every city they went to after that would have had a potent resistance as well.

Germany would have went broke after almost 4 years of guerrilla warfare in Poland with no end in sight. Just like we are doing.

Don

[MrBenchley]

1. A lot more civilians would have died

and World War 2 would have been even bloodier.

I will say the words "blizkreig mit panzers" and you will awaken, refreshed and less full of gun nut silliness.

[The Magistrate]

10. You Have A Point, Sir

For the invading forces would have to be assumed to have the same up-grades in equipment, and that foirce was one that had no compunction whatever about simply killing everyone near an incident of resistance. The "governor-general" of Poland was once visiting ocupied Czechoslovakia, and the sight of notices posted announcing that a dozen Czechs had been killed in reprisal for killing a German reduced to him laughting that "If we put up notices every time we killed a dozen Poles there wouldn't be a tree left in the place."

[MrBenchley]

15. Exactly so....

I suspect this new thread is merely the latest excuse for the dreary "gotta gettta gun" fraternity to post a new round of dishonest right wing propaganda about their fetish objects in GD.....

By the way, what's up with all the "V for Vendetta" threads....do the teens want to start throwing knives at people they disagree with now?

[The Magistrate]

28. Teen-Agers, Sir, Seem To Have Given Up Knives Altogether

There are upholstered seats on some busses in my city, and they have gone unsliced now for a very long time....

[MrBenchley]

38. That is good news...

[NNN0LHI]

29. You think I am promoting AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs for everyone in America?

Whatever you are smoking it must be powerful.

And how many more civilians do you think would have died if they had been armed as you suggest? More than 6 million?

And as far as that panzer stuff we currently have the most advanced military this world has ever seen. Light years more advanced in comparison to Germany's military during WW 2.

But yet going on 4 years later now the dead and mangled bodies of our soldiers are still coming back in boxes regularly. And all this at a financial cost of $300 million dollars per day.

Don

[MrBenchley]

39. No, I think you started a very silly and pointless thread.....

that demonstrates how little you know about history.

By the way, I hope the upshot of your last remarks wasn't that you were comparing our troops to the Waffen SS.

[NNN0LHI]

41. Do you normally post about a dozen times to silly and pointless threads?

Seems kind of silly and pointless to me.

Don

[MrBenchley]

42. When I feel like it, yeah....

It's like poking a caged animal with a stick, I know....but I get such malicious joy doing so.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bananarepublican]

47. Had Hitler invaded Iraq I'm he would have been smart enough to secure...

... the ammo dumps! But no-oo-ooo, Donald (or Daffy - take your pick) Rumsfeld, Elmer Cheney Fudd, and Yosemite Bush thought it best to secure the oil ministry buildings instead.

[Retired AF Dem]

50. So it was better to die a slow death in the camps

than to die while killing off a few fascists. You never cease to amaze me.

[Aviation Pro]

2. The Poles did form a resistance.....

...the difference between Hitler's madness and Bush's folly is that the reason, in the murdering, little corporal's mind, for the invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland et. al. is for German lebensraum whereas the murdering, smirking little monkey's reason is for lebensoil.

[Divernan]

3. Yup. If the Poles had tank battalions instead of cavalry

One image that's always stuck in my mind from reading history was the Polish mounted cavalry versus Nazi tanks.

[The Magistrate]

14. One Of The Enduring Myths, Ma'am

There was never any charge of German tanks by Polish cavalry: there were a couple of instances where German armored cars on reconnaisance encountered by surprise Polish cavalry units.

Poland had a respectable number of tanks and tankettes, for the size of its armed forces, and pretty decent anti-tank weaponry. It was more the wholly unfavorable lay-out of the battle-field, allowing German attack from three sides, combined with a determination to fight it out on the border at all points, and the far more numerous and modern aircraft of the Germans, that sealed the matter.

[Jara sang]

46. Just watching NARA footage of the Invasion of Poland last night.

Germans were using horse drawn artillery pieces too.

