Thailand’s military junta is confiscating weapons from the populace. [Click here for an autoplay video report.] It’s what dictators do. Otherwise, the public might remove the dictator by force of arms. Our founding fathers crafted the Second Amendment to prevent our constitutional republic from becoming a dictatorship. So far, so good. Then again, African-Americans, native Americans and the ancestors of interned Japanese Americans might have a bone to pick in that regard. But hey, they were disarmed before they were persecuted. So why would anyone argue that Americans should be disarmed? I found something about the Japanese-American internment that offers insight into the gun control mindset . . .
It would have been an unmitigated tragedy if the Japanese had resisted internment. At that time in our nation’s history, in the shadow of Pearl Harbor, it’s hard to imagine the death and destruction that could have resulted from resistance. In many ways, an armed rebellion would have served to confirm in the minds of the architects of internment the need for their policy. To put it simply, if the Japanese had resisted, they would have been slaughtered.
What is the lesson to be drawn from that conclusion? It’s not that the Japanese were not within their rights to take up arms against the state. They might very well have had the high moral ground given the circumstances. Rather, it’s that in a country of several hundred million, an armed populace is a defense against a tyrannical minority, not a committed majority. If a passionate majority wants something, it will happen, come hell or high water. No constitution, no politician, no political safeguard will stop them.
Does that defeat the historical argument for the right to bear arms? I actually think it strengthens it. One might be inclined to fear an armed citizenry, ever on the lookout for perceived tyranny, ever ready to strike against the government. Sounds like chaos and anarchy to me. But the reality of the situation is that an armed revolution truly is the last defense against tyranny, and it will only be invoked in an extreme circumstance.
The internment of the Japanese was a shameful moment, and one in which the rights of American citizens were wrongfully taken away. But it is political checks and Constitutional order that must be employed to stop that sort of government overreach.
This excerpt from happierwarriordotme.wordpress.com demonstrates the ambivalence many liberals and Democrats (yes, I said it) feel towards the Second Amendment. They like it in theory, pay lip service to it when pressed, but reject it in practice.
Japanese Americans had a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. They lost it. If they hadn’t, exercising it would have been a BIG mistake. So . . . how important is it, really? People shooting at government troops coming to put them in prison camps? Sounds like chaos and anarchy to them.
So gun control advocates figure a little infringement on the right to keep and bear arms isn’t such a bad thing. We’re not grabbing guns! We’re imposing “reasonable regulations.” Laws that don’t affect the core right (which isn’t that important). Only they do, of course. “Common sense” gun control has effectively disarmed citizens of Hawaii and New Jersey. How many Hawaiians or New Jersey residents can bear arms? How many Californians? New York City residents?
The Second Amendment’s “shall not be infringed” language left no wiggle room for any gun control legislation. I reckon our founding fathers would be appalled by politicians who pronounce “I support the Second Amendment, but….” Thailand’s military leaders? They’d understand perfectly.
I’m guessing those things in the foreground are munitions, but they look like canteens. Can somebody educate me?
Of course, taking the people’s guns AND water will sure piss ’em off.
Zooming in, they look like grenades. You can see spoons and pin rings on some. Since they’re in the foreground, they seem larger than they are.
“the ancestors of interned Japanese Americans” were either dead or still in Japan when the internment happened. Otherwise they would have been among those interned.
Their descendants, however, are more likely to still be alive and have an opinion on the subject.
The German Jews had a fundamental right to armed self defense. But if they had exercised it, they would have been… Wait… A… Second…
but but… it was for the children!
The Aryan children. Don’t forget that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxoKjwudruw
Jesse Ventura was on Piers Morgan’s (now canceled) show a couple of years ago, and Piers naturally tried his “guns bad” agenda on Gov. Ventura. Ventura slapped it down by describing what he saw when he was in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos took power.
“I was in the Philippines–physically–when Marcos took over and declared himself the dictator. And you know the first thing that dictator did? He said turn in your guns or it’s the death penalty. Now, why would a dictator do that?”
