arms vs. genocide
Genocide, guns, and Hollywood
Dan Gifford raises some serious points at the screening of a documentary on genocide.
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Interesting response to genocide
At Concurring Opinions. I suppose by that rationale, one could prosecute the French resistance, and the Russian partisans, for failure to adhere to the rules of war.
So much for international law...
Via Instapundit...
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Kopel article on disarmament and murder in Uganda
At Reason Online. "Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People / Uganda terrorizes its own citizens under the auspices of UN gun control mandate."
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Article on Armenian genocide and disarmament
In the National Review Online.
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New article on gun confiscation and genocide
Human Rights and Gun Confiscation,” David B. Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen, 26 Quinnipiac Law Review (No. 2, 2008, forthcoming, draft) explores the effects of gun confiscation in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda. Available here, in pdf. (Large file).
(Note: it's on Dave Kopel's server, and as of this moment (noon, MST) the server is down).
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New Kopel article on the Holocaust
"Armed Resistance to the Holocaust" (pdf), forthcoming in the Journal on
Firearms & Public Policy.
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Don Kates on arms and genocide
It's an email, and as it's rather long, I'll put it in extended remarks below.
Continue reading "Don Kates on arms and genocide"
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Dave Kopel & comrades on genocide
At Reason Online, Dave has Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People.
"But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees. Human rights scholar Ben Knighton has used the term “ethnocide” to describe the army's campaign.
......
This time, the pretext for the "disarmament" of the Karamojong is United Nations gun control. The Ugandan military is trying to round up every last firearm in Karamoja, supposedly for the Karamojong's own good.
The procedure is euphemistically called “forcible disarmament.” It works something like this: The misnamed Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) will torture and rape Karamajong, after which some Karamojong might then disclose the location of some hidden guns. Or the army will burn down a village, after which it might find some guns in the ash left behind."
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Genocide and numbness
One death is a tragedy: a million deaths is a statistic.
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UN and genocide
The London Times has the story:
"The bodies were still warm when Lieutenant Ron Rutten found them: nine corpses in civilian clothes lying crumpled by a stream, each shot in the back at close range. It was July 12, 1995, and the UN-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica had fallen the previous day. The lush pastures of eastern Bosnia were about to become Europe’s bloodiest killing fields since 1945.
Refugees poured into the UN compound. But the Dutch peacekeepers (Dutchbat) were overwhelmed and the Serbs confiscated their weapons. “From the moment I found those bodies, it was obvious to me that the Bosnian Serbs planned to kill all the men,” Rutten said. He watched horrified as Dutch troops guided the men and boys onto the Serb buses."
The article goes on the detail how, warned of a planned massacre in Rwanda, Kofi Annan forbade UN commanders stopping it. His cable told them of a "need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated repercussions. "
(via Instapundit)
New Don Kates article
Don Kates has a new article in Hamline Law Review, entitled "Genocide, Self-Defense, and the Right to Arms." I have the text (minus footnotes) in extended entry, below.
His core theme is that the Holocaust was a very much atypical form of genocide, where it was carried out by a nation-state with a powerful and efficient military. The vast bulk of the 200 million+ deaths in 20th century genocide were carried out by rag-tag forces, or mobs armed with machetes and other simple weapons, and which would not have been conceivable had even a small portion of the victims been able to have arms.
[Beerslurpy comments, in an entry for some reason blocked by the spam filter:
There are lots of things in there I have been saying for years, only not as eloquently. A very good read.
I always love bringing up the murderousness of 20th century socialist govenrments whenever anyone tries to warn us of how Bush's mild faith will lead us to rivers of bloodshed.
And I loved debating the russians at my last job and pointing out that despite complete civilian disarmament, Russia has had several hundred times more gun murders than the US over the past century. Of course, you have to accept the concept that a government killing can be a murder.