[enfield collector]

4. the brave Jews in the

Warsaw ghetto sure handed the nazis their asses. that is a perfect example of why an armed populous is needed.

[MrBenchley]

9. "sure handed the nazis their asses"?????

Wow. Talk about having no clue.

[The Magistrate]

16. That Is An Hardly An Accurate Statement, Sir

Those people fought heroically: they lost horribly.

[Selatius]

18. So did the rest of Warsaw when it rose up as well.

The Germans replied by leveling the city and torching everything. I remember researching Soviet troops were somewhere to the east, but Stalin ordered Red Army troops to halt temporarily to let the Germans crush Polish resistance before taking the land. They weren't communist partisans, so they were undeserving of help in Stalin's eyes.

[The Magistrate]

23. Exactly Right, Sir

The emmory of those people deserves the highest honor, as testament to the human spirit, but that should not lead to blindness regarding the facts of those ghastly episodes.

[Nay]

24. Huh?? They were all slaughtered. WTF are you talking about?

[The Magistrate]

27. He Refers, Ma'am

To resistance offered by several small Jewish groups to the final rounding up for liquidation fo the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, who had a very small equipment of arms, and badly surprised the initial police troops with their resistance. In the short course of the fighting, they managed to arm themselves somewhat better off the corpses of the Germans they killed.

[Nay]

30. I am well aware of what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was

brave and probably needed to be done, but they held out a couple of months and got killed/shipped off anyway.

The OP made it sound like they got away or something. Certainly the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto made a historic name for themselves and contributed to the literature the story of a wonderful yet futile push for freedom, but they did not survive the attempt.

The older I have gotten, the less optimistic I have become about the average American's ability to learn from history. They seem to learn well from TV advertisements, though.

[mmonk]

5. To my recollection of a war my father fought in,

the countries they occupied did indeed have underground resistance movements.

[Selatius]

6. You are sadly mistaken

The 3rd Reich government, unlike the US government, did not operate under any pretense of international law. They would not have made up an excuse to round up all males ages 14 to 50 who are capable of fighting and having them executed. They would have done it and simply ensured the news did not get out.

This is the reason Nazi Germany got as far as it did: Because it destroyed resistance. Those who resisted were precious few in number, so they were hard to track in a large population. Most people most likely did not like Nazi Germany as an occupier, but on the other hand, most of them did not overtly resist Nazi occupation unless there was reason to believe victory was assured. There are notable exceptions, but those are rare and far between.

I'm sure there were many Germans who disagreed with what the German government was doing, but giving the government an excuse to liquidate you wasn't what most Germans wanted either, so they lived in heart of the empire, entrapped in their own minds the thoughts of freedom.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. The partisans in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were very effective.

Whole divisions of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS had to be diverted to combat them.

[Selatius]

11. True, but I would say those are exceptions

Not the rule. The deeper one was inside occupied Europe, the less resistance one found. To be sure, there was an amount of resistance in any part of Germany's vast holdings, but it wasn't very heavy until you got to the outer fringes, say closer to the Eastern Front where there are still possibilities of re-supply from outside elements without being cut-off through sheer geographic isolation.

If, for example, you lived on the channel islands and watched your island get occupied, you merely had to look less than 100 miles north for help from the English. If you were in the Soviet Union and watched your village occupied, you merely had to look eastward provided you weren't already hundreds of miles behind German lines. If you lived in Poland, you were literally on your own in some of the deepest parts of occupied Europe. North, south, east, or west--all you saw was Nazi occupied land.

I'm not saying Polish resistance was non-existent, but what I am saying is that they had the problem of being deeply located within German orbit.

