Eileen F. Toplansky, a professor in New Jersey, has written an essay that’s worth noting as it serves to remind us of the truism about how those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but it also provides good fodder you can use when people talk about such things as gun control and a firearm registry.
She uses a 20-year-old academic paper, “Of Holocausts and Gun Control,” as a jumping-off point to make the case that, yes, it is possible to link disarmament of a citizenry with genocide. Not that civilian ownership of firearms is a cure-all against such horrors, but the stripping away of rights to own guns certainly makes segments of society more vulnerable to the whims of a government.
She cites the big historical examples—Germany and China—along with cases where lesser numbers of people were killed by their governments and, quoting from a David B. Kopel review (Kopel occasionally contributes to America’s 1st Freedom) makes a strong case that there is a correlation between a disarmed citizenry and deadly abuse of power by government.
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