Is That Legal?

To be entirely fair, Eric, the 60,000 Jews then left in the Warsaw ghetto had approximately 750 guns. So armed, they held out against several thousand well-armed and well-trained German troops from April 19, 1943 until May 16, 1943.

It must be remembered that a major precipitating cause of the uprising was the deportation to 200,000 Jews from the ghetto to Treblinka. While those 750 guns did not, ultimately, save the remaining Warsaw Jews from the concentration camps, they did give them a month as free people that they would otherwise never have known. In addition, the spirit of self-sufficiency and independence among Jews manifest in and furthered by the uprising certainly contributed to the founding of the nation of Israel.

All of that said, it is not clear to me that what appears to be a correct observation that German Jews might have fared better (or at least, might have resisted more effectively) had they been armed is terribly relevant to current gun-control debates.

Kopel's argument is astonishing in its mendacity. It implies, among many other equally appalling consequences, that Nazism can be prevented by having some handguns. Did Kopel ever hear about a tank? Did he ever hear about the Gestapo? The Warsaw ghetto would have ended exactly the same way with each Jewish fighter having a machine gun.

Handguns are a simplistic solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It's no solution to any existing solution. It doesn't even stop one-on-one crime.

Ah yes, it does make gun deals rich at the cost of a Holocaust in the US.

I've always thought that if you are going to go down, best to do so following a fight; make the other guys pay; and let the world remember your deeds. Simply standing up and fighting, if there are enough of you, can do the trick. The French Army, for instance, had more than adequate numbers to repulse the Germans in 1939, even given the German deep penetration into the French rear. But it took the will to fight, as well as the weapons. The French had the weapons, but their will was broken and they gave in. The Jews of the Warsaw ghetto held out and made life very tough on the Nazis. Had they been somewhat better armed, they might have inflicted another Leningrad on Hitler. It is possible for a numerically inferior force to hold out for a long period of time in an urban area, if they are decently armed with light weapons, and possess sufficient resolve and local knowledge permitting them to hold out. Tanks don't work well in cities, so it's all light infantry work, and light infantrymen can indeed be taken out by pistols, by ambushes inside houses, and by improvised weapons.

Kopel's "mendacity" probably reflects his knowledge of the Balkans, where a prickly and well armed citizenry, at least those who weren't Ustachi collaborators, gave the Nazis fits, tying down over a dozen divisions. This is ten more divisions than the Nazis thought they'd need to subdue the region, and it tied up these troops at a critical time, when the German army was within artillery range of the Kremlin. It also tied them up for the length of the war, again keeping perhaps 150,000 troops, including two or three highly capable SS divisions, out of combat with the Western & Russian main combat forces. The effort to break the Stalingrad encirclement failed within 6 miles of German lines. Do you think 150,000 troops including 3 SS divisions might have made a difference there? The partisans tied up the Nazis in the Balkans using light weapons only, and some occasional bits of captured or air dropped high explosive.

Loathe as I am to defend David Kopel (his Andrea Yates post made my skin crawl), I think there is a more subtle, valid point to his argument.

One of the things that I'm being taught over here in Germany is how the Nazis used the rule of law to their own ends. Nothing they did was against the law in Germany because they wrote the laws to enable their actions.

I think there might be a fair point that laws that restrict the ability to defend oneself could potentially present a similar problem, where the "legality" (gun laws) is on one end of the spectrum, and the just result (ability to defend against tyranny) is on the other.

So I think it's worth a caution to make sure that the US government doesn't accidentally track the same pattern, using the rule of law to undermine liberties.

Where I would part from Kopel is believing that US-style gun regulation is already analogous in its socially-destructive capacity as similar Nazi regulation, but I'm open to considering the view that PERHAPS it might have a canary-in-the-mine dynamic (although probably not to the same extent that he thinks it's a harbinger).

I'm not sure if Warsaw is the right analogy here; a lot depends on whether Kristallnacht was seen by the particpants as a state action for which they would be obliged to risk their lives, or as a bunch of good old fashioned jew-bashing fun and games, where all but the inner-core would scarper at the first sign of danger.

By Kristallnacht itself it was probably too late for self-defense to achieve much beyond buying time. Earlier on, especially before the reoccupation of the Rhineland, it could have been more effective.

I think every jewish person since 1933 has thought of six million conterfactuals for what might have happened. None can ever change what did.

The racist Nazi law in question restricted gun ownership by Jews. Setting aside the absurdities already pointed out, I can't see how this can be used as an argument that all citizens must have an unfettered right to arm themselves to the teeth. Is that really going to help minorities to defend themselves?

This website shows the racist roots of gun control and how restricting guns for blacks, before and after the Civil War, was among the highest priorities of racist whites.

http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html

In reference to Hitler, Switzerland was not invaded by the Nazis, despite the Nazi army being maybe twice the entire population of the country. And yet the Swiss did not give in. All of the able-bodied males in Switzerland were part of the militia, and most of them owned guns. Someone asked a Swiss why they were so brazen in the face of a potential blitzkrieg, but he responded that the solution to beating an army twice your whole size was "shoot twice and go home."

Darned Warsaw Jews. Why did they have to put up a fight and make things so inconvenient for the Nazis? Couldn't they just die quietly like the other 6 million?

Congrats on reaching a new low -- "why bother?" as a defense of the holocaust.

What's next, "The Turner Diaries" as a book-of-the-month club recommended reading item?