[The Magistrate]

21. Not Quite, Sir

Front line troops were almost never diverted to deal with partisans, either in the west of the Soviet Union or in Yugoslavia. The forces used were second and third line detachments, generally composed of the sweepings of ordinarily non-combat personnel when entirely German. Locally raised detachments were frequently employed, and while these often came under S.S. control and were denominated Waffen S.S., they were hardly the sort of picked and rigorously trained men that is generally taken as being: often towards the end they were not even volunteers, but simply press-ganged out of the countryside. About the only real fighting unit ever employed at the task as a body for any length of time was the S.S. mountain troops division active in Yugoslavia from 1944.

Nor were the partisans in the Soviet Union simply people who rose up. Most of the partisan bodies were based on nuclei of soldiers by-passed in the initial invasion, and in subsequent German advances. The Communist Party organization had special sections devoted to creation of partisan bodies from the start, and established training schools and supply lines for the fostering and maintainance of partisan activity. In Yugoslavia, a number of partisan bodies similarly were based on soldiery that did not surrender, and the movements, royalist and Communist alike, received considerable supply from outside, not only weapons but trained personnel. By the end of it, Tito had even received armored vehicles and artillery from Allied sources.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. Having 300,000+ armed irregulars is a bit more than a diversion.

While I agree with your post as to the forces diverted to fight the partisans (with notable exceptions), the impact was more than merely how many divisions, however poor they may have been, but the methods used by the Germans and their allies in suppression. A case could be made, and has been made, that the Germans "lost" the Ukraine and Belorus, by the Draconian methods used to control the partisans. i.e. the "Commisar Order".

Much as the current situation in Iraq and Lebanon exemplify how not to defeat guerillas.

[NNN0LHI]

34. Wouldn't be so easy to round up those 14 to 50 YO males if they were armed

Thousands of our soldiers in Iraq have learned that the hard way.

And as for the difference being the international laws that the 3rd Reich did not operate under I don't think that is the answer. Bush was not abiding by any international laws when he invaded and occupied Iraq?

That is why Bush has done everything he can to protect himself and his minions from prosecution for the war crimes they have committed. If Hitler had only thought of that.

Don

[Selatius]

44. You can't honestly compare US occupation to Nazi occupation

If the US government operated in the same manner as Nazi Germany did with respect to occupying/pacifying nations, then there would likely be over a million executions of those seen as collaborating with the resistance, and half the cities in Iraq would resemble Warsaw, Poland. There would have been no respect paid to civilians or civilian infrastructure. There would not be Sunni or Shia militias operating in the open like that because the US would've attempted to round up the members and have them executed.

As it stands, most of the country is under the control of nationalist resistance groups or Islamist resistance groups. US forces are only able to hold their fortified positions and patrol in the areas around those positions, but they have difficulty extending control over the rest of the country, especially if we're talking about strongholds like Anbar province or deep into Shia territory like Sadr City.

I'm pretty sure Bush is guilty of starting a war of aggression, but I don't think the level of brutality committed against civilians in Iraq is comparable to the level of brutality committed against those who lived in occupied Europe. If Bush were as brutal, there would be a lot more dead Iraqis than there are. I don't believe the US government is as brutal as the Reich ever was, but I do believe the gov't will end up as brutal as it was when it was occupying South Viet Nam.

[unblock]

8. all the guns would have been turned over without complaint

the nazis were so brutal and complete in their repression, and they enlisted the help (under penalty of death) of everyone in giving up anyone who resisted the nazis.

how do you think so many jews and others were rounded up? because ANYONE could be sent off to the concentration camps if it weas thought that they were helping jews. so otherwise decent people sent jews off to their deaths out of fear for their own safety.

would guns have helped? not likely. someone would have gotten scared and told the nazis where the weapons were, or who had them. a few stories would get out about how key people in the resistance had been taken away, and everyone would have handed over their guns.

oh, and by the way, the populus was not unarmed, and there was knowledge of how to make explosives and so on. that's not the issue. the issue is the complete domination, willingness to kill and crush resistance on the slightest pretense, and a lack of reasonable prospect of success for the resistance. a few more guns wouldn't have shifted the odds unless the ordinary citizens could have been freed of their own fear of the nazis.

