Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Twelve Million Cold, Dead Hands
On Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson sat for an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer (the relevant exchange begins at 6:48):
Carson’s views were quickly highlighted (and distorted) by liberal media, with headlines such as:
- “Ben Carson Says Guns May Have Stopped Holocaust” [BBC]
- “Ben Carson Suggests Holocaust Would Have Been Less Likely If Jews Were Armed” [ABC]
- “Ben Carson Blames Holocaust On Gun Control” [Huffington Post]
- “Ben Carson Says Holocaust Would Have Been ‘Greatly Diminished’ if Jews Had Guns” [TIME]
- “Ben Carson Suggests Holocaust Might Have Been Stopped If Jewish People Had Guns” [The Independent]
- “Ben Carson Says Gun Control To Blame For Holocaust” [Telegraph]
The Anti-Defamation League also weighed in. “Ben Carson has a right to his views on gun control, but the notion that Hitler’s gun-control policy contributed to the Holocaust is historically inaccurate,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the organization. “The small number of personal firearms available to Germany’s Jews in 1938 could in no way have stopped the totalitarian power of the Nazi German state.”
Maybe not. But I once met a German Holocaust survivor who said that his biggest regret was that he complied with the law when Jewish gun ownership was outlawed. Never, he said, would he go unarmed again.
Survivors who migrated to Palestine shared this sentiment. Syrian Arab attacks on Jewish settlements prompted the formation of the Jewish self-defense league, or Haganah, which evolved into the modern-day Israel Defense Forces. Palestinian Jews would seek peace, but if necessary, they would defend themselves — with guns. This ethos is central to the modern State of Israel.
Today Israel finds itself in a new wave of Palestinian Arab terrorism. Hour by hour, there is news across the country of murders and attempted murders with guns, with stones, with firebombs, with knives, with screwdrivers, with vegetable peelers. In many cases, security personnel with guns were nearby and were able to respond quickly. In others, responses were longer in coming.
It’s important to note, though, that Israeli notions of self-defense have been collective rather than individual. To own a gun for self-defense, Jewish Israelis must meet strict permitting requirements, which include a demonstration of need. Anyone granted a permit is allowed only a single firearm. So it’s noteworthy that Israeli attitudes may be changing. Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem — who tackled a terrorist himself earlier this year — is encouraging Jewish residents of his city with permits to carry their weapons all the time. “One advantage that Israel has is that there are quite a few ex-members of military units with operational combat experience…. Possessing weapons increases the confidence of residents, who know that in addition to police there are many people who are not afraid to intervene. If we look at the statistics in Jerusalem and elsewhere, we see that aside from the police, civilians carrying weapons have foiled terror attacks. They will increase the likelihood of fast intervention.”
This proactive approach security has a respectable pedigree in Jewish history and theology. “If one comes to kill you, arise and kill him first,” exhorts the Talmud (BT Sanhedrin 72a), and gives examples of rabbis who did just that (BT Berakhot 58a). The rabbinic tradition understands — as did the authors of the Declaration of Independence — that we are all born with God-given rights to life and liberty. And moreover, that those rights are meaningless without the further right to forcibly resist those who seek to murder or enslave us. None of us, Jew or gentile, is required to be a victim.
Ben Carson, in his defense of gun rights, appears to understand this well. Unfortunately, the elites at the heights of journalism, government, and culture — our President among them — appear not to. Perhaps someday they will learn. In the meantime, those of us who truly value freedom will continue to cling to our guns and defend our right to keep them. Because without them, the phrase “Never again” is not much more than an empty slogan.
Published in Guns, History
True—the synagogues that were burned on Kristallnacht were the ones that were not adjacent to gentile property. On the other hand, while Jews (in Germany specifically) started out in mixed buildings, they were later, they were moved to “Jew Houses” and later deported to what they thought were going to be work assignments “in the East.” As mentioned, the fictions were often elaborately maintained (flower boxes on the gas chambers, music, postcards sent home from camp to relatives who would be reassured, and not suspect that their loved ones were already dead).
No—I’m just saying that it sounds easier in every way than it actually was. Ever since I was a little girl, learning about the Holocaust from parents and books, I’ve tried to imagine myself resisting, fighting, being Danish or being Sophie Scholl, who died bravely, beheaded at nineteen by the Nazis for her anti-Nazi activities… and, as mentioned, I don’t think such fantasies are completely useless. They help to reinforce ones own self-identity as a person with purpose and agency, someone who can and will endure hardship, face horror, and fight injustice.
