WARNING; this is a cut and paste for all of you who resent my posting of Ron Pauls articles. If you don't like cut and paste, don't read this article.
<hr> Texas Straight TalkA weekly column
Gun Control: Protecting Terrorists and Despots
Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands.
Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many?
India's gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.
Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society.
The fact is that firearm technology exists. It cannot be uninvented. As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those that wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Gun control makes violence safer and more effective for the aggressive, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or a government.
History shows us that another tragedy of gun laws is genocide. Hitler, for example, knew well that in order to enact his "final solution," disarmament was a necessary precursor. While it is not always the case that an unarmed populace WILL be killed by their government, if a government is going to kill its own people, it MUST disarm them first so they cannot fight back. Disarmament must happen at a time when overall trust in government is high, and under the guise of safety for the people, or perhaps the children. Knowing that any government, no matter how idealistically started, can become despotic, the Founding Fathers enabled the future freedom of Americans by enacting the second amendment.
In our own country, we should be ever vigilant against any attempts to disarm the people, especially in this economic downturn. I expect violent crime to rise sharply in the coming days, and as states and municipalities are even more financially strained, the police will be even less able or willing to respond to crime. In many areas, local police could become more and more absorbed with revenue generating activities, like minor traffic violations and the asset forfeiture opportunities of non-violent drug offenses. Your safety has always, ultimately been your own responsibility, but never more so than now. People have a natural right to defend themselves. Governments that take that away from their people should be highly suspect.
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Comments: 40
Excellent post! On this subject, I totally agree with Ron Paul and many like thinking others!
James, I agree with him as well. They will never get my weapons until after I am dead.
Thanks! Glad you're doing much better, and glad to see you back with us on Gather.
I put Ron Paul's articles because I trust the man to tell it like it is. So far he has not dissapointed me.
It is good to be back.
Ron Paul's been waiting for the shit to hit the fan for decades now. Sometimes it was encouraging people to prepare for "the coming race war in our big cities" (link), other times it was encouraging militia groups to prepare for war against the federal government (link. And sometimes it was passing on advice about the importance of remembering to wipe down and dispose of your unregistered weapon after shooting black kids (link.
I guess after his fairly-disastrous campaign for the Republican nomination, he figures he's got a new crowd of followers for his "Everybody grab your guns, because the killing's about to start!" messages. But for those of us who've been aware of Dr. Paul's....um, activities for some time now, this is just another verse in a very old and tired song.
I suggest you stay "Down Under" if you don't like what is going on here in the States.
I had the same kinds of problems on my old computer, Colonel. I started using Foxit Reader (link) to read PDF files and never had any problems with it. You might want to consider giving it a try.
"I suggest you stay "Down Under" if you don't like what is going on here in the States."
I didn't say anything about liking or not liking what's going on there in the States, Colonel. It sounds to me like Ron Paul is the one who doesn't like what's going on there, and what he thinks is going to be going on there in the near future. Maybe you ought to suggest that he find a country that's more to his liking. Switzerland, maybe?
Nothing in that article about a race war that I could see, however there are people in every race who think that they are superior to other races. So since the U.S. is the melting pot of the Earth, by no means would a race war surprise me.
"And sometimes it was passing on advice about the importance of remembering to wipe down and dispose of your unregistered weapon after shooting black kids (link."
I read that one as well. By all means, I'm far from an advocate of shooting black people, or any people for that matter indiscriminately. However can you deny that ' Hip Hop ' kids are performing carjacking? And just in case you happened to be a victim of carjacking, how would you respond?
It sure as hell would!
It certainly isn't just "hip hop" kids doing the carjacking. Kids in general and some who are no longer kids practice criminality. However, I'd want to state that there is no way I'd go after a carjacker with a gun to kill him! I damned well want to keep my guns and support the second amendment, but the use of a gun against another human is something I'd not like to contemplate. Only in self defense, no car is worth a human life.
I've had friends who were victims of carjacking and none of them got their gun out to set things right. I've had carjacking done to the fleet I managed. We got the vehicle back eventually, but it took months, and it had been repainted dirty black. Our police were able to eventually get the carjacker arrested and his operation closed down, at least until he gets out of prison.
Page 6, after that loooong bit about the dangers of the "New Money". Here's a quote:"However can you deny that ' Hip Hop ' kids are performing carjacking?"I lived for years in a major city shortly before Dr. Paul published this little item in his newsletter, and I never had any hip-hopping urban youths playing me like a piano, despite my whiteness. I lived in predominantly-white, predominantly-black, and predominantly-hispanic neighborhoods at various times, and no particular racial group had a monopoly on street crime. And as far Dr. Paul's "race war", my experience was that most street violence occurred within the different racial groups, rather than between them. But back then Ron Paul and his pals were working hard to convince their mostly-white, mostly-conservative subscribers that the black folks were coming for Whitey.
"And just in case you happened to be a victim of carjacking, how would you respond?"
I imagine I'd respond by first calling the cops, and then my insurance company.
That quote you gave was not penned by Ron Paul, Not his style of wrriting at all.
As my father before me, and his father before him, stated, they will pry my gun from my dead cold hands before I will EVER voluntarily give it up.
You're welcome.
"That quote you gave was not penned by Ron Paul, Not his style of wrriting at all."
I know there's been some questions about whether or not Ron Paul wrote all the material that appeared in his various newsletters or not. For nearly two decades he's chosen to protect whoever did write it, if it wasn't actually him. I wrote an article about it back at the beginning of the year. He very well may not have written all that stuff, but he signed his name to it, put it in his newsletter, and made a LOT of money from it all.
When a man points a weapon at you we are no longer talking about carjacking. That is threatening your life. For certain, do what you must do and protect yourself.
Why do you say that, George?
Personally, I think it's highly likely that his pal Lew Rockwell wrote a lot of the really racist and homophobic stuff. But it was deliberately done in a way to make it look like they were the words of Ron Paul, and he and his family profited from it.
In any case, the man has been saying that the sky is falling for so long now, that I honestly can't take this kind of stuff seriously any more.
If you choose to live in fear, and if your gun makes you feel a little better, that's up to you. I choose not to live in fear, and at the moment I don't need a gun to feel safe.
Charles, I guess you will still have the right to self defense but you will have to go up against a gun without one if they get their way. Nice for the thief or robber, not so nice for the honest citizen.
OK, George.
Here's what I think about our esteemed legislators taking away the 2nd Amendment. The Supreme Court, in the recent District of Columbia v Heller, acknowledged that the 2nd Amendment isn't unlimited, which still leaves plenty of room for various forms of gun-control legislation. Although since it's not clear exactly where the line is drawn between constitutional and unconstitutional gun control legislation, the Supreme Court may get other opportunities to rule on 2nd Amendment issues in the future.
The Heller decision was 5-4. I believe that the dissenting opinions were much stronger, but the stronger argument doesn't always get the numbers. That's the way it goes. This time. With new cases, and a few new Justices, things might go a bit differently at some point in the future. After all, it's just a single vote away.
Ooops...I missed that part. Thanks Wilbur. Whoever actually wrote that as a loose cannon indeed.
I agree, Tim. As I said earlier, my guess is that it was actually written by Lew Rockwell or one of Dr. Paul's other radical libertarian pals. But Ron Paul is the one who took credit for it. And made money from it.