[MrBenchley]

12. Shift to the present day

and every humhole who wears a swastika today is running around pushing the dishonest "gun rights" horseshit. Every gun lover's on-line forum is a cesspool like the Free Republic, and the NRA's last three men of the year were Dick Cheney, Tom Delay and Tommy Franks. Them guns are doing one hell of a job "protecting us from tyranny."

Meanwhile, Iraq was and is an armed camp where damn enareveryone has an automatic weapon...and that neither stopped Saddam from having a brutal dictatorship, or kept the US Army from invading. All it does is allow disagreements to escalate rapidly into tragedies.

[Selatius]

13. That's because Saddam opened up his weapons caches for Iraqis

He planted the original seeds for the guerrila war in Iraq by moving his weapons caches into the countryside. We all know what happened next.

[MrBenchley]

17. Iraq was an armed camp BEFORE the invasion

You might recall the numbnuts at the NRA raising a stink because at one point the Army somewhat sensibly proposed some gun control there...

[Selatius]

19. That's because he moved his weapons caches before the invasion

Most of the earliest guerrillas were ex-Ba'athists who had just left the army, and they were relying on the original caches, and the US saw fit to liquidate the entire Iraqi army, and the result was they went into the countryside with their weapons and skills and ended up adding to the guerrilla resistance. Nevermind the hundreds of tons of explosives the US allowed to get pilfered at several bunkers located in the countryside. Now it is likely resistance is getting re-supplied from arms smugglers operating on the borders.

[MrBenchley]

20. Again, not even close to true....

It was an armed camp long previous.

[Selatius]

22. So you're saying Saddam didn't move his weapons into the countryside

and didn't prepare for a guerrilla war?

[The Magistrate]

25. You Are Both Right, Sir

Iraq was an armed society prior to the invasion; it always has been. An up to date rifle or two has been part of the ordinary household furniture there as long as such weapons have been in existance.

Hussien definitely made preparation for guerrilla war, but dwarfing these preparations was the simple bulk of Iraqi Army stocks in depots scattered about the country, that went un-secured for months by U.S. and other invading troops. They were looted systematically, both by people seeking security or profit in the choas following the invasion, and by persons determined on resistance under one banner or another.

[Douglas Carpenter]

31. may I ask Mr. Magistrate...

now first of all I completely 100% agree with you on this issue. In fact, I probably go farther. I am absolutely convinced that America would be a kinder and gentler place if we could enact much stricter gun control laws like every other modern democracy on the face of the earth and dramatically reduced the number of guns.

However, as Democrats we do have dilemma, don't we? In large parts of America supporters of gun control are simply not electable. In western Pennsylvania where I grew up - the area had long been a traditional and natural Democratic Party stronghold. More than any other issue, perhaps all other issues put together, the gun issue has undermined this base. Now one can correctly point out that even in small-town and rural America polls reveal that a majority or at least almost a majority support tougher gun laws. That is true. However, this issue, perhaps even much stronger than the abortion issue, has a large number of single issue working class voters. This cuts deep into the Democratic Party base.

Is it currently possible to have a national Democratic Party majority if the Democratic Party is strongly associated with tough gun control laws? Can this be changed in the foreseeable future?

[The Magistrate]

33. My Attitude On Gun Controls Laws, Sir

Is quite mixed. On the surface they are a sound idea, probably beneficial, but in some circumstances my personal inclination would be to ignore them completely myself: that is, after all, the American way, and something every American believes it is part of the national birthright to do. So it is certainly hard for me to argue, for example, that any serious controls are not going to be widely evaded, even among otherwise law-abiding citizens.