Well said, Gov. Ventura.
I don’t know what George “Mr. Sulu” Takei’s view is on firearms and the 2A, but we sure do know his view on the Japanese internment. He described it as he saw it as a young child. It was a military prison–period. I don’t have to have lived it in order to listen and pay attention to those who have.
– T
Here’s the rub – how the hell did any of the Americans (yes I said it) of Japanese heritage have any fucking clue they would get out of those internment camps with their life or freedom? If they’d been a different culture, they very well may have resisted and I would not have blamed them a bit.
It’s really easy to look back on history and make judgement after seeing everything that happened, but I know I can’t see into the future and neither can anyone else.
How many Hawaiians are of Japanese .ancestry? The irony is not lost. Did those 110000 Japanese KNOW exactly what would happen to them? Did they know if any gas chambers would be involved? No? You forgot to mention Chinese, Mexicans, Eastern Europeans, Jews and other folks deemed morally or intellectually unfit to process a gun. And yes I know most Japanese had to “prove ” their loyalty to the government that imprisoned them and destroyed many lives.
I’m quite sure that during the political push to begin the internment, that it was touted as “common sense” and a “reasonable restriction”.
Regardless of this author’s point of view, I believe that a committed minority who take up arms in their defense can triumph. Witness the 3% who defeated the British Empire in the American Revolution. The Nisei are a poor example as they were a very small minority which made their internment easy. Imagine if the government attempted to intern German and Italian-Americans? The Armed Forces would have been severely handicapped for manpower. I think the example or the European Jews is more apt. If they had forcefully resisted, the drain on Germany’s manpower might have led to a re-thinking of the “Final Solution”.
Actually, there were quite a few Italian-Americans and German-Americans that were quietly imprisoned. Evidently quite a few of the Germans around San Antonio wound up in a camp near Crystal City that is now just getting some publicity. And that’s because the inmates were threatened if they spoke out, and the Feds proceeded to tear down the prison and basically refuse to acknowledge its existence until lately. When the records were gone and the witnesses were dead.
Some jews did resist (I think it was Warsaw ghetto’s that did it), anywho, I think like 300 of them held off an entire battalion. The only reason that they lost was that they ran out of ammunition.
And they say civilians don’t need high capacity clipazines. Wait… Oh, God…No…I think I may have just found a pattern here. I must tell the world.
5 minutes later
So apparently half the internet already made that connection, and the other half thinks they, and by extension me, are insane for thinking that. Crap.
The real tragedy in WW2 wasn’t so much what the Germans did (not trying to minimize it, just put it in perspective)- it was what they were able to get *other* countries to do to their own citizens.
The Germans weren’t always the ones doing many of the roundups – it was local police forces handing over Jewish citizens. A few dead local police chiefs might have made the decision to turn over your local citizens a little bit harder..
And, much like gun control, first the Germans just wanted registration of Jews.. Then they used those lists to round them up.
“So why would anyone argue that Americans should be disarmed?”
One of two reasons:
1. Fear of guns (or the unknown), due to ignorance, media-driven hysteria, or even based on some past experience…these are the people we can try to educate.
2. Control. If Americans can be convinced to eviscerate the 2A, they can be cowed into doing just about anything, maybe even peacefully. If ‘they’ can acclimate Americans into believing the govt is the answer to everything and coerce Americans into accepting govt control, they win. The population loses. And if the compliant populace believes they are ‘free’, so much the better. A variation of this has occurred in nearly every ‘civilization’ throughout history…someone wants power and works to find a way to take it. Take away the means to resist and the rest is easy. How sacred will the 1A and 4A be without the 2A? These people are no different than a backwater dictator, communist USSR, Pol Pot…you name it.
These are the people we have to resist forever.
Winner Post
CORRECT!
I think the blog author made a very valid point in the case of Japanese-Americans, where as any armed resistance would have been seen as supporting Imperial Japan, rather than defense of basic human rigths. For a tiny, tiny minority, like the Japanese-Americans, resistance would have failed and damned them, even more than they were already. This is not a test case for resistance. One could look to the Native American tribes that resisted American expansion, but that was a protracted military occupational campaign.
Arms may serve as a tool of resistance against tyranny, the outcome is never guaranteed.
Well put.
Yeah, if the Japanese would’ve resisted internment, they would’ve been annihilated. But they should’ve. Some things are more important than life. Some things are worth dying for. This is one of those things. Anytime, any government, be it a republic or a dictatorship, starts to herd masses of people into concentration camps, it is one of those things. If they would’ve resisted, sure, they would’ve probably all died. But you know what else would’ve happened? Their legacy would live on the mind of the government, and the people, especially after the allies found the German camps. And FDR’s shameful legacy would’ve been truly sealed.
Sadly, I think it would have just been spun to make them all look like they were Imperial Japanese sleeper agents, and we’d still be believing the propaganda that “we did what we had to do” (I know people, including my parents, who still believe that Japanese internment and Native massacres were ‘the right thing to do’…and my mother is Jewish, believe it or not…).
It was lose-lose from the beginning for them. This is one of the few times where not-resisting was the ‘right’ choice, but a sad and tragic one.
There was a mass hysteria in the USA and interning the Japanese was the “right” thing to do. Just like today there is a beginning mass hysteria in the USA against Muslims and Arabic folks. And let’s not leave out the Latins. Conservatives are leading the charge to hate people of color.
Oh, I agree with you 100%; and I know more than a few conservatives that are okay with mass detention, as long as the person is of color, or ‘speaks funny’. Funny, the same ones that rail about REX-84 and ‘FEMA Camps’, never looked far enough into the documents surrounding those issues to realize that both were designed by racist military/LE planners for black and Latino populations; not for white, Christian conservatives.
The mass detention facilities (whether our privatized Prison-Industrial Complex, or DHS-ICE detention centers) in this country are filled with immigrants and people of color. We have reservations were we keep the occupied nations of the indigenous population; and despite tongue-in-cheek commentary from various political activist (on all sides), the only people to ever be held at GITMO, are violent, Muslim radicals from ‘across the pond’.
The only time we went after white, (quasi-)Christians as a group, was the early days of Mormonism when they kept trying to overthrow the state governments.
Soon enough, you’ll probably hate them too.
What a sad, miserable life it must be for you. Now run along to your reclamacion rally.
The persecution of the early Mormons is a shameful episode in our nation’s history. Another case that shows how even being armed won’t help a minority group if the majority *and* the government gang up on them. And no, they weren’t trying to overthrow state governments; that’s just circa 1838 FUD still circulating.
On the other hand, being armed and being smart about it did help them thwart an honest-to-goodness federal invasion force in Utah in 1857. (Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the Utah War if you’re interested.)
“The only time we went after white, (quasi-)Christians as a group, was the early days of Mormonism when they kept trying to overthrow the state governments.” -T M
I must disagree. I challenge you to find any viable historical proof that, in the early days of Mormonism “they kept trying to overthrow state governments.” What they did do is move between several states as a result of persecution for their (Christian) beliefs.
In Missouri, there was an extermination order given by governor Boggs in 1838. This order (Missouri Executive Order 44) was issued largely as a result of the Mormons’ opposition to slavery. Pro-slavery Missourians feared the growing population (and, therefore, political power) of members of the Church of Jesus Christ. As a result of the order, many Mormons were killed, tortured and/or raped, and all were driven from their homes and from the state by angry Missouri mobbers.
Of course, pro-slavery Missourians of the 1830’s did claim that the Mormons wanted to “overthrow the state government” or something along those lines, in order to drum up opposition to the Mormon people. This is the closest thing in Mormon history to the assertion you are making. But it certainly wasn’t the truth.