All I’m saying is that I don’t believe that guns in the hands of Germany’s Jews would have been the one thing that could have made a difference. In fact, if Hitler had ONLY taken the guns away, and left everything else intact, the Jews would have had a much better chance of standing up to him. But Hitler was astonishingly adept at exploiting existing fissures in the body politic, and grooming both his victims and his collaborators (that is, broadly speaking, the gentiles of Germany, and later of France, Holland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia) for this unprecedented crime. Again, this is the only feature of his make-up I would call “genius.” By the time his goons were actually dragging people away, so many sources of human strength and resistance had been crushed. And I am not hubristic enough to imagine that, given the same circumstances, I would have been able to realize what was going on, or resist any better or longer than they.
IMHO, what would have made a difference? Dramatically relaxed immigration in the 1930s, when it was obvious that Jewish life in Germany was becoming untenable. And, of course, an early and aggressive response to Germany’s war-mongering, rock-solid support for the integrity of Czechoslovakia, a strong response to the occupation of the Rhineland, etc. etc. In other words, stopping/defeating Hitler sooner rather than later.
Given the war, it would have helped had the citizens of the Netherlands and France actively resisted the persecution of the Jews. While the gentile civilians in Poland and Ukraine (et al) had their own native anti-Semitism, they were also treated so brutally that it was much more difficult for them to put up a principled resistance even had they wished to. The Italians, despite Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler, were never very enthusiastic about the Holocaust, and thus many more Italian Jews survived. But in general, survival generally depended on factors beyond the control of any individual Jew or Jewish family, armed or otherwise. Which countries were willing to take in refugees? Were those countries later to fall under the Nazi yoke? How much money was available, to pay exorbitant exit fees? Did you happen to have a relative already living in New York or London? Were you or your relatives healthy enough to travel? Did the information available—rumors, myths, newspaper stories, clandestine BBC reports—support staying put or leaving? Which of the occasionally very mixed signals sent by the regime should be believed?
German gentiles who maintained friendships with Jews, and decried Hitler and the Nazis—ironically served to persuade some that the “real” Germany would soon assert itself, boot Hitler out and restore at least the status quo ante.
Seriously—if you read deeply and humbly into this history, it becomes harder and harder to imagine that there was or, for that matter, is an obvious, easy way for vulnerable people (and we’re all vulnerable people) to resist a serious evil. We have to try of course, playing whatever cards we’re dealt as intelligently, rationally and honorably as we can. But the Holocaust was not a Jewish failure—not of courage, not of reason, not of common sense and not of equipment. The Holocaust was a German failure, a Gentile failure, a Christian failure. Why don’t we ask whether the German Christians should have resisted Hitler via political will if possible, by armed force if necessary? (My answer? Yes.)
Right. And never, ever sleep.
Kate Braestrum…”Seriously—if you read deeply and humbly into this history, it becomes harder and harder to imagine that there was or, for that matter, is an obvious, easy way for vulnerable people (and we’re all vulnerable people) to resist a serious evil. We have to try of course, playing whatever cards we’re dealt as intelligently, rationally and honorably as we can. But the Holocaust was not a Jewish failure—not of courage, not of reason, not of common sense and not of equipment. The Holocaust was a German failure, a Gentile failure, a Christian failure. Why don’t we ask whether the German Christians should have resisted Hitler via political will if possible, by armed force if necessary? (My answer? Yes.)”
I don’t think it *was* a specifically Jewish failure, and I don’t think Carson was saying that it was. Absolutely, Christian and other Germans should have resisted as well, and I think armed resistance by Jews or anyone else, on a significant scale, would have sparked considerable resistance by others.
BTW, I have read that the Social Democratic government of Prussia gave serious consideration to using its powerful police force against the unconstitutional Nazi takeover of its state government. Too bad they didn’t.
Also…agree that no one should think that armed resistance, or any other resistance, was easy.
The best description of what happened in Germany between the wars is the memoir by Sebastian Haffner, who grew up there during that period. I reviewed it here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11181.html#more-11181
Kate, I don’t see anyone suggesting that the Holocaust was a Jewish failure. Specifically regarding Carson’s gun control remarks, to say that disarming the Jewish population was wrong is not to say that Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves by complying. (On Twitter, I’ve seen numerous left-wing writers pick up on the spurious idea that Carson’s remarks are objectively anti-Semitic. They reason that Carson effectively blames the Jews for failing to prevent their own murders.)
I agree completely that disarming the Jewish population was only one measure, and a relatively small one, that the Nazis undertook on the path to marginalizing, isolating, and ultimately exterminating them. Nonetheless it was done early, and deliberately. Just as the Jews could not know what we do with hindsight, we must also acknowledge that the Nazis could not know up front either. They could not be assured of the success of their program, and considered it prudent to minimize their risks. Removing the means of resistance was a preliminary step that they clearly considered essential.
