In the efforts of pro gun activists to defend the 2nd Amendment from those who would take weapons out of the hands of the people, they get over zealous and fabricate certain facts to defend their position. One of those so-called facts is the often repeated claim, “commies are coming to take our guns away”. This is one of, if not, the most repeated statement. The automatic linking to gun control to communism. Therefore anyone who supports gun control with a rational (albeit incorrect) arguments is portrayed as being a communist. This kind of automatic association between those who support gun control and communism is just dishonest, and exposes the ignorance of the pro gun movement.
Here I will not be defending gun control, I support civilians owning firearms of all type. After all Mao said, “Without a people’s army, the people have nothing.” I will be defending a slander against China. Revolutionary or Communist China did not take people’s guns away as pro gun activists constantly claim. Having heard enough of this slanderous statement against the Revolution in China I’ve decided to take it on and debunk it. Here are some prime examples cited as so-called proof that supposedly Revolutionary China took people’s guns away:
“China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated by their own government.”
– Gun control history has not been positive in favor of the unarmed citizen.
Western Missouri Shooters Alliance quoting La Raza Newspapers
“After the communist takeover, from 1948 to 1952, 20 million Chinese, unable to defend themselves, were murdered.”
These exact claims are repeated over and over again without any source provided for them. In fact, not one of the repetitions of this statement had a single source to back it up. This is literally a claim based on nothing whatsoever. Not only that, but in these statements anti-communists even contradict themselves. The official lie is that 20 million people supposedly starved to death, whether or not people had guns would not have made a difference. Guns doesn’t make non-existent food suddenly appear. So what we have is two different claims for cause of death for a single group of people who never died. The complete lack of any source whatsoever is very revealing in what pro gun activism considers academic integrity.
However there is a progenitor to this claim that Revolutionary China banned gun ownership. The organization JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP has created a “Genocide Chart” in 2002 listing all the people who were supposedly killed by a lack of guns. On that list is the claim against China where all the pro gun blogs are getting their information from. Here is the section where they refer to Revolutionary China:
The first thing that stuck out at me was the listing of three periods during the revolutionary era. I don’t know what that is supposed to mean because they don’t bother explain it. I’m going to assume that these three periods are when supposedly persecution against people were carried out that gun freedom could have stopped. Next we have the ubiquitous 20 to 35 million people killed, once again no source provided for this claim. The claim of famine deaths (now lack-of-gun deaths apparently) I’ve already dealt with in a previous video.
Here now is an interesting difference, the JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP organization has provided a source for a policy that took guns away from people. They listed two Acts put forth by the Chinese Revolutionary government: Act of Feb. 20, 1951, Act of Oct. 22, 1957. I have gone and researched those Acts and have found they do not exist. A Google search gives absolutely nothing but various blogs quoting the list put forward by JPFO. If this act was real and actually existed, there would be mentions of it all over the place from anti-Chinese groups to anti-communist groups, there are not. Literally the only mention of these Acts is in reference to this list.
I took the investigation further and went checked some websites that deal in Chinese law. I typed in both of those Acts and came back with nothing. I went through their archives of Acts and statutes and found that those Acts did not exist. They were literally fabricated by the JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP organization. This is the dishonestly in which pro activists conduct themselves. There are real points to make in defence of firearms, this is not one of them.
Now while investigating Chinese gun laws I came across this paper written by Huan Zhu at the University of Kansas. This is what she had dug up form her research:
“After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, there have been three special laws or regulations issued on control of firearms, which are Temporary Measures of Control of Firearms (1952), Measures of the People’s Republic of China for the Control of Firearms (1981), and Law of the People’s Republic of China on Gun Control (1996) (hereinafter referred to as Law on Gun Control).”
While this paper attempts to bash China for a lack of gun rights its actually ends up defending Revolutionary China on gun rights. Of all three of these laws, only one of them actually occurred during the Revolutionary period. The other two were made law when the restoration of capitalism had begun. The law “Temporary Measures of Control of Firearms” simply doesn’t exist. I’ve searched the archive of Chinese laws and it doesn’t appear anywhere. Even placing the phrase into a Google search only returns a single hit, the paper itself. I have attempted to contact Huan Zhu at the university of Kansas about her source, and as of a week she has yet to respond to me.
There is literally no law during the revolutionary period that prohibited anyone form having any guns. There is absolutely no source for claiming that the Party took people’s guns away. The claim that Mao or communism took guns away from people is completely made up. JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP are liars, Huan Zhu is a liar. There is no trace of gun control in the revolutionary period, there is however very strict control under capitalism. This shows the pathetic lengths these defenders of gun control sink to. They have to lie about others in order to defend gun ownership. You don’t have to lie, there are perfectly good reasons for defending guns. Almost all of which I personally support.
So what are the facts surrounding Revolutionary China and gun ownership? Well this is what we do know for a fact. The Communist Party after the Long March resettled in the countryside where they began work with the peasants arming them against the government. Mao and the Communist Party armed the people against the country. As the Japanese were attacking China, the Nationalist (and I stress capitalist) Party was only interested in suppressing the peasants, not the Japanese invaders. Mao organized the defence against the invading foreign army while the capitalists were only interested in killing the people of the nation. Eventually the Nationalist party leader Chang Kai-shek realized the Japanese were destroying the country. The communists gave people guns in order to defend themselves and attack those doing harm to them.
In the revolutionary era the people were armed, people carried their guns into work. Some carried them out into the fields as they did agricultural work. Communist China didn’t ban people from having guns they were the ones that gave it out, capitalist China did ban them. Oh, and unlike certain YouTube video making Pastors and pro gun websites, I have sources in the description.
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
– Mao Tse-Tung
Sources:
“Where gun control leads”, Hal Lindsay, WorldNetDaily
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=41225
Gun control history has not been positive in favor of the unarmed citizen.
Western Missouri Shooters Alliance quoting La Raza Newspapers
http://www.wmsa.net/news/LaRaza/030623_gun_control_history.htm
Death by “Gun Control”
http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm
Law doesn’t exist
http://www.lawinfochina.com/
http://www.chinalawblog.com/
Gun Control Policy in United States and China, Huan Zhu University of Kansas, S.J.D. candidate
East China of Political Science and Law, LL.M.
http://www.law.ku.edu/centers/kcl_forum/pdf/zhu.pdf
People’s Republic of China for the Control of Firearms (1981)
http://www.asianlii.org/cn/legis/cen/laws/mftcof349/
People’s Republic of China on Gun Control
http://www.china.org.cn/china/LegislationsForm2001-2010/2011-02/14/content_21916528.htm
JASON UNRUHE 