Georgia Rep. Issues Warning on National Security Force, Gun Ban
Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008
In the wake of Barack Obama’s sweeping victory, at least one Congressman is warning of things to come. Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia has told the Associated Press he considers Obama a dangerous Marxist who may act on his promise to organize a domestic national security force on par with the U.S. military. “That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
On July 2 in Colorado Springs, Obama said he intends to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps. In addition, he said it is mandatory the U.S. create “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military. The U.S. Army currently stands at 500,000 troops.
Last week, Obama’s Office of the President-Elect website announced it would implement a plan designed to “require” citizens to work in community service programs, including senior citizens. In response to criticism of this plan, primarily on the web and blogosphere, the text on the site was reworded and the word “require” was removed.
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“I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism,” said Broun.
In 1966, for example, the communist leader Mao Zedong mobilized radicalized youth into the Red Guards to attack his political rivals, including his chosen successor, Liu Shaoqi. In addition to burning books, destroying museums, temples, and heritage sites deemed counter-revolutionary, Mao’s youthful Red Guards killed more than 30 million people. The Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin was notorious for launching purges against his political enemies. Estimates of the number of deaths associated with the Great Purge totaled nearly 2 million, although under Stalin over 23 million people lost their lives, most during the engineered Ukrainian famine.
Rep. Broun believes an Obama administration may move to ban gun ownership as it builds a national security force.
As Dave Kopel writes for the Second Amendment Project, “the best testimony to the power of an armed populace is the vigor with which the Warsaw Pact dictatorships enforced gun control. When the Communists took over Bulgaria on September 9, 1944, they immediately confiscated every weapon in private possession.” East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania followed suit. “The dictatorship of Nicolai Ceausescu used registration lists to confiscate all firearms in private hands.” writes Kopel. In Hungary, Laszlo Rajk, the Communist Minister of the Interior, ordered the dissolution of all pistol and hunting clubs, as well as of other organizations which might prove a threat to government power. Ceausescu went so far as to register typewriters.
In 1938, Hitler enacted the Nazi Weapons Law (Waffengesetz) permitting only Nazis and their friends the right to own and carry weapons, especially handguns. As Joyce Rosenwald explains, the Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938 serves as the blueprint for gun controls laws today in America.
“We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential.”
According to the Associated Press, Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors “common sense” gun laws. “Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he’ll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.”