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Kopel on gun bans and genocide
Dave Kopel has an article in America's First Freedom on international gun bans and genocide. An excerpt:
"Darfur is one of those places where the government has implemented Rebecca Peters principle that crime victims should not use arms to protect themselves. The Sudan Organisation Against Torture (a human rights group based in London) reported on March 20 about an incident which took place on March 7:
Two men “in military uniform attacked four girls from Seraif IDP [refugee] camp, Hay AlGeer, West Nyala, Southern Darfur. The girls were attacked whilst collecting firewood outside the camp at 11:30. During the attack, one of the men assaulted one of the girls and attempted to rape her. The armed man touched the girl’s breasts and attempted to forcefully remove her underwear. When she resisted, the man began to beat her. In defence she grabbed a knife that she had been using to cut the firewood and stabbed the attacker in the stomach.”
“Following the stabbing, the girls managed to escape and returned to Seraif camp where they reported the incident to police officers inside the camp. The police refused to file the case.”
One of the rapists died from a knife wound. “Following the news of the death, the officers immediately arrested the four girls inside the camp on suspicion of murder.” They face execution by hanging. The girls are: Amouna Mohamed Ahmed (age 17), Fayza Ismail Abaker (16), Houda Ismail Abdel Rahman (17), and Zahra Adam Abdella (17)."
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Is this a trend?
Ta Mok, captured in 1999 and accused in the Cambodian genocide, has died at age 80.
Just before they were ready to swear in the judges for his war crimes trial, set to begin next year.
He joins Slobodan Milosevic on the roster of war criminals who died of old age before a tribunal could decide the case. At least Milosevic made it through the prosecution's case, which took five years.
If the international types would like to convince us that trial is an effective response to genocide, they're going to have either to speed things up a bit, or else find some younger and healthier genocidal types.
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New Kopel paper
Dave Kopel has a new paper up (pdf). He, and coauthors Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen, show how U.N.-backed gun confiscation programs in Kenya and Uganda have given their supposed beneficiaries murder, torture, and homelessness.
(I've posted the link as given in an email -- for some reason I'm having trouble getting thru to his website just now).
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Lumbee Indian resistance to Klan
I've been researching a long-lost event, for incorporation into the documentary film on the right to arms... the pain is that the local accounts were in the Robesonian newspaper, North Carolina, and the Library of Congress collections of that have been shipped to the New England Antiquarian Society. But I do find (just in case someone needs a term paper!) New York Times, 1/19/58 pp. 1 & 41, Life magazine, 1/27/58 at 26-27, Life 2/3/58 at 36-37, and a much later summary by the AP reporter who covered it, True Magazine, March 76 at 64.
Short summary of the events: In 1957, a Klan leader named James "Catfish" Cole tried to lead a Klan cavalcade (basically a mass drive-by shooting) to attack the home of a friend of Robert Williams (the friend being vice president, and Williams being president, of the local NAACP). It was, well, an unusual chapter of the NAACP -- it was also chartered as an NRA-affiliated club, composed mostly of veterans, and armed to the teeth. Williams' men blew the Klan cavalcade away -- no casualties reported, so they probably shot for engine compartments and aimed well, but there was a line of disabled autos and guys in bedsheets running for their lives.
A while later the same Klan leader decided to hold a cross-burning rally near the Lumbee Indians -- he objected to their intermarriage and dating of europeans. About 50 Klansmen showed up. And about 500 Lumbees. The rally was lit by a single lightbulb, which was either shot or knocked out, and the Lumbees charged in. In the aftermath, the Klan leader was charged with incitement to riot and imprisoned for two years. The twin defeats disintegrated the Klan in the State. I'll post my summary of the press coverage in extended remarks below.
Continue reading "Lumbee Indian resistance to Klan"
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Lumbee Indians vs KKK
In research for a documentary film I'm slaving away on, I've come across a very interesting 1958 incident. Back then, Robeson County, NC, had 3-way segregation: black, white, and Indian (mostly the Lumbee tribe). The Klan burned a cross on the lawns of two Lumbees, and then held a nighttime rally.
