From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Bazooka for sale!
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 17:39:31 GMT

In article <1k55gfINNq2@zikzak.apana.org.au> speednut@zikzak.apana.org.au (Mark Jose) writes:

>Original Message From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
>
>>> While not wishing to be pedantic, I cannot see how these people's
>>> trust/faith in their government caused their demise at the hands of an
>>> aggressor. In the case of Hitler, if the jews had more personal guns
>>> this may have given him a better excuse to kill them.
>>
>>As for your Hitler comment, that's nonsensical at best.  Are you saying that
>>the Jews were better off for having died in misery WITHOUT much of a fight?
>>I think logic and history would indicate that FEWER of them would have died
>>had they been able to put up a fight to enable more of the rest to survive.
>
>Don't be silly. Read what I said! Putting faith in your government will no
>more cause your demise than not doing so by arming yo
>that even if the Jews were fully armed, they would still not have been
>able to withstand the German assault.

       I think the point is that genocide isn't exactly something that cen
be done worse to you.  I wonder whether they would have preferred to die
in the showers than fighting.  Experiance with Isreal suggest they'd have
chosen fighting.
       Soldiers, and people in general, have a marked tendency to be less
inclined to assault an armed group than an unarmed group.  Rock throwers
all over the world tend to fall back when armed troops show up.

>Whether your "logic and history" can prove they may have survived is very
>dubious. Unless well trained I can't see how they could possibly fight off
>battle hardened soldiers and tanks. They may have forestalled the war, but
>not stopped it. 

       I suppose this could degenerate into a discussion on guerilla warfare,
but I'm not qualified to get knee-deep into that.  However, as far as
forstalling the war (or at least the Holocaust) every little bit helps.

>Whether the Jews being armed would have stopped them
>going to the gas chambers, cannot be substantiated. 

       There's something at the RKBA archive on just this subject.  If 
nobody else does, I'll see if I can dig it out and post it.

>It may have resulted
>in the German airforce bombing the "crap" out of towns rather than
>collecting the occupants.

       Again, exactly how would this have been worse?  (Except that I
have serious doubts about the Germans bombing their own cities in
the middle of a war with somebody else.)       

>>All those Iraqis SURRENDERED in large part.  If we'd been like the nazis,
>>they wouldn't have gone home again the way they did.
>
>And what of the 200,000 that died? Did they not believe that there
>government would support them? Did they not put their trust in their
>weapons to stop them being killed? Yes. What good did it do them when
>the "invading power" has better weaponry. I am sure if the US had
>wanted to eradicate the Iraqis, they could have done so whether the
>Iraqis had guns or not. See my point?

       History shows a couple of things, especially modern history.  You
can bomb cities into dust and destroy the landscape.  But when all is said
and done, ground troops have to go in and secure the area and rules whatever
is left.  Pulverized buildings don't provide much shelted, destroyed 
infrastructure won't move goods, and scrap metal that used to be radar
installations won't spot incoming planes.  Crushing an army is an entirely
different thing than ruling a hostile population.
       The Germans discovered this in a lot of places in Europe.

>>The danger of tyranny exists EVERYWHERE, at least everywhere there are
>>PEOPLE.  To that extent, it's a UNIVERSAL problem.
>
>I beg to differ.

        You mean there are some places were there is a zero percent chance 
of tyranny?  Just where are these places?  And why have there never been any 
before?  Even the Roman Republic became the Holy Roman Empire.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal Univ. of Tenn. Div. of Cont. Education Info. Services Group
PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  (Mail to VEAL@utkvm1.utk.edu will bounce.)
"For every action there is an equal, and opposite, government program"
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns