Innocents Betrayed

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Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
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Sample Opinion Piece

What killed the most unarmed men, women and children in the 20th Century?Not street crime. Not war. Not terrorist attacks. The biggest killer was government -- government killing its own population.

Professor R.J. Rummel, one of the world's authorities on genocide, conservatively estimated that governments murdered 170,000,000 people in that century. That amount averages more than the terrorist death toll of September 11, 2003, every day for 100 years.

Putting a human face on these grisly statistics comes the new documentary film, Innocents Betrayed. The film shows how genocide and mass murder could destroy so many lives in nations all over the world. In every case, the victims were disarmed by ideas and laws that discouraged private self-defense. When the people lacked the power to resist, then organized killing could proceed with little difficulty.

Photos, footage, facts and figures in the the film make a powerful case that civilians should never relinquish their power to governments, no matter what promises those governments make. From Turkey to Germany, from Guatemala to Uganda, the film shows the disastrous effects of civilian disarmament.

The United States cannot claim to be "different" or immune from these effects. Slavery existed because a whole race of people was kept unarmed and powerless. Other mass murders, including the September 11 attack, became possible because the victims were defenseless.

Seeing the horrific effects of civilian disarmament, it is hard to understand how anyone would want a country that arms its government agents but disarms its citizens. Those who favor "gun control," for example, should explain why they want to discourage private firearms ownership. All of the "sensible gun laws" operate to make private firearms ownership more difficult, inconvenient, expensive, embarrassing or legally risky. "Gun control" advocates never propose expanding the number of decent people who own firearms.

As the Innocents Betrayed film graphically shows, concentrating power in the hands of government while reducing the power of the people sets the stage for unbelieveable human misery. Violent crime remains a serious problem that harms thousands of people, but victim disarmament kills millions. The right to armed self-defense is the solution, not the problem. "Gun control" -- the idea that decent people really do not need and should not have firearms -- must be rejected as both immoral and dangerous.



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