People who maintain they require guns to defend themselves do not impress me much; those actually encountered in life have mostly struck me as persons peculiarly unsuited to have charge of any degree of lethal force. At the same time, there are certainly instances where possession of a fire-arm, and the will and capacity to use it, have saved people's lives from assailants meaning grievous injury to them. It is also true that the presence of a fire-arm can make a confrontation more deadly than it otherwise would be, or result in accidental shootings no one intended, or shootings of neighbors and relatives mistaken for something else. Guns in the hands of law-abiding persons are a choice loot for burglars, and account for a good proportion of the illegal trade in guns over time. The idea personal small arms constitute some sort of check on government is obsolete as the muskets current when it was first circulated: personal artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles might serve as such a check, but a brace of hand-guns and a hunting rifle or a scatter-gun certainly do not.

In such a situation, it would seem the best political choice would be to allow the matter to lapse, and make it no part of the Party platform to press for laws on the matter. Granted, that is a purely expedient position, but over-all, it seems a matter of less importance than some others, and best gotten out of the way of higher priorities.

[MrBenchley]

40. In fact, the NRA spent a fortune in Pennsylvania

on "Al Gore's going to grab your guns" and "John Kerry's going to grab your guns" type propaganda...and both times the Democrats took the state.

"However, this issue, perhaps even much stronger than the abortion issue, has a large number of single issue working class voters."
Who are never going to vote Democratic unless Strom rises from the grave with his Dixiecrats. That's becauss they hate Jews, blacks, gays, and uppity women almost as much as they loves them guns. And that is a fact.

Thisclaim that there are voters out there who are perfectly okay with a failing economy, torture, a disaster in Iraq, widespread corruption, etc. but who would switch in a heartbeat if the Democrats make smoochy noises publicly about their gun fetish is absurd in every way. Even if there were a dozen such specimens somewhere, who the fuck would want such demented pinheads? (And I see no evidence that there are even 12 such wowsers.)

[benEzra]

43. I would suggest leaving it to the states...

that way MrBenchley can work for his legal-gun-free utopia in New Jersey, without trying to cram his opinions down the throats of people in Maine and NC at gunpoint. Most of the lawful gun owners have already left New Jersey, anyway...

I do think there is common ground to be found in addressing criminal gun access, straw purchases, and the like. But fighting for ever-tighter restrictions on lawfully owned civilian firearms--particularly the attempt to legislate 19th-century-fogey stock styling for civilian rifles and shotguns, which are rarely used in crimes--is irrational, counterproductive, and politically idiotic.

I'm sure MrBenchley and his fellow gun-owner-haters would disagree, but here's my take on the issue:

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What?

[MrBenchley]

48. And sure enough, a dose of right wing horseshit

Can't say it better than this: "In order to advance the only interest that seems to really and truly matter to you (Guns, Guns, Guns), you want the Democratic Party to shit-can it's traditional stance on firearms and lurch rightward to a hyper-Republican position that's more to your (and Wayne LaPierre's) liking. And as usual, you swear that the votes will come pouring in as a result of all this blatant pandering. I don't think so; I remember how you gun-loving "Democrats" reacted to John Kerry's goose hunt a few weeks ago. Multiply that by a factor of 20 to get the likely response to the kind of changes you're advocating.
And let's keep in mind that, no doubt encouraged by the gun militants' siege of the party, the anti-abortionists are now doing the very same thing, urging that Democrats walk away from our long-term commitment to keeping the government out of womens' reproductive systems, blaming lost elections on the party's rigidity, demanding that we adopt a "big tent" approach in order to capture some of those Life Begins With Heavy Petting votes."

[benEzra]

49. Thoughts...

(MrBenchley)

rant rant rant rant rant rant *God, I hate gun owners* rant rant rant

OK, now that that's out of the way...

One thing you seem to be forgetting is that fully half of gun owners are not repubs. Even by figures you yourself have posted, around 1 in 4 Dems owns guns, and I suspect the true fraction is a good bit higher.

Funny how support for lawful gun ownership by Dems and indies is "right wing horseshit," but support for W's and Ashcroft's flag burning amendment isn't...

I remember how you gun-loving "Democrats" reacted to John Kerry's goose hunt a few weeks ago.

Ummm, looks like you're doing a bit of cutting and pasting from your old posts, since Mr. Kerry's goose hunt was more than a "few weeks" ago. You might want to at least edit them to make them current...

FWIW, I applaud Mr. Kerry for supporting goose hunting. But since 95% of gun owners are NOT goose hunters and don't own goose hunting guns, the goose hunting photo-op was absolutely irrelevant to the gun issue. It was Mr. Kerry's attempts to legislate 19th-century-fogey styling for civilian rifle and shotgun stocks, and his support for Civil-War-era capacity limits, that hurt him among gun owners, not goose hunting.

The "gun rights for hunters only" mantra is a guaranteed failure when 4 out of 5 gun owners are nonhunters. A lot of people in the party are beginning to get their brains around that fact. Apparently not you...

[MrBenchley]

51. And even more hooey from the trigger-happy

"Ummm, looks like you're doing a bit of cutting and pasting from your old posts"
It wasn't my post. It was a sane response by somebody else to that towering load of ancient crap YOU referred us to.

"around 1 in 4 Dems owns guns"
If true, I doubt more than a handful are dumb enough to swallow the horseshit put out by the gun lobby.


By the way, if there really are that many gun-toting Democrats (which I really doubt), they sure as shit are useless. They don't say boo when the NRA names specimens like Tom Delay and Dick Cheney as "men of the year"; they don't say "boo" when gun owner forums are freeper cesspools bulging with bigotry and idiocy; and they're mute as stones when the gun lobby funds the swift boatters. The only time they ever seem to pipe up is to post right wing horseshit here. That's real convincing....NOT.

[MrBenchley]

37. No, I'm saying Iraqis were armed long before that....

One wonders why you keep ignoring that.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

54. The Germans had one of the most ruthless armies in modern times

In France, for example, there are several examples of how they responded to armed resistance. At the town of Oradour-Sur-Glane, when resistance fighters killed German soldiers, they herded the local village of 600 into a church, nailed the doors and windows shut, and set it on fire. In the village of Tulle, when the same thing happened, they hung every male villager on the town square and left the bodies to rot. There were examples of entire armies of resistance fighters (as opposed to just small local groups which were widely scattered), such as the 8,000 man army of resistance fighters in the rugged mountainous Vercors region in France. They were surrounded by the Germans and killed to the last man. While it's true that they were often poorly armed and equipped, it wouldn't have made a difference, as the Germans had air power, tanks, and a well-trained army that killed everything that moved.

While it's true that if every Jew that they came for had shot just one German soldier, it would have destroyed Germany. But facing certain and violent death like that is very hard and goes against the survival instinct. A better solution was what the Poles and the French did. Many of them left the country and joined free armies on the outside. In fact, one of the great untold stories of World War II concerns the German Jew volunteers which were formed into their own separate fighting unit, Troop 3, No. 10 Commando. Early on, when things started getting difficult for Jews in Germany, parents began sending their children outside the country, such as to English boarding schools. A military unit of volunteers made up of these German and Austrian Jews was formed. They hit the beaches at Normandy and saw some tough fighting. It's said that the German POWs were shocked to see soldiers speaking perfect German fighting on the other side.

[Toots]

26. So I take it you are for an armed world

A gun in every household will keep everyone safe just as it does in America? I don't buy it. I am a strong believer in Police and the world needs a Police force. The UN is not getting it and the US only has it's own interest in mind. If there were a strong world police force Dictators might not be able to rise to such power. Police works well at every other level why shouldn't it be at world level as well? If not for police I really would not be able to sleep well at night. Terrorist do not scare me but some Americans are terrifying. I am thankful for my local police force..and the same goes for the Fire Department. Right now these guys are being shortchanged by the Republicans and that is upsetting.