When the order was finally rescinded in 1976, then-Governor Christopher Bond stated:
“Expressing on behalf of all Missourians our deep regret for the injustice and undue suffering which was caused by the 1838 order, I hereby rescind Executive Order Number 44, dated October 27, 1838, issued by Governor W. Boggs.”
Therefore, my question is, do governors often apologize to people who attempt to “overthrow” their state governments? The fact is no overthrow attempt was ever even considered, much less attempted.
Sorry this was such a verbose answer. But I cringe when I see (quasi)history being passed off as the truth.
@ John G: Since you like to cast dispersions on whole groups of people, I will reply that as a person “of color” (your words) I find modern liberals are mostly closet racist They just do a better job being sanctimonious hypocrites.
That is a good point. That whole, “we did what we had to do” mentality is certainly a scary one. It can get people to really do unbelievable things, and then even more scary, make them ok with the fact they have done it.
Q: Why does California have the strictest gun laws in the country? A: Because blacks were resisting state brutality.
We are very good at ‘justifying’ things to ourselves.
It might have been an “unmitigated tragedy” had the American Japanese resisted internment. Or it might never have happened at all if they had the ability to resist.
FDR wasn’t stupid. He knew that he had his hands full with the Axis. He wouldn’t want to go to war against his own citizens, even if there eyes were “oddly made” or they had skin of a “diff’rent shade” (to paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein II).
If the American Japanese had the ability and the willingness to defend themselves against an oppressive US government, the internment would not have happened, the US would have had thousands of excellent soldiers and workers, and the WW2 would have ended sooner.
That’s my opinion, and it’s just as valid as an opinion claiming that self defense by the American Japanese would have been a calamity.
I think historically, if you look at the armed resistance by the Native American population and black liberation, we’ve not been particularly kind at the time, nor in hindsight, to those of a ‘different shade’ with a gun and a spirit of defiance.
Ten armed blacks don’t make a defense force. And the US carried out its war of extermination against the natives because it wanted their land.
An unreasonable dread of yellow people isn’t worth fighting about, even in Washington, especially when the Pacific Fleet had just been blown to hell — and 150,000 American Japanese in Hawaii had not been interned and might look upon it with disfavor if their brothers on the West Coast were systematically destroyed.
No, if the American Japanese on the West Coast were ready, willing and able to defend themselves, FDR would have left them alone.
I think that’s a fair point; maybe. Unless it was good for the newspapers. If FDR could have turned it into ‘the homeland is under attack from within!’ and stirred the jingoistic, xenophobic narrative a little more, he might have decided that it was worth it and I believe most Americans would have followed him. Hell, you’d likely had every racist mofo out there hunting down ‘yellow people’ if there was carte blanche approval.
If the government today (not that they would, but _if_) started rounding up those of Arabic decent, or even the Latino population, and they started to defend themselves against the police, ICE, military, etc, what do you think the so-called militia would do?
And, if they were annihilated, it would’ve been a permanent black mark on the Democratic Party and forced Americans to open their eyes to the murderous ugliness of their own national government.
They’d be forever remembered as being responsible for the genocide of an entire group of US citizens.
You make a good point. If they had resisted, and the Government exterminated them, people would be looking back on the Democratic Party and FDR right now about as fondly as the Nazi Party and AH.
Doubtful. First, simply interning people and expropriating their property, without due process, motivated by racism, is already an immense crime against humanity. Yet, most Americans today don’t even know this actually happened, let alone that it was approved by the Supreme Court. So the Democrats have already gotten a huge pass on this atrocity. They’d hardly be held accountable for any deaths, especially if those deaths occurred during armed resistance.
More tellingly, brutal opppression isn’t new or novel for the Democrats. This racist brutality goes back to their origin. Check out Old Hickory and his successor Marty V.B., rabid racist Democrat presidents both, and their Indian Removal policy. The resulting Trail of Tears killed thousand of people; more people than Bin Laden murdered on 9-11.
Let’s not forget the Democrats’ racist reign of terror over blacks in the South for many generations, before the GOP electorally liberated the South. Anyone holding those Dems accountable? Nope. In fact, people, including blacks themselves, vote for the Dems with zeal, patting themselves on their back in moral superiority and completely oblivious to the party’s past and current vile crimes.
The Democrat Party: racist, murderous domestic terrorists since 1830. And nobody gives a crap.
I agree. Now you need to denounce and expel the overwhelming number of racist Dixiecrats who switched to the Republican Party post Civil Rights Act, drawn by Dick Nixon and Lee Atwater’s racist Southern Strategy. Don’t throw rocks if you live in a glass house.
@ whatever: There is a difference, because time has now diffused most of the political clout of said racist in modern America. It doesn’t mean America doesn’t have racists people, far from it, but you can’t win any widespread political power with any overt racist platform like you could 200, 100 or even 50 years ago.
So yes I am throwing a rock at your glass house since it has so much grime on it, it’s almost opaque.
@Yellow Everything you have just said–including presumption of my party affiliation–is false.
The Japanese American internment was counter productive, but a lot of German and Italian Americans were interned as well. The ethnic German and Italian American populations were much larger so FDR could not interne all of them. In some ways FDR tried to placate the German and Italian Americans with “Daylight Precision Bombing” and only attacking certain targets. RAF carpet bombing to be employed by the USAAF in Europe was frowned upon. Some Japanese did serve well in the US military. FDR was an opportunistic statist thug. Had the Japanese Americans raised more of a stink, would FDR have backed down? Maybe, as he did placate the German and Italian American populace.
I reckon our founding fathers would be appalled by politicians who pronounce …..
I believe they would be appalled by the Obama Administration in general as his privacy panel pretty much threw out the 4th Amendment today as well
The only privacy panel that Obama cares about is the one attached to his desk.
I think the end game for the liberals is confiscation. Why would there be a massive downsizing of the military while at the same time pushing to allow illegals to join? They want the military filled with people who have no real attachment to the constitution and will be wiling to turn against the American people.
No. You’re trying to ride on pro-gun coat tails with your immigration shtick. Republicans, by and large, push hardest for immigrants to achieve citizenship through service. I don’t disagree with this one bit, really, but the Republican Party are the only side of the debate that is pushing to institutionalize the process of citizenship through service. Also, Obama has allowed more deportations in his presidency than any other term. Could he do better to secure the borders? Yes. Is it a 2nd amendment issue? NO. When you have a specific agenda, keep it in the right forum. And I’ll happily introduce you to my own family who faithfully served in the Army and Air Force despite being immigrants to the USA.
TC was talking about illegal not legal immigrants joining the military, which I have a problem with as well. Yes I have seen plenty of immigrants take the oath and be inducted into the Army, most of them who did it to gain citizenship and I applauded them. But they all came to the country legally first. For those that do not enter the military to become citizens, like a good friend of mine and my parents, it take them about a decade with lots of money, paperwork, examinations and interviews to come here and become citizens. Illegals do no such thing, therefore, my tolerance drops considerable anytime these open illegal immigrants get invited to Congress or jam street corners with open protests.
Also Obama is did not deport a record number of illegals. The numbers got changed to count people turned away at the border or close to it, opposed to just counting ones that got caught in the interior.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-deportations-20140402-story.html#page=1
I just wasn’t able to play the full video, which may have given me greater insight, but I don’t see a single Thai soldier in those clips or any images relating to this news story online. Those uniforms are of the Royal Thai Police. I think this small editorial issue is a symptom of westerners not really understanding the nature of Thailand’s national political personality and circumstances. The weapons round-up is only one part of repetitive cycle in that country that I can’t really outright say isn’t necessary for that nation’s ongoing health.
Those are also, not just firearms. Those are military grade, systematically accrued and stored weapons of war – obtained by one faction in their continued hostility towards any government that is NOT of their own sides choice. The arms would not be for defending rights. I don’t think we need to draw comparisons between 2nd amendment issues and this scenario in Thailand. They are alien to each other.
It makes you wonder if in these circumstances they should just split the country in demographically proportional pieces and be done with it. Yeah, that would just start a civil war and decades of animosity, but what else can you do?
A just government has absolutely nothing to fear from an armed populace.
What, the progs haven’t told you? We’re “past that”, and the government is made of a new breed of humans that are infallible. Also, I own a unicorn that shits cash and ammunition.
Good core questions when they go down this route is who are they to define “reasonable” or what is “common sense?”
Indeed, maybe they should give all the sides one rifle and one machete per per person let them settle the issue, no blue hats, once and for all. Yeah, I was kind of serious. Yeah, I know that’s a complete crap sandwich. Anyone here actually have any good ideas?
WOW!!!! Talking about Japanese Americans not being able to bear arms as if you were a Japanese American, is like the MDA or politicans talking about guns as if they owned them… Let that soak in…
I’m a little thrown back by this article. I read this website every day and supported your stance and how you want your company to be represented by the public and presented to the public. i even look at this website to having and holding higher values then the rest and value this company for taking the high road during a sensitive time on gun control. But after reading this article and how racist and ignorant it makes Caucasians look by the lack of correct terminology and facts (from the author of the article, TTAG and the comments by the readers), I can’t continue to support ignorance like this. This article itself proves that the public image of stereotypical gun-owners are white, racist rednecks and uneducated is undoubtedly true. I’m feeling ashamed of associating myself with Pro2A after reading this…
I can’t encourage you enough to take down this article. From the eyes of any Asian American (especially Japanese Americans), this article is extremely racists and stops any further advancement of changing the public image of stereotypical gun-owners.
If you allow me some time to explain to ROBERT FARGO why I feel this is a racist article, I would LOVE to have an educated conversation about it!!!!! But if the conversation goes personal, I would have to respectfully leave the conversation.
But first, if I’m not given that chance, let me educate you on a few issues I have with this article.
First of all, I’m 3rd generation Japanese American, 2nd generation Chinese American. . (I’ll go ahead and answer what all the Caucasian readers are thinking. How can you be Chinese and Japanese when they hate each other? SIMPLE – I’M AMERICAN and so are my parents.) I work in SF Bay Area and live in Oakland, California (a city with some of the strictest gun laws, some of the highest crime/murder rate; a city I would like to be able to CC in but can’t.) My American born grandparents (on my mom’s side) were put in these internment camps, lost their farm and everything they owned. My grandfather and great uncles (some part of the 442nd Infantry Regiment, one who died defending America after loosing everything by Americans) fought against Japan along side with their fellow Americans (even though my grandfather wasn’t considered an American during that time.)
Second of all, this article acts like there wasn’t racism during WWII or even before the start of WWII. During this time, who were considered to be American if you were not of white skin color? Do you think any Japanese American, even being born in America, were allowed to buy guns from Caucasian owned gun stores? How can you bear arms if you can’t buy because you’re not considered an American because of your skin color? Steal? If you know anything about Japanese culture, stealing is dishonoring an entire family of multiple generations… Asian Americans have the lowest stats in ALL of the horrific categories in the NATION like murder rate, criminal stats, divorce stats, etc.
Last of all, internment camps during WWII were created because of the American Government being scared from Pearl Harbor, over-reaction and the lack of knowledge the Government had about any plans of attacks by Japan. They also couldn’t tell the difference between Japanese and Japanese Americans. (There is a difference. I am Japanese American, but I have ZERO ties to Japan, therefor, I can NOT be Japanese.) It is funny how any other skin color than white, you must be considered “________ American” but you don’t hear “Irish American” “German American” or “French American”. (Sorry one of my many rants) Only to Caucasians must we be labeled “Japanese American” and that’s because “Americans” can’t tell the difference between Asian cultures (“Oh, he’s Asian, he’s probably Chinese.”). Again I have ZERO ties to any Asian country, why can’t I just be American?
