THE TRAGIC RESULTS OF GUN CONTROL
By Debbie O'Hara
NewsWithViews.com
What is it they say? Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it?--ssb
We are led to believe that gun control laws are for the benefit of the common people, but what are the real results of gun control? There are those like government educators and the main stream media who would have us believe that ordinary citizens would be safer if they were not allowed to own guns. They would have us believe that a government monopoly on force would make our nation's people more safe and secure. But is gun control really the necessary tool we need to create a less violent society? Would gun control allow us to better live our lives without fear of being victimized by violent criminals? Are everyday citizens really made safer when the ability to defend themselves and their families from human predators is against the law?
A look at history will show us that gun control does not benefit ordinary citizens. In fact it makes them far more likely to fall victim to violent crime. After a thorough investigation of the history of gun control, any logical-thinking person can only come to one conclusion - gun control advocates are either ignorant or they are evil.
The only people empowered by gun control laws are governments and criminals. And unfortunately sometimes one is the other. What happens when a rogue government takes control of a nation? History's worst serial killers have been governments that turned predator against segments of their own populations. The inability of innocent victims to defend themselves against their own governments cost the lives of over 170 million of the world's peoples in the 20th century alone.
In February 1915 a secret plan was made to eliminate Turkey's Armenian population. It was not difficult for the nation's new government to set these plans in motion because there were already gun control laws on the books requiring people to register their guns. With this ready information it was a simple task for the authorities to make house to house searches confiscating the weapons of the country's Armenian Christian minority. Homes were ransacked and people were tortured in order to take their arms. On June 26, 1915 the final part of the plan was put into motion. The government announced that all Armenians would be sent to remote camps. Armed guards rounded them up; most were women, children, the elderly and the handicapped. They were led over rough terrain and into the deserts where many dropped dead from heat and exhaustion. Fewer than 1 in 10 survived the march, only to be butchered in the end by their captors. The total count of the annihilated was 1,500,000 or three-fourths of the Armenian population of Turkey.
In the early 1930's while the rest of the world was being brainwashed into believing that the Soviet Union was a worker's paradise, in reality millions were being starved to death by their own government. Wanting to confiscate the grain from Ukraine to pay for industrial expansion, Stalin required that the farmers give up their land and move onto collective farms. Because of ten years of gun control laws, the farmers had no way to defend themselves when they were required to give up their land to the government. Millions of the most prosperous farmers were either sent to forced labor camps or were shot outright. With granaries full, some estimates show Stalin starved as many as 10 million people.
By 1935 the Nationalist government of China forbade the Chinese people to own firearms. This certainly didn't make the Chinese people safer when from 1942-44 four million people died from starvation when the government confiscated their crops. Another four million were tortured and murdered when they didn't want to join the military or were "uncooperative" soldiers. In 1937 hundreds of thousands of the women and children of Nanking were left defenseless against Japanese invaders because of gun control laws forbidding them to defend themselves. They were raped, buried alive, burned alive and forced to watch as their own organs were cut out of them. The worst was yet to come in 1949 when the Communist takeover brought about the murder of another 35 million Chinese. Some historians put the death toll by the Communists as high as 100 million. We can believe Chairman Mao when he told us that guns are the ultimate source of all political power.
Hitler was elected to power in January 1933. Because of gun control registration laws enacted 5 years earlier, Hitler already knew who owned the guns. Mass seizures of weapons would render the German people helpless. Hitler was to enact another gun control law in 1938. The very day after Kristallnacht, a Nazi-led night of lawlessness and murder against Jews, the Jews were forbidden by law to own a gun, a club, or any sharp-edged weapon. Rendered defenseless, and with census data and National ID Cards identifying who was Jewish, it was easy for the government to arrest the Jews and send them to concentration camps. Over 5 million Jews were slaughtered in these death camps. Many political opponents, pacifists, Slavs, Gypsies and others were also murdered during Hitler's regime. Nearly 21 million people perished under Hitler because they had been rendered defenseless by gun control laws.
The moment Pol Pot seized power in Cambodia in 1975 he set out to disarm the population. The people were totally unaware and defenseless against what was to come. The entire population of Cambodia was herded onto collective farms. The whole country was turned into one big concentration camp where people had no homes, no possessions and even no families. A kind word to a child could be a crime big enough to sentence someone to death. Pol Pot's vision of a Communist "utopia" called for the "purifying" of the country by eliminating religious leaders, monks, nuns, priests, preachers, the Vietnamese along with other "undesirable" ethnic groups, professionals and intellectuals. Even those who wore eyeglasses were marked for death. Pol Pot's goal was to decrease the population of Cambodia from 7 million to 1 million. Fortunately this brutal murderer was stopped before reaching his goal, but the death toll was still staggering. There were 2,035,000 innocents murdered. Gun control did not benefit the people of Cambodia.
