Cuba's President Raul Castro (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)
Cuba has given its few remaining armed citizens an ultimatum. From the Associated Press:
Cuba has declared a two-month amnesty for citizens to register unlicensed guns, and says those passing aptitude and psychological tests will be allowed to keep their weapons.
The move is unusual in a state where almost no one except some active military personnel and plain-clothed state security agents are allowed to possess weapons.
Even most police, we are told, are required to keep their service weapons at their station when on leave (something those with "Only Ones" attitudes here should take note of).
We're also told that guns Cubans retained after the "revolution" were, in large part, confiscated. How?
[A]uthorities used a list of those who had sought licenses to go door-to-door and encourage them to turn over their firearms..."
Ah, yes. Good ol' AP. I'm sure they were "encouraged."
Many of those guns were obtained from the U.S., as the March 1959 edition of GUNS Magazine documented:
...just as we in our turn had earlier got guns from France, from the Marquis de LaFayette. The ease with which Castro got guns should serve as a signal to the embers of neo-fascism elsewhere.
This, of course, was written before the benefit of hindsight, and the media portrayed him as a dashing revolutionary. My observation:
Unfortunately, like most of the press who didn't recognize they were being deceived by a communist thug, the magazine was hardly prescient here. They had no way of knowing that Castro would later ask the ominous question "Armas para que?" ("Guns for what?") to consolidate his own grip on power.
The continued infatuation of useful idiot Hollywood dolts and subversive U.S. politicians notwithstanding, Cuba is a tyranny and the Castros are tyrants. Those being told to register their firearms and apply for permission to keep them need to remember Fidel's imperial attitude summed up in three words:
"Armas para que?"
Those being told they'll be allowed to keep them, for now, provided they jump through the appropriate political and "psychological" hoops to satisfy the control interests of their rulers, need to remember those three arrogant words:
"Armas para que?"
The rest of us need to look at this as a representative example of what we can expect from those who demand we register and then seek state approval to possess our weapons. We then need to recall the experiences of New York and California (and just recently, another incident in Canada)...
And then recall how the gungrabbers ridicule fear of confiscation as "paranoia"...
Guns for what?
I guess it's up to those domestic enemies doing the pushing to decide how badly they want that question answered.
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Comments
Gee. Isn’t that decent of them. I wonder what “aptitude and psychological tests” will be given, and what type of tax must be paid. Could it be that they will be asked how stupid or crazy they were to believe the government, and now they must pay in blood?
Fidel has a nice collection. Is he required to pass aptitude and psychological tests?
I recently had a conversation with a man in New Zealand who didn't think licensing gun "owners" was the same as gun registration. I hope I was able to convince him that they were two sides of the same coin. Control.
Who's asking. No, that's not a question, that's the answer to the question "guns for what?"
Registration is the "R" word.
Why does anyone need a gun? Get them out of every society. Anybody who thinks that you need a gun for protection should wake up to themselves and look at how many people are killed by guns. There is something seriously wrong with humanity.
"WHOOSH!!"
alfaross:
<i>Why does anyone need a gun? Get them out of every society. Anybody who thinks that you need a gun for protection should wake up to themselves and look at how many people are killed by guns. There is something seriously wrong with humanity.</i>
How many American citizens are you willing to kill, maim, and imprison to see your vision of Utopia forcibly imposed upon the rest of us? Give me a number, please.
That's what it will take, you know.
III
I don't want anyone to die, that's the point. Changing peoples long held perceptions that guns keep people safe is the start to removing them from society.