[MUSTANG_2004]

59. Police scare me more than armed citizens

The proliferation of no-knock police raids and police SWAT teams that are closer to paramilitary organizations is truly frightening and, IMO, un-American.

[Strelnikov_]

32. It Didn't Help Those In Grozny

Assuming a parallel upgrade in the invaders arms, Adolph and his Merry Band would simply have eliminated any points of resistance with FAE's and established 25 km population exclusion zones (aka killing zones) around major transportation corridors.

OTOH, the ubiquitous nature of AK-47s and RPG's in the Middle East will prevent the current incarnation of the United States from attaining its goal of exerting hegemony over the Middle East energy resources. Petroleum and natural gas facilities seem to be very easy to knock out of commission. Consider what would happen if a few disaffected workers at Abqaiq, through which 60% of Saudi oil flows, were to sneak in a few RPG’s.

I believe the United States is still a ‘just’ nation. The people are not willing to sacrifice or commit the degree of crime as necessary to subdue the populace of this region. Consider the fine line the GOP has to walk in the marketing of their petro-grab, rolling out rationales such as imminent threat from WMD, building democracy, fighting them over there.

The moment of truth, though, comes when the energy collapse really starts to hit home. Will the nation, in order to maintain a fossil fuel energy paradigm, be willing to commit genocide to preserve their ‘way of life.’ If they are educated that there are alternatives, no. But if the populace is convinced of the uniqueness of these fossil fuels by the current petro-regime, who knows?

I am already seeing the ‘resource war’ meme being test marketed by the resident Right-Wing filth on energy discussion boards. Not that a resource war has any hope of succeeding, due to the above stated fragility of the resource.


As for me, I plan to convert a portion of my savings into a supply of handguns at some point once the beginning of the collapse becomes apparent to me. Not for ‘resistance’, but for trade in the inevitable barter economy. One has to simply read accounts of the Argentinean and Soviet collapses to realize the need for a limited degree of personal protection. Being gun free with a functioning police force in place is one thing. Once an economy starts to break down, however, it appears the police protection is the first thing to go.

[mitchtv]

35. he would have fouled their beaches with petroleum

spitefull destruction

[theanarch]

52. a few years back, a neighbor of my parents...

...came over to show them a solicitation he received from some "Jews for Jesus" outfit which contained the claim that had Germany's Jews been armed, they could have prevented the Holocost. The neighbor was a German Jew whose parents left Germany in 1935 or '36, and tells a far different story. During the Weimar Republic, he says, Germany was an armed camp--national law allowed every military veteran to own a weapon (and almost all males to the age of 16 in 1918 were vets). His point was that however many guns were in circulation among the general public, the Nazi's had not only more guns, but machine guns, armored cars, tanks, etc...and more thugs to use them. Internal resistance would have been heroic, perhaps, but quite futile; it would require the armed might of the rest of the world to defeat the Nazi's.

On another point, for the past 35 years i've been playing a game with weapon-worshipping gun-nuts: can you quote the Second Amendment? I've found only one who could...and when those who fail the test have the actual language read to them ("A well-regulated militia being necessary to defend the liberties of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"), most refuse to believe it. A much better arguement for gun ownership can be made under the 9th and 10th Amendments.

[NNN0LHI]

53. My OP wasn't about the pistols and shotguns the German people had

It was about the kinds of weapons the Iraqis have been using for going on four years to kill and maim thousands of soldiers from the best equipped army this world has ever seen.

If pistols and shotguns were all the Iraqis had I suspect we would have had whatever was left of them living on reservations by now.

Don

[MrBenchley]

55. So your point was to compare the US to Nazi Germany?

[NNN0LHI]

56. You keep saying that for some reason?

What is your point? Do you have an obsession with this?

Don

[MrBenchley]

57. Because it turned out to be your motive.

[NNN0LHI]

58. You have confirmed my suspicions

[MrBenchley]

60. LOL!