A HUGE issue I have with the logic during that time is that the Government allowed the actions of a few Japanese to tell the story of all Japanese and especially for all Japanese Americans (who may have never had ties to Japan). Now if I personally followed that logic and actions of a few and out-castes the rest as the few, then I as a gun-owner, I am a mass murder, school shooting spree killer and I am the reason guns should be banned.
Now I expect this type of logic to be accepted during that time. My girlfriend of 7 years is Caucasian, and her grandparents have said racist things to me. But I accept them for who they are because how society was during that time. TODAY, I do NOT accept those things.
Don’t get me wrong, I love America. I love my Les Baer 1911s (yes plural) and all my other “toys”. I’m the whitest Asian you will ever meet. I label myself as white-washed but I do believe in forward thinking. i do believe that as gun owners, you have to hold yourself to a high standard and not given into any public persona of being a monster. I as a smart gun owner, will remove myself from anything that is backwards thinking, and this article is one.
RF supports you fully and you rag on him for being racist?!? We are on your side. Since when is Japanese American a racial slur? From OFWG ( old fat white guy ) married to a beautiful woman-who happens to be black.
As a “Yellow” American, I didn’t find this article “Racist” at all.
Realistically had the Japanese resisted, it would be an uphill and losing battle, but it’s not winning the battle of guns being the real point or even end goal. It’s showing those who were there to strip them of their rights and wrongfully imprison them under a pretense will have to draw blood to see they are wrong. In an extreme case, it is Americans shooting at other Americans, a civil war like feel invoked but in the case of defending your rights against those who either don’t know they are wronging you or willing wronging you, somebody has to die. It is very very grim but that’s the truth. You can’t scare away a tyrannical government or those working under orders from said bad government. That cop or soldier knocking on your door to take away your rights might be a family man, an average joe doing his job but at the same time he or you might die so that the point can be made.
I saw the picture and really hoped it was a new kind of gun show. Boo..
I believe you are in the mis-leading information. Thai Junta did not disarm innocent citizens or law abiding citizens. As a gun owner and shooter myself I still have right to have guns and armed myself in legally way. The picture you showed here, if you have carefully look through it, There are grenades, Rocket launchers, Fully automatic military weapons which even in The U.S. are classified as illegal.
And FYI the outed goverment themself who tried to banned and disarmed law abiding citizens. They had launched several rules, acts, and laws to illiminated gun owners rights of Thai people.
So in conclusion this picture shows itself in what the readers or writers want it to be.
Romania, Europe, 1947.
1946: Communist Government get’s to power, “voted” by the Russian tanks and a “few” Soviet Army Corps.
1947: All weapons were confiscated, possession was prohibited(with the exception of the “privileged” a.k.a high ranking communist officials and their friends).
Note that until then, the vast majority of households had at least one hunting shotgun or rifle. The presence of firearms was as natural as barley, wheat, forest, wood, water, sun, rain, etc.
Up until the December 1989 Revolution(quite a bloody Revolution, fought with bare hands against Army tanks, AK’s and heavy machine guns, grenades and so on), having even a small paring knife in your lunch bag, could send you directly to prison, under the accusation of conspiracy against the Socialist order.
1947-1989: The darkest period in the history of Romania.
After 1989: Firearms are still a “privilege”. As a general attitude of the law, the fundamental/natural rights are “guaranteed by the state” not “recognized by the state”. Romania has the most restrictive firearms legislation in EU.
We still have a lot of efforts to make in order to repair what more than 50 years of cruel communist dictatorship left behind. The scars and the mutilation of the spirit is beyond description.
Conclusion: hold on to your rights, hold on to your guns. Once gone, spirit of a nation is mutilated for a very, very long time.