Really? How did that work in the Balkans only a few years ago? Germany really nipped that ethnic cleansing in the bud right? No. It was, once again, the Americans having to take care of it.

An American would ask what the benefit is of making guns illegal.  By definition, people who shoot other people are breaking the law. So how does that help law abiding citizens?

I don't own a gun. But I don't worry that my law abiding neighbors are going to come over and shoot me. 

Do you worry about being knifed in Germany? Knives are legal right? But people get stabbed. Would making knives illegal make stabbings disappear?

As an objective outsider, I can tell you that they are right and you are wrong. The second amendment IS a very sensible thing today. It was a very sensible thing in the past, it will be very sensible in the future.

You make up condenscending explanations why "they cannot objectively and reasonably see why it is wrong", where you are in the wrong.

I have lived in many countries, and I never again want to live where the citizens do not have access to arms.

You completely sidestepped the fact that ethnic cleansing just took place in Europe just a decade ago.

I mean, on the one hand, you admit that refugees can't go back home (because they'd be exterminated) at the same time that you say that genocide in the EU is highly unlikely.

 

Being generally armed has never been a principle as far as I know. Except for switzerland maybe - there everybody has a gun in the closet. It is not as if the Nazis disarmed the populace that they wanted to kill and then rounded them up. In that sense, it is sort of a moot question of "what if..?", it all has to remain speculation because it just was not the case. It is similarly speculative to elaborate wether something like the Holocaust would be possible in the US where everybody could be potentially armed. Did you forget that you had slavery in your own country? Or that civil rights for minorities are not really all that old in the making? I would be careful to imply that access to weapons is the one factor that makes the difference.

The balkan issue. I am sorry, that claim is correct. I did sidestep it - I realized that when I had turned my computer off but then I was already too tired. And honestly, thinking about genocide and Nazi war crimes is not very pleasant. The holocaust was madness with a perfected method.. I don't think that will be repeated anytime soon in the same way. If you think about it - the logistical level of organization needed to do what they did, the cold detached industrialized way of going about killing millions, that is just not.. I don't even know if it is possible grasp it. That same sort of genocide will not happen again. What happened during the civil war in Yugoslavia does not fall into that same category that the holocaust is in. It was horrible, and there was no way to stop it. The UN forces watched helplessly because they did not have the mandate to engage when not attacked themselves - just to watch. What can you do? The only realistic goal that is achievable is to be responsible for Germany never doing something like that again. And for that, I am certain. And also not in the EU. It is quite a unique construct - do you realize that this is the first time for major western European countries like Germany and France to not have had a war in almost every generation? it has been 64 years, and soon the last veterans will all have died of old age.  The memberstates of the EU vow to never attack other memberstates and to maintain peace - and that is also the first time in European history that that happeend.

They would not be exterminated - sorry I was too unspecific again. Bosnia has been parted into 3 parts, one serbian, one muslim and one croatian - but not really according to where the majority of the groups had lived. The Dayton agreement says that everybody can go home, but the reality is that it is almost impossible due to bureaucratic bricks always thrown in the way. They would not start exterminating each other. It was not the Gestapo alone, the colaboration or silent condonement was unbelievably huge, as mentioned above. This part of history has only begun to be researched, because no one wanted to admit to colaboration. Francois Mitterand, former French president, had been a member of the vichy regime under the Nazis when he was young, and it was forbidden to speak of the Vichy schmoozing with the Nazis. They had built this myth that everybody was inthe resistance.. as if.

You know, I never actually said that the 2nd amendment had to be abolished, just that one should be able to question it without being crucified. Hell, the result could very well be that the 2nd amendment is constitutive for the american mentality, that guns made the settlement of the whole continent possible (gotta be able to defend yourself when you're all alone after all), and therefore play a huge role in american culture and identity and as such, the 2nd amendment can't be dismissed. Or something like that. My own oppinion about the usefulness of guns has nothing to do with that debate.

Yes, the temptation is undoubtedly there. But I am still not personally convinced that owning guns really levels the playingfield that much.

Well, don't take the happy pills passed out by the government in that case..

Dear taltamir, if you believe that the 2nd amendmend is a very sensible thing today, has been in the past and will be in the future, then you should be able to make that argument and explain why that is so without becoming condescending yourself. That is the point I try to make, not that your opinion is wrong.

I picked the 2nd amendmend as an example because it is an issue that everybody feels strongly about and because it came up in the course of this topic. But the same problem I have with the way this debate is held applies to almost every other political issue. Brad himself mentioned the militancy of certain environmentalist groups, and that is just the same problem. Certain environmentalist groups don't argue rationally with you, they condemn you if you have another opinion. Take capital punishment, education, welfare, healthcare (oh my), and you'll find the same pattern. People are not even willing to listen to each others arguments - instead you have your respective popular ideological political TV shows and talk radio where prominent figures discredit and ridicule each other. (And that is considered journalism... seriously? Parts of the US media resemble a circus IMO) I am not deadset on my oppinion about the 2nd amendment (after all, I am not a US citizen), and I didn't try to argue my point - it should be allowed to question wether the 2nd amendment is still up to date for the modern US society - by ridiculing someone elses oppinion. And that seems to be the prevalent tactic used. Simply put, I criticized the method of arguing, not the different oppinion itself. 

Yes, you  have. That ability seems to be a rare commodity though. And that's exactly what I find so annoying, because most americans I asked reacted way too forcefully and emotionally when talking about politics, especially the 2nd amendment though. And the war on terror, I won't touch that one with a 10 ft pole lol. That one is even worse, though it might have changed during the last few years. I haven't really tried to engange a conversation about that after some futile first attempts that ended with me being asked incredulously "Do you want the terrorists to kill you?" It left me speechless and that was it. Reason just went out the window and we talked about the weather instead. Sacramento is either hot or rainy or windy.. and it does have a lot of trees.

 

Thank you for clarifying.

Huh, I watched that little feature. It is quite educational. I never implied that having stricter gun laws would automatically lead to less violent crimes. I don't think I actually said anything about altering any laws at all. Questioning parts of the constitution, which is from the 18th century after all, to find out wether it still aplies for the modern society or not does not automatically mean advocating a change. The right to bear arms is so deeply embedded in american culture that it would not really make that much of a difference. I doubt that stricter gun laws would keep those who feel that it is their constitutional right from having them anyway. But to me this infatuation with the right to bear arms is absolutely linked with deeply rooted paranoia. I would claim that paranoia is also part of the american cultural identity. I am more interested in the sociological and cultural reason why that is so, the humanities side of things, and would lobby to have a public debate so people would actually know why guns are so important, aside from the old "if someone robbs your house, would you rather have a gun or a phone" or "what do you do if someone with a knife attacks you"and "gotta be able to defend yourself against anybody who threatens you". Maybe it is too academic and intellectual, but it is important to see things in cultural and historic context to understand them fully. It would certainly be educational for some. 

I already said it, but this argument has been used by others I talked with so I am just gonna repeat it once more. Nazi Germany is not an example that fits the bill to promote the right to bear arms because most civilians in Germany weren't armed to begin with, THAT is a historic fact, weapons did not play any cultural role in society compareable to the US, the german military did. (one should keep ww1 in mind and the restrictive laws in the treaty of versailles) Regular people were generally not privately armed,* and thus the hypothetsis that IF the persecuted people had been armed then events would have been different can't be used. The argument lacks historic accuracy. Besides, it is illogical to argue for something based on a situation that you can only refer to in the subjunctive.

It is just not viable to justify laws by refering to historic situations that did not exist, or to simply apply circumstances and historic events/developments from one society to another, like "holocaust in the US" and to argue that something like that would not be possible in the US because the people would defend themselves. You cannot disregard the historic, sociological, ideological and cultural context from WW2 in europe/Germany - all of which are totally different in the US - and argue that something similiar like WW2 and the warcrimes and genocide commited in it would never happen in the US by using the american cultural context to refute the idea. In essence, it did not happen in the US and that is why you can't use the american culture and mentality and simply apply it to WW2 in Europe to make some sort of hypothetical argument for an issue that is important for the contemporary american culture and society. I hope that was understandable - 

* I tried to find statistics for private gunownership during the Weimarar Republik and Deutsches Reich before 1914 and after 1933 but I was unsuccessful, so I am not actually able to prove what I said is true.

Are you kidding me? it is ILLEGAL to own guns in 8 states (now that the newyork ban was found unconstitutional... finally), it is illegal to own guns within X miles of a school, church, or airport (there isn't a single square INCH in my city where it is legal to own a gun because of those three limitations), it is illegal to bring guns to restaurants or liquir stores or many other places...

The was no law like the 2nd amendmend ever in any constitution. I was thinking why that was the case and well, the US was a colony and Europe wasn't. Here you had established "states" ,kingdoms and little principalities, free cities etc and in Prussia at least a strong military. Prussians were very proud or their military and to be in the military or to wear a uniform in general. Most regions in central Europe are densly populated and there was no need to be able to form a militia or to defend yourself (2nd amendment).  It is completely different from the history of the US where people were trying to become independant and had to fight with their mother colonoy for it. Revolution in Germany was the opposite - people wanted to unite all the little countries and states to have one german nation-state. The  first time Deutsches Reich existed was in 1871. (see graphic below - by 1789 the US was already a republic with 13 states while most of what is germany today was looking like a crazy patchwork blanket)

 

 

As you can see, the historic developments in Europe are very different from the US. It is implausible to assume something like "Had they been armed" because they weren't. The gun laws that were passed after WW1 were not meant to disarm the civilian population but to disarm the militias (Freikorps) that sprung into existence after 1918. Those were mostely nationalsocialist militias, precursors of the SS and SA. You can't really blame the Weimarer Republik administration(s) for not wanting those to be armed. They had weapons that were leftover from WW1, and the militias consisted mostely of soldiers that were angry that Germany had been forced to sign the treaty of Versailles, taking the whole blame for WW1.

