There are angry web sites on the Internet with headlines like "Gun Control - Hypocrisy or Stupidity?" and which talk of a "war" against gun control advocates. The argument then shifts to the rather more sophisticated political point that a well-armed citizenry is a final bulwark against military dictatorship or invasion. This is illustrated by the thought that if more Europeans had had firearms in the 1930s, the Nazis would have been stopped in their tracks.Another Brit expatriate who expects our country to adopt his miserable customs, oblivious that American guns are the only reason he doesn't tell people "Ich bin ein Englander."
Unfortunately, the argument underestimates Nazi ruthlessness, and it is hard to imagine an armed citizenry in, for instance, Holland, Poland or the Ukraine, repulsing the Wehrmacht, backed up as it was by the SS and the Luftwaffe. Snipers don't defeat a modern army and didn't prevent Nelson winning at Trafalgar.
He evidently never heard of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and can't extrapolate the effects on an invading army had such resistance manifested itself a hundred thousand times over, over every inch of ground. And as for Nelson at Trafalgar, that's a clumsy transition to a century before, but the sharphooter did get his man.
Yes, Mr. Garlinski, we do "believe in a literal reading of the American Constitution,... feel that the judiciary has become too liberal and...tend to regard the outside world, especially the United Nations Organisation, with a high degree of hostility."
As for a "war against gun control advocates," we're not the ones sending government thugs to raid, terrorize and destroy them.
And as for a "license to kill," I suggest you get your own house in order:
GOVERNMENT lawyers have told police chiefs preparing to “shoot to kill” suspected suicide bombers that they are likely to escape criminal charges even if they kill an unarmed or innocent person.There's an easy solution if you don't like our customs here, Mr. Garlinski. Go the hell home.
[Via Skip]