Any idiot who thinks he can make society safe by removing weapons does not understand humanity. We have had societies remove guns and genocide occurred within their own borders and in the countries they invaded simply because people disagreed with them or were physically different. Alfaross needs to study humanity a lot closer because since the days of the cave man to the 21st century, people have used all sorts of weapons to kill each other and governments are the worst. America is the longest running study of representative democracy simply because it is the only country that until now has not forced it's citizens to disarm. Germany disarmed and the Nazi took over the military and the Germans suffered. Anyone who thinks that by removing weapons from the hands of those who are supposed to have control over their own lives is being safer are DANGEROUS FOOLS. Far more dangerous than guns. They will be promoting future genocide. May God save us from fools like Alfaross
hey Alfabet, consider the following:
I'm a 25 year old, 300 pound, 6'6" powerlifting Sumo wrestler. I make Ahnuld look like a 98 pound weakling in comparison.
I'm pumped on 'roids and I'm walking 3" off the ground, high on crank.
I've decided that YOU and everything YOU personally have INCLUDING YOUR FAMILY are what just what I've been looking for.
All I've got in my hands is a baseball bat. What are YOU going to do? Inquiring minds want to know.
e
Frankly, there is well over one million people that by showing they are armed with a firearm stop violent criminals in their tracks. No one gets hurt. If I'm not mistaking this happens between two and three million times per year in the US.
Another point is, many countries that have disarmed citizens have murder rates far higher than the US does. People do not need a firearm to kill other people with. However many people for any number of reasons are better served with owning a firearm for protection than a knife or a baseballs bat. Nevertheless, when you need help when under a violent attack and every second counts help from 911 is only minutes away, at best.
"I don't want anyone to die, that's the point."
Ah, a humanitarian, are we? Then you'll be happy to start where it will do the most good, by completely disarming the state in all its forms...right? After all, for sheer capacity to produce rotting corpses out of living, breathing human beings, no private entity or group thereof--ANYWHERE, in history--can compete with government. Even beyond the tens of millions killed in official wars, more--far more--were murdered by their own governments. But not before being disarmed by those same governments.
So spare us the pious peacenik routine. It's laughable. No other species in the history of this planet has been so dumb as to consider giving up--voluntarily--the means of its own defense.
If you want to sit back and marvel at how much better you are than others, hey, it's still a free country, despite the best efforts of some. (To wit: they just haven't got around to you yet.)
Alfros it is simple. I have a stalker that has threatened to kill me and rape my kids. The cops say at least two months to track him down. . . they are doing what they can. What am I supposed to do if he finds us? make it easy for him? you make me sick. I will use anything I can to stop him from harming me or my family. . . I will carry a gun thanks, it is my GOD GIVEN right, the government has no say in it
Alfaross: Simpleton ideas and wishes have a tendency to crash and burn when they smack against reality. Unless each and every person in the world is subjected to a lobotomy (Congress not included, they already are halfway there) you will never be able to remove predatory behavior from some of the members of society. So you remove all firearms and then what? You have now subjected those who are physically weak to the power whims of those more powerful. Those who can fight with a blade or stick will have the control over those who don't.
The gun is the truly democratic way. You don't need years and tons of money to learn how to use it, you don't need to be a magnificent specimen to defend yourself or your loved ones. A 70 year old infirm person can easily take down a 20 year old drug crazed bastard by just pointing a gun and pressing a trigger thus saving his life. Your way, the 70 year old would be killed and his blood would be in your hands...not that you'd care.
@ Alfaross
You'd have a whole lot more credibility with that idea if you could do the same thing with illegal drugs. Both guns and drugs exist. People who want either will get them regardless of the law. I don't want to be a criminal in order to protect myself.
The arms race started with rocks and sticks and has continued ever since. It's not going to end. Some will have these and will use them to victimize others.
But I have another thought - after guns, then what? Get rid of all other weapons? Like chains, baseball bats, pipes, and crow bars? How about screwdrivers?
It ain't the weapons, they don't think. It's the hands that hold them and the intent in the mind of the user.
How about you try to stop drunk and other reckless, illegal driving habits that kill many more people than guns? Send us a message when you've succeeded.
"Anybody who thinks that you need a gun for protection should wake up to themselves and look at how many people are killed by guns."
The appropriate question to ask instead is: How many people are killed by their own governments?
If you think disarming every single human in the world will stem violence I have a copy of 1984 that I will gladly beat you over the head with. Of course it being a small paperback ... I doubt it will be dense enough to get through your thick skull.
Do people kill one another? Yes.
Do firearms make the killing of a person easier? Yes.
Do either of these two statements justify limiting the right of self defense? No.
Using your argument we can justify banning alcohol, automobiles, kitchen knives, and large wrenches.
Alfaross said: "Why does anyone need a gun? Get them out of every society. Anybody who thinks that you need a gun for protection should wake up to themselves and look at how many people are killed by guns. There is something seriously wrong with humanity.
I don't want anyone to die, that's the point. Changing peoples long held perceptions that guns keep people safe is the start to removing them from society."
I am armed, you ae not. That's just the way I like it.
When the armed surrogates you will attempt to send to disarm me and mine are dead, then what will you do?
Everything I tell you to do.
Alfaross: "...Changing peoples long held perceptions that guns keep people safe is the start to removing them from society..."
How can you change people's perceptions? You can't! Not when those perceptions have been shaped by millions of years of biology, anatomy, and physiology, and strongly reinforced by experience, history, and technology. Only the most profoundly self-deluded ideologue can even begin to be convinced that weakness equals safety.
You have a deeply flawed understanding of humanity, Alfaross, as evidenced by the fact that you are approaching this issue completely ass-backwards. You believe that guns ARE a problem, without understanding that guns were invented to SOLVE a problem. Until you are able to correctly identify the problem itself, you will fail to solve it because you are struggling to eliminate a symptom while completely ignoring the disease.
Let me give you a hint: The place to start looking for the problem is inside the human skull, not at t
Last time I checked, everybody eventually dies. Some die fighting. Some die on their knees. AlfaRoss is a knee-die-er. Hutu's and Tutsi's used machetes and killed thousands. They had their version of AlfaRoss who wanted to get rid of all sharp thingys. It ain't the tool, it's the heart.
III
Hmm. Comment got cut off.
Let me give you a hint: The place to start looking for the problem is inside the human skull, not at the end of the arm.
In order to change people's long held perceptions that guns keep them safe, one would have to make it less obvious that guns are valuable defensive tools.
This is being attempted in two ways:
* By directing agents of government to make themselves more dangerous to armed citizens than violent criminals;
* using deceit in an attempt to convince people that they have a better change of surviving an attack armed only with naivete.
Both require diverting enormous amounts of resources that could be better spent elsewhere. This disarmament nonsense ruins people, or costs them their lives.
The "gun control" movement has cratered. There's nothing left to defend that hasn't been disintegrated on impact with reality. Anyone still defending it is simply expressing a desire to be on the only side which is armed.
Alfaross, do you really think that the worst thugs of all (gov't) will give up their guns, once they "remove" all civilian guns? No, and then the genocides start. Gun control is nothing less than tyranny. The total disinvention of the gun is something that will never be.
Murder is part of Man's sinful nature. We've been killing with anything we can ever since Cain used a rock on Abel.
Well, Alfaross, guns HAVE kept me safe on more than one occasion. That's not a "perception", but cold hard reality.
Let yourself die at the hands of bad people, but don't impose your lack of values on the rest of us.
Alfaross says:
Why does anyone need a gun?
Because a policeman I can trust is too heavy and too expensive. Alfaross, I think you select the facts that suit your opinions and ignore an inconvenient facts.
Poor you.
>>Murder is part of Man's sinful nature. We've been killing with anything we can ever since Cain used a rock on Abel.
Yes, but that was one of those "tactical semi-auto military-style armor-piercing assault rocks." If civilians were only allowed to possess pebbles, mankind would have been completely free of any murderous impulses.
"One man with a gun can control 100 without one. ... Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms." --V.I. Lenin
And that pretty much sums up what it is like in Cuba today. The sad thing is that there are people who claim to be loyal Americans who would like to see the Soviet/Cuban model of governance implemented here.
