Ben Carson defends linking gun control to the Holocaust

[Joshua Farrell]

US Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has defended comments that suggested the Holocaust may have been avoided if people had been armed.

"The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed," he told CNN on Thursday.

An anti-Semitism monitoring group says linking US gun control to the Holocaust is "historically inaccurate".

Mr Carson is polling second in the Republican race behind Donald Trump.

On Friday, Mr Carson reiterated his views about gun control.

"Basically, what I said is when tyranny occurs traditionally around the world, they try to disarm the people first," Mr Carson told the National Press Club in Washington.

Read More: Ben Carson defends linking gun control to the Holocaust - BBC News

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Do you agree with what he said, or do you think that it is a bad example of gun control, and relating it to the Holocaust?

 

[John]

I agree with him. People without guns (which are one of the best ways to protect yourself), are helpless to the hands of people with guns.

 

[Rebel]

I agree with him too. Gun control has been successful in only some of the most oppressive and tyrannical nations in the history of humanity. We're talking about Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mussolini's Italy, Communist China and Chairman Mao, North Korea and the Kims, and many more. Theres a great link to gun control and oppression. Banning guns doesn't help the situation. All that does is disarm law abiding citizens. Criminals who want to attack with guns will always have guns. If you think gun control is the answer take a moment and consider this.... How is meth control going? Oh, right, it's still easy to find, and easy to buy, from a certain type of people.

 

[Allenafaith]

I agree with him. People without guns (which are one of the best ways to protect yourself), are helpless to the hands of people with guns.

You're completely right. :great: :yes:

 

[Cosmic]

I agree with him too. Gun control has been successful in only some of the most oppressive and tyrannical nations in the history of humanity. We're talking about Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Mussolini's Italy, Communist China and Chairman Mao, North Korea and the Kims, and many more. Theres a great link to gun control and oppression.

Very few civilizations in the history of the world have made state of the art military weaponry available to citizens. In the case of peasants and commoners in every nation prior to the industrial revolution, good weaponry and armor was simply too expensive. That includes the training to use them properly.

When guns became affordable, there wasn't any control of them because no nation had needed to impose those rules before. Previously, the forces of economics handled it all. But with guns becoming available to the masses, any person can now kill any person with very little training, and with very little expense, because a gun is easy to acquire and easy to use. With the rise in the density of population, this is a problem in some areas. When people are crammed into a huge city, this becomes a major issue. Less so in rural areas where people are less densely packed.

If one out of every 100 people is born a murderer, then there will be thousands in large cities, but few in rural areas where populations are less dense. The chance of coming into contact with someone like that is much greater in the city, where you come in contact with more people per day. So, to combat this problem, many countries have imposed gun restrictions. Most of these countries are much more densely populated than the United States. For example, the UK and Japan are both two extremely densely populated countries where guns are illegal. As I said, if 1 out of every 100 people is a murderer, then in a city like London, one of your neighbors is one.

That doesn't mean gun control is right for the United States. But it also doesn't mean gun control is wrong for every country, or every part of the country. Every part of the world isn't Texas. I'm not advocating imposing London standards on Texas, but it is absurd to impose Texas standards on London.

I agree with him. People without guns (which are one of the best ways to protect yourself), are helpless to the hands of people with guns.

In a society of killers, this would be true. But our society is founded on much stronger principles than force. If someone's boss choses to fire them, he does not need to possess a gun to do this, even if the employee does.

A gun is a tool that is occasionally, but very rarely, useful for personal defense. Where you live and your demographic also determines this. Someone who lives alone in a large city where guns are prevalent would be reasonable in owning a gun. Someone who lives in a quiet suburb is much less likely to need a gun. Shootings do occur in quiet suburbs, although of the thousands of quiet suburbs in the country, only a few have seen shootings. While a gun would help in this instance, it would probably be better to carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket, because disease kills more people every year by far than gun violence.

Do you agree with what he said, or do you think that it is a bad example of gun control, and relating it to the Holocaust?

There are some conservatives, that are very vocal, who seem to have a fantasy that some day they will need to use their guns to protect themselves from the government, and that they'll somehow manage to win if they can muster up enough of them. 😛 (And I have no idea if any of you all believe this, but I have met people IRL that do). I think it goes back to the revolutionary war, and the holocaust analogy is just an extreme example that many conservatives use to defend this scenario: "if the government came after me, I'd like to have my gun."

Here's the problem though. A population is extremely incapable of organizing against a modern military. Particularly the population of a first world country like the United States. If everyone owned a gun, and the government came to round people up into camps, then 99% of people would surrender rather than fight as soon as the national guard arrived. The remaining 1% would be stuck as guerillas in an environment which is no where near as favorable as Vietnam, and against an enemy that is a lot more organized than Assad's rag-tag army.

Using a gun to protect yourself from the government is like asking your house to be turned into Ruby Ridge or Waco. 😛 The government will always win, and there is nothing you can do about it.

But here's the thing: as much as many of you all may not trust our current government, it is not capable of doing the kind of harm some may think it could do. There is not going to be a holocaust in the United States. This country is much more civilized and stable than Nazi Germany or other dictatorships. In my opinion, the republicans are wrong, but they are not evil. I also ask that republicans share this view, but of the democrats instead, because if you let your politics so cloud your perspective that you hate and believe ridiculous things about the people you disagree with, then you're first of all going to be wrong, and second, you're going to be stressed all the time. And that causes physical consequences to the body, resulting in poor health.


To wrap all this up: gun control is right for some places, but not for others. It all depends on population density and culture. Guns aren't that effective against a modern military, so the idea that the second amendment is a protection against the government is becoming more and more useless. Further, as much as you may disagree with the government of the United States, it is still our legitimate government. And if you want to raise a gun against it, then, well, sorry, but that's treason. 😛

 

[Jason76]

The NRA has some good points, but they and other gun control advocates have even stated the mentally ill shouldn't get gun checks.