World political leaders embraced the 1971 rise to power of Idi Amin in Uganda. Before Amin seized power, laws had been enacted that made it illegal for private citizens to own firearms. Amin immediately called for the slaughter of all soldiers whose loyalty he questioned. Over 16,000 men disappeared over the next few months. Amin said that his god told him to throw all the Asians out of the country. Then he said he was told to throw all the Englishmen out. Their lands and businesses were confiscated. Chaos broke out and in the end 300,000 innocents were brutally murdered in Uganda including a Supreme Court Justice who had dared to rule against Amin. Gun control did not bring peace to Uganda.
Gun control certainly wasn't a help to the defenseless Tutsis of Rwanda in 1994. Unarmed and with their own government advocating violence against them, in just 100 days 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered. The Minister of Defense who granted permission for gun permits and kept track of the gun registry was also the one who happened to be in charge of the killing campaign. To prevent victims from trying to escape the killings, roadblocks were set up and National ID Cards were checked to identify individuals who were marked for death just for simply being who they were.
Targeting innocents for elimination is not something from the past, but continues all over the world today in places like Tibet, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc. Mix together hatred, government and defenseless citizens and what do you get? Millions of innocents slaughtered. But at least this is happening in far away places to people who are different from us, right? It could never happen here.
As a nation, the United States has not been immune from targeting innocent people just for being who they are. In the 19th century up to 4 million Blacks were slaves and had no rights. America's early disarmament laws were targeted against only one race in order to keep them helpless. States carried laws that forbade even free Blacks from carrying firearms. Relations were also strained between Indians and Whites in early America. Both sides committed and accused the other of committing heinous crimes. Stripping the Indians of guns certainly didn't make them safer against the better-armed Whites. During the Second World War, 110,000 people, many of Japanese ancestry, were rounded up, disarmed and sent to camps here in America. Two-thirds of them were even American citizens. They had committed no crime, but being an American citizen didn't protect them. Just as in other countries, gun control laws in early America were used to target some minority groups and to render them helpless. But maybe gun control laws are working better in America today?
On October 16, 1991 at Luby's Cafe in Killeen, Texas, gun control laws had deadly consequences for 23 people who were murdered by a lone gunman. A young doctor was helpless to protect her parents from being murdered when during the killing spree she remembered that her gun was in her car because it was illegal for her to carry it in her purse. Gun control laws also proved fatal on the morning of August 23, 2000 for the Carpenter children who lived in a rural community in California. Even though all five Carpenter children knew how to shoot, California law requires that guns be locked away from them. The children were left defenseless against an intruder armed with a pitchfork. The doors and windows had been barricaded and the phone lines cut. The intruder started stabbing 14- year- old Anna when 9-year old Ashley drew him away. He began stabbing Ashley who died while yelling at her older sisters to go. The girls thought of the gun, but they couldn't get to it since it was locked away. The three oldest girls escaped and ran to beg a neighbor for his rifle. He said no because the government would take it away from him. Authorities were called and arrived five to ten minutes later. But it was too late for 9-year old Ashley who died from 138 pitchfork wounds and 7-year-old John William who died with 46 wounds.
When people accept being disarmed not only are they giving up their independence, but they become easy targets for criminals using even the simplest of weapons - a club, a pitchfork or even box-cutters. It's amazing how we are still not hearing the truth about gun control even after the murders of 9/11. How can the world not be asking the right questions about a system that allows thousands of people to die because they were rendered defenseless against thugs carrying only box-cutters!
What Communist dictator Mao Zedong said is true about political power coming through the barrel of a gun. That is why the American Bill of Rights contains the Second Amendment. Political power was to be in the hands of the people - not just government! Our founders knew their history. What made the U.S. different from every other country in the world was that self-defense was a RIGHT, not a privilege, of the people.
I hope that you will work with me, not only to make sure that no more gun control bills are passed by Congress, but that every unconstitutional gun law already on the books is repealed. The lives and property of all future generations are at stake. It is unthinkable that we should be a party to evil through our inaction.
"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. " (Luke 11:21, 22)
The figures above were taken from Innocents Betrayed by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms (JFPO). I hope every one of you will purchase a copy of this video and share this urgent message with family and friends!
© 2004 Debbie O'Hara - All Rights Reserved