The sheriff warned the Klan that they were putting their lives in danger, but their leader did not listen. The rally was lit by a generator running a single light, and it did not give off enough illumination to reveal that the rally was being surrounded by the Lumbee -- a force variously estimated at 100, 500, or a thousand of them, many armed.
Then a shot blew the lightbulb away, and the Lumbee descended on the Klansmen, shouting and firing into the air. The Klan ran, many discarding their sheets. The Lumbee donned the sheets, cavorted around, and hung an effigee of the Klan leader.
It was the last Klan rally in the area.
Here's a link. Here's another.
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Reynolds on arms and genocide
At the Guardian Online, Glenn Reynolds has an article on arms and genocide. It's inspired a bit of a debate at the Volokh Conspiracy, although I don't think it a particularly deep one.
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International law and genocide: the practical remedy
In a stunning proof of the effectiveness of international legal remedies for genocide, Slobodan Milosevic has died of old age five years into his prosecution at the Hague. He managed to hold out long enough for the prosecution to rest and his defense to begin, but the old ticker wasn't good enough to let him survive through the defense case.
Lesson for the future: if international authorities want to prosecute someone for genocide, they'll have to make sure he's under 50, not overweight, and a nonsmoker. Give him a complete medical workup before bringing charges, and you may be able to close the case before he dies on you. Oh, and see that he exercises during recesses. Sitting in a chair for 5 years listening to people can play hob with the circulatory system.
Notable quotes:
"Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she regretted Milosevic's death because she believed she would have won his conviction. "
`It is a pity he didn't live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved,'' Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.
Personally, I'd go for more immediate remedies for genocide: (1) announce that if it does not halt, tommorrow C-5As will cruise over the intended victims, releasing streams of parachutes. On each will be a Kalashnikov and a bunch of ammunition. (2) If you do capture the guy, forget the Hague. Try him under local law (which is what he'd have violated). Trials aren't for telling the story -- let authors do that. If Hussein were to be given a speedy and public trial in Kurdistan, we'd have a verdict by lunchtime.
UPDATE: Wait, I've got a legal solution to detaining the prisoners in Gitmo. Charge all that we want to detain indefinitely as war criminals, and ask for trial at the Hague. It'd give a legal basis for holding them until proceedings end in, say, four hundred years.
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Joyce Malcolm's article on arms and genocide
[Via Don Kates] Prof. Joyce Malcom has a fine article on genocide and the criminology of firearms, in the MIT journal "Breakthrough." Here's the link. (pdf file)
Don also reports that Dave Kopel and Drs. Gallant and Eisen have an article entitled "Does
the Right to Arms Impede or Promote Economic Development" in v. 6, issue 1 of ENGAGE: The Journal of the Federalist Society's Practice Groups. Don't have an online cite for that one.
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Kopel draft paper on arms vs. genocide
From davekopel.com: a draft paper by Dave, Paul Gallant, and Joanne D. Eisen, entitled "Is Resisting Genocide A Human Right?" (pdf file). It looks to be the most comprehensive work on the subject yet.
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Kates & Polsby on genocide
Instapundit reminds of Don Kates & Dan Polsby's excellent piece, "Of Genocide and Gun Control" in the Washington Univ. Law Quarterly. The first two sentences sum it up well: "This essay seeks to reclaim a serious argument from the lunatic fringe. We argue a connection exists between the restrictiveness of a country's civilian weapons policy and its liability to commit genocide[1] upon its own people. "
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Genocide as a public health risk
(Via Instapundit) Dr. Eric Larson and Dr. Reva Adler have published an interesting article on analysing genocide as a public health risk. They point out that in the 20th century far more humans were killed by genocide than by war (192 vs. 110 million), and suggest that we begin by studying the preconditions of genocide and its warning signs.
I'd list disarmament of the victims as one of the preconditions, of course...
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Prof. Reynolds on arms and genocide
Just came across an interesting article by Prof. Glenn Reynolds (as in Instapundit) entitled The Next International Right.