To come back to your first question, yes and no, but mostly to the negative. Yes, if the people had been armed maybe things would have been different. This is pure speculation though. The historic development shows that it just was never something that was overly important. The revolution of 1848 was about  bringing all the different countries together to form one german nation and to have civil liberties and rights - it was never about the right to bear arms. Nobody can really say for sure how history and society would have had developed HAD everybody been armed and it is too simple to assume that weapons alone would have been enough to stop the Holocaust. The history of Antisemitism is also fairly complex, and I just read yesterday in the paper that it wasn't until after WW2 that ivy league universities in the US accepted Jews on a regular basis. You had your own share of antisemitsm in US history - according to the author of that article at least, Robert B. Goldmann, a free journalist from NY.

To your second question, americans had been wary of their government and too much power for it even before WW2, right? It is part of your history, having to fight off an opressive british colonial force automatically lead to the conclusion that your own form of government should never be in the same position to be that powerful. So, I would say that you can use it as an example, but that even if you don't you'd still be wary of too powerful governments. I doubt that similar developments that lead up to WW2 and the rise of fascism could happen in similar fashion in the US, but you also know that other things that opressed and killed people did happen during US history, so your government was quite capable of cruelty itself. Is it too low of a blow to call what happened to the Native Americans and First Nation tribes as genocide? Running them off their own lands, breaking every treaty, forcing them into reservations, the indian wars, trail of tears etc. I read somewhere that president Jackson was the closest thing the US had to a dictator. Or McCarthyism and the witchhunt for communists in the 50ies,  that was sort of opressive and dictatorial of the government, wasn't it? And now the fight against terrorism and the Patriot Act gave more power to the government than you would normally deem good or sensible - so  Nazigermany isn't really the only example that can be used to show what can happen in opressive regimes.

What made the Nazis so devious was that they managed to insert their ideology and the power of their party into every aspect of daily life. You couldn't really seperate private life and official ideology and propaganda after a while. Everybody was in the party and everybody was a nazi to some degree. If you were german, it wasn't really a bad thing most of the time, you had a job or took someone else's job that just disappeared, your kids had fun with the Hitler Youth going camping and learning how to be a soldiers while playing games, the economy was thriving finally again after the big global financial crisis in the 20ies and the germans were finally able to feel good about themselves again. And the Nazis weren't obviously opressive right from the start. That is the true danger one should always be wary about, underhanded propaganda that influences you without you noticing. And I would say that some of that exists in certain areas of the US - for example certain evangelical denominations work with similiar methods of propaganda (I watched Jesus Camp a while ago and I found it truly spooky to see that. The film has no commentary and just shows some of what is happening), and I am sure othere groups do as well. It does not happen at federal or state level, it is not something the government does, but it still influences whole communities.

Robert B Goldmann: Antisemitism in America (translated from german)

In the beginning of June, a security guard was killed in an attack on the Holocaust museum in DC. The perpetrator, James von Brunnen, is 88 years old and a known antisemite and holocaust negator, even though he fought for the US in WW2. The media discribed von Brunnen as a "white extremist". Afroamerican commentator Bob Herbert managed to write a column in the New York Times that was only about white racism and the black securityguard. In contrast, anti-semitism was not mentioned at all, eventhough it is also a part of american history.

There is evidence for that from all different walks of life. In 1915 Leo Frank, a jewish businessman from Georgia, was accused of a crime against a young girl and lynched by a antisemitic mob. In regard to smokestack industries, only a few jews are in leading positions to this day. When Irving Shapiro became chief executive of Dupont industries in 1973 it was all over the front pages because up to that day no jew had risen that high in Dupont. 50 years ago ivy league universities Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia only enrolled a few jews. Talented jewish highschool graduates attended normally state universities. 1916 was the first time that a jewish judge Louis D. Brandeis was appointed to the supreme court.

Since the civil rights movement started, the upper middleclass, renowned universities, philanthropic societies and leading media view society in a new perspective: instead of "e pluribus unum", America became multicultural - multilingual with 2 officially recognized minorities. It is not PC to criticize that. But even in the US, one should take the sentences to heart that were said by Necla Kelek about Germany: "We are a cultural pluralistic society, whose cooperation stems from value related commonalities and not from a sequence of multicultural parallel worlds."

European, indian and new immigrants from the far east follow the example of early immigrants and assimiliate. That does not mean that they forget their own traditions and rituals. But they do become americans - without pulling a hyphenated heritage along. In the american multicultural society, official agencies and businesses offer spanish as a language to conduct affairs in, and certain public announcements are publicized in chinese. America turns into a nation of selfmade Ghettos. In this society, integrated jews are exposed to the hatred of neonazis. 

When president Obama visited Buchenwald and commemorated the victims of the Nazi genocide, he had very clear words when he spoke of the 6 million murdered jews. He spoke of the source of the catastrophy, Antisemitism. What happend shortly thereafter in the holocaust museum in DC deserves similar clear and strong words. Sadly, that is missing in the public debate.

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I did not mention everything that could be said in this debate in comment 70. It would take too long and too much space and probably wound wind up novellength - not to speak of all the true research and citation of sources Id want to do in order to make a cohesive argument that would stand up to peer review. If you are interested in more, I can go on..

Also, check out Hannah Arendt and her book "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil" in regard to this whole debate. Article on wikipedia