Gunfight on every streetcorner

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 21, 1999

THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz

A gunfight on every streetcorner?

In response to my July 11 column, pointing out there were no serial

killings in Santa Clara, California over the Fourth of July weekend thanks

to an armed gun-store employee who was able to put a stop to a would-be mass

murderer's rampage before it got started, one B.R. wrote in, asserting:

"So, if'n we arm everyone, we can have real Viet Cong type snipers and

fire fights every Time we get a hankerin. ..."

I replied:

# # #

Greetings, B.R. --

In Switzerland, every head of household -- being a member of the militia

-- is expected to keep a machine gun in his home. No one pretends this

right and duty has anything to do with fending off bears or Wild Indians

... or even "legitimate sporting use" (a phrase coined by Joseph Goebbels.)

Yet firefights are notably rare in that extremely peaceful, modern

industrial nation.

Before 1912, when there was no "gun control" in this nation and machine

guns could be purchased through the mail, foreign visitors found America

one of the most peaceful and polite nations on earth -- a condition which

six decades of "gun control" and the accompanying Cult of the Omnipotent

State are now, finally, beginning to destroy.

In Germany and elsewhere in Eastern Europe in the 1920s, most citizens --

notably including the Jews -- tried to prove they were "law-abiding" by

turning in their firearms as required by law. Many of them found cause to

regret that decision in the years immediately after 1939. In desperation

and at incalculable expense, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto did finally

fight a two-month rebellion against their armed oppressors. (Why is it

those who say they "want to get rid of all the guns" can only laugh at our

silliness when we propose that they start by disarming their own government

police? Can it be they don't really mean (start ital)everyone(end ital)

would give up their guns, at all -- that they instead mean to duplicate

here the government (start ital)monopoly(end ital) on arms which prevailed

in Nazi-occupied Europe from 1939 to 1945?)

Starting on April 19, 1943 (a date which Janet Reno and Bill Clinton

decided to commemorate quite remarkably in 1993), those residents of the

Warsaw ghetto launched a hopeless rebellion with only 14 rifles and fewer

than 50 pistols. (You can still read all about in Leon Uris' great novel,

"Mila 18.") That rebellion nonetheless proved to the world that -- pushed

to the limit -- Jews (start ital)could(end ital) fight to defend their

children and their culture from utter extinction, and fight with nearly

superhuman zeal. It was, in great measure, that demonstration which made

thinkable the birth of the sovereign modern nation of Israel, in 1948.

(And here we find another nation, by the way -- like peaceful Switzerland

-- where no one has to worry any longer about children being shot up by

terrorists or madmen in the schools. And why not? Because the Israelis

finally wised up and issued their teachers semi-automatic pistols, at which

point terrorism in Israeli schools stopped overnight. Oh, sorry, was I not

supposed to bother your with any inconvenient facts?)

Are you saying you believe the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto had no right to

revolt against those who had imposed "gun control" upon them -- and who

were starving their children, raping their women, shipping off hundreds of

thousands of their neighbors and family members to the extermination camps,

and otherwise casually shooting them down in the streets like dogs? That if

you had it in your power, you would see to it that they started their

revolt with (start ital)fewer(end ital) than 14 rifles and a few dozen

pistols?

If I had it in my power to go back to that time and place and carry along

one thing, I would take them a .30-caliber Browning machine gun, and as

many loaded ammo belts as I could carry.

Instead, I can only strive to prevent it all from happening again ... here.

For what are you willing to dedicate your life? To see this becomes a

nation of disarmed slaves, subject to the whim of an armed, para-military

police force? If so, then I am glad to discover I have finally found the

person for whom I was long ago entrusted with a message. It was you, it

turns out, whom Samuel Adams was addressing when he said, at the

Philadelphia State House on August 1, 1776:

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude

better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We

ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed

you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye

were our countrymen."

You -- the smug, fascist toadie.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas

Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the

Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6

UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box

271122, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127. The 500-page trade paperback may also be

ordered via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at

1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.

***

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John

Hay, 1872

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and

thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series

of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

* * *

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have subscribed to vinsends@ezlink.com and you wish to unsubscribe,

send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your OLD address, including

the word "unsubscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line.

To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your

NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks)

in the "Subject" line.

All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns

until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and

that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their

entirety, preserving the original attribution.

The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be

reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz

column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and

http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth

in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com.