I’ll look at this—thank you! I like Richard J. Evans’ trilogy and have given it to young relatives in installments for birthday-Christmas-birthday. Most recently, I read Kl, which is grueling, but necessary for comprehending the incomprehensible complexity of even just one aspect of the Nazi regime, the concentration camps. Recommend Ravensbruk, too.
Okay. But just to be really irritating, I’m going to offer one more quibble. One of the weirder aspects of the Nazis was that they genuinely believed that the Jews in Germany—the perfectly ordinary men, women and children we see in those old photos—were part of an evil worldwide Jewish-Bolshevik puppeteer conspiracy. So I’m sort of disinclined to take the German view of their victims’ capabilities at face value. They were, collectively, delusional.
I’m not really arguing with Carson specifically—though I think he was unwise to throw out that particular line of argument. (Not anti-semitic, and not even necessarily wrong—-just unwise.)
I listened to that one on audio a year or two ago. Stories of specific, lived experiences like that are invaluable. There is no such thing as getting too much of it, just as there is no such thing as getting too much of people’s lived experiences or family histories as we sometimes get here on Ricochet.
Thanks for that reference. I haven’t read those yet, but I’ve been reading concentration camp stories since I was a little tyke in the 50s – whether those camps be Soviet, Nazi, or other (including American). It probably has something to do with my working assumption of the past 21 years — that my days will end in one of Hillary’s internment camps.
Kate mentioned Sophie Scholl, one of the leaders of the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance movement. I have noticed that Leftists often refer to this as a “non-violent resistance group.” Actually, they were not non-violent in principle, and were indeed attempting to contact chemistry students who could help them concoct explosives.
Sophie herself, in 1940, said she wished that the French Army had fought “to the last round,” which makes her own position pretty clear.
BTW, one of the members of the group, Alexander Schmorell, has recently been canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/37358.html
Kate, I really appreciate your comments. You speak from a wealth of knowledge. It is a salient point that gun rights are insufficient guards against tyranny, even if they are vital, or at least helpful. Saying otherwise is an easy way to end up looking like the gun nuts we’re caricatured as. Unfortunately for Carson, and any other prospective candidate, nuance is lost in media reporting and not of concern to voters anyway.
I am interested to know your position on the right to keep and bear arms. Nothing you’ve said here necessitates advocating gun control, though that isn’t ruled out either. The issue unites libertarians and conservatives, so a dissenter would be unique (and I’d welcome it).
The artist R.S. Connett recommended Evans’ trilogy to me (we were discussing confrontations I was having with Neo-Nazis online). Still need to get around to it, but it’s daunting.
This I did not know. What fascinating, horrifying facts.
In at least one of the camps, in the dressing rooms outside the ‘showers’, they had numbered hooks to hang the clothes. The guards would berate them to remember their number because they didn’t want any problems with people not being able to find their clothes.
Don’t worry. At least one Fallopian Justice Warrior will have your back.
I’m not advocating non-violent resistance to Nazi aggression—far from it. I’m just saying that, at least in my reading, that the mere possession of a weapon probably wouldn’t have helped any individual Jew much.
Incidentally, should the Japanese-Americans being interned during WW2 have resisted violently?
Yes—exactly.
My position on the right to keep and bear arms is…evolving.
One question, as far as the actual 2nd Amendment goes: the right to bear arms for self-protection was probably a more urgent issue at the time of the FFs, wasn’t it? That is, in a primarily agricultural, rural environment, you could be protecting yourself from any number of threats. (e.g. at my parents’ farm, there was a shot gun for shooting copperheads that took up residence in the barn or sheds). Having to protect yourself and your family from outraged Indians would have been a fresh memory for many, and a real and present danger for some—the house my children grew up in, built in 1796, had a safe room built in, in case of Indian attacks, for instance. Then there were outraged Loyalists —if the Revolutionaries tarred and feathered Loyalists, might they have feared retaliation in kind? Meanwhile, Hatfield-and-McCoy style “wars” weren’t all that unusual. So over-and-above muggers, burglars, highway robbers, rapists and other criminals, there were threats around then that don’t really exist now. Meanwhile, the first American police department wasn’t establish until 1838 (Boston), and while even a very fast police response is insufficient (usually) to stop a mass shooter, police officers do catch, arrest and imprison criminals, deterring others and removing sources of immediate danger from the daily life of ordinary people.
So one question I’d have is whether the original intent and understanding of the R to K&B was dependent upon context? And if there might be reason, given the context of our time, to think about it a little differently? Well, we already do, really: the Texas requirements for concealed carry don’t represent a purist’s idea of perfect freedom, and the Rico-Texans , don’t seem to object to these too much.
My present opinion (!) is that, if we collectively can come up with strategies—plural—to make mass murder much rarer, the call for severely restricting gun ownership will die down a little. If we address the manifold problems afflicting the inner cities and other pockets of entrenched poverty and violence, it will probably calm down even more. And I think it does behoove the pro-gun lobby (and/or pro-gun individuals) to think and speak co-operatively and not combatively about how to speak to the issue of gun violence, because the mass murder of innocents (particularly children) is a real problem. Taking away all the guns is one obvious solution.
Kate:
Either the government is responsible for keeping me safe, and if they fail I can sue, or I have a right to defend myself.
IF you are willing to let me sue when the government does not keep me safe, THEN we can talk about more restrictions on guns.
But, the government is quite clear that they are not responsible for keeping people safe, and in fact, citizens with arms get in the way of keeping the police safe.
” When seconds count the police are only minutes away”
But even if you carry during the day your gun is in the bedroom with you at night, which is in fact the premise of my question.
Were they being taken to be killed or enslaved? If not, different altogether.
This reasoning is the complete opposite of my understanding. The Constitution was framed to place limits on government, not the people. No eighteenth century American was in doubt that people had the right to protect themselves from copperheads or marauders. What needed to be made explicit in the Second Amendment was that people have the right to protect themselves from (especially tyrannical) government! Being armed for self-protection and forming militias for that purpose is crucial to freedom and self governance.
… was a time no one would be accused of being a gun nut for that understanding, except maybe by European subjects of the realm.
Did they KNOW what they were taken for? That’s the problem. Opening fire on the police is kind of a big deal. Most of us would tend to trust that whatever is going on, it will be resolved in a rational way, and in the meantime we won’t be harmed, because we live in a civilized country. As it happens, Japanese-Americans suffered hardship and substantial material losses from their internment. In effect, they were kidnapped and robbed. Is it okay to resist kidnap and robbery, or only actual murder?
DocJay started a thread a few months ago, that asked whether it was time to start rounding up and interning Muslim Americans. My answer (which was ridiculed by at least one) was that if this were to happen in the United States, I would immediately convert to Islam and insist on being interned with them.
Is mass murder of children a real problem? I agree with you that it’s a sensationalized problem, and I’ve said as much. But by my count there have been 166 deaths in the last 15 years due to mass (i.e., more than one victim) killings at schools. That is about 11 per year. There have been 44 additional single victim killings at schools during that same period. It hardly seems like a serious enough problem to consider drastic measures, such as gun confiscation.
Kozak, it was a real question not a rhetorical one: is it possible that the need for self-protection from any threats, including the King of England, might have been felt more acutely in the 18th century than it would if the Constitution were being written today?
Gun control began to gain traction in this country in the 60s and 70s not because whinging liberals objected to nice, ordinary Texans owning guns, but because photos like this one began appearing in the paper:
It is possible, given the downward trend in violent crime, that we will get to a point where no one feels threatened enough by the possibility of personal assault or murder for the ownership of a gun to seem like a big deal either way. (I’m already at that point, Kozak—I don’t even lock my doors.) The ERA, which seemed crucial enough for me and thousands of others to march for it, and which almost passed into constitutional law, now seems quaintly anachronistic; the problem of sexism was solved in other ways. This could happen with guns, and I’d be inclined to think that will be a very nice thing, one worth working toward. If restrictions on gun ownership is not the way to go, fine.
Since you ask, I’ll take the question seriously. It is “okay,” i.e., morally justified, to resist kidnap and robbery, if that’s what it was. It might not be wise in the circumstances.
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising occurred in 1943. By this time the Jews were well aware of what fate lay in store for them if they were deported. Thousands were murdered right there in the street during the deportation.
The Japanese-Americans had to have a much different idea. For one thing, those Japanese-Americans who lived on the other side of the internment line were not disturbed. They remained in their houses and businesses. For another, Roosevelt was not Hitler. And for a third, there were rational (though perhaps not sufficient or legitimate) reasons aside from wanting to murder them all for the internments. So, I would assert that the Japanese-Americans made the right choice not to resist violently, although I would have understood it if they had.
April 1943.
Right. Thanks. I’ll go back and edit.
The 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms is even more important now than it was in the 18th century. Back then they didn’t have the 20th century to teach them how important it is.
Even though people like his friend Walter Lippman were urging him to be more of that kind of person. But then what can you expect of the news media?