"Why does anyone need a government? Get them out of every society. Anybody who thinks that you need a government for protection should wake up to themselves and look at how many people are killed by governments. There is something seriously wrong with humanity"
Hey Al, I fixed that for you.
Alfaross, don't worry, it's cool. You're a coward. Hey, everybody has to be something. You're the guy who gets killed in the first reel, trying to talk to the slavering maniac who has never cared about anything or anyone, and make him see reason. Oh, yeah, that's kind of a reflection on you. Sorry. Hey, we'll make a nice candle-light vigil and makeshift memorial to you.
Who needs a gun? Obviously not liberal minded folk who live in gated communities with security guards or those people that feel they should be able to go and do as they please, human nature be damned! But as for myself I woke up after the 2nd attempted assault by vermin that I was going to have to defend myself out here in the real world. Give them what they want? What if they want my life? Fight back with my fists? If I could swing without blacking out from pain due to my disability it might be an option. The question isn't who needs a gun? The question is why are you so afraid of taking responsibility for yourself? Why do you like the idea of being enslaved? Why do you hate freedom?
@ Fortunate Son, " If civilians were only allowed to possess pebbles, mankind would have been completely free of any murderous impulses."
What happens when the murdering and violence is state sponsored as in the case of dictators and tyrants? How do you propose to disarm a hostile government and prevent them from inflicting violence on their own people and their neighbors?
It's one thing to imagine that the world will hold hands and sing Kum-ba-ya, but homosapiens have been killing each other knives, spears, and all matter of weapons for the past 4.5 million years. That will not stop. It's apart of human nature that the strong prey on the weak.
All you have to do is decide how will you defend yourself or your family if the worst case scenario materializes. Keep in mind, the police are under no LEGAL obligation to arrive in time to save you from a violent attack.
The choice is yours. To survive or not to survive.
"Why does anyone need a government?"
Huge props to Chris Mallory.
Alfaross needs to read more Heinlein.
"At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that news is not something that happens to other people." ~ Robert Heinlein
Exception given to responding to the threat of French or Spanish soldiers overtaking a Colonial settlement, or uprisings by indigenous peoples, the purposes for the keeping and bearing of Fire-Arms by American Freemen is much the same as it was in the 1600’s.
The purposes for the Citizen's keeping and bearing of government is however, a question in dire need of immediate attention-- least they be allowed to take their natural course and revert to tyranny and despotism, and thus become the cause for an entirely unnecessary repetition of American history.
Joshua said in part," Keep in mind, the police are under no LEGAL obligation to arrive in time to save you from a violent attack."
I would add however, that they do seem to feel they are under obligation to kill you on flimsy or erroneous warrants or orders from superiors or for any questioning of their authority to abuse you.
To the anti gun people I have a question. How EXACTLY are unarmed you going to TAKE guns away from armed gun owners?
Do not bother with some vague, faux, non-claim of 'police' or 'army' or any of that, how are YOU, no one else only and solely unarmed YOU, going to perform the robbery of a private, law abideing citizen of an item of his/her personal property?
If I remember correctly, Castro's lieutenant, Che Guevara executed peasants who resisted his efforts to disarm them, either in Cuba or some country in South America (Peru?). And college students in the U.S. venerate him like he was some kind of saint. That's what sickens me.
Chris Mallory wins the Internets.
This reminds me of the ongoing efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and other gun banners who are still trying to chip away at our Second Amendment rights by touting their thinly veiled registration schemes, such as trying to outlaw all private exchanges of guns under the so called and nonexistant "gun show loophole".
Wasn't this article about Cuba?
Hey U name-callers, keep it on track willya?
So Raul Castro gives amnesty to those still possessing guns. OK.
"Armas para que?" Guns for what? There is virtually no opposition to Raul or the Castro dictatorship. Why? Por que? There are no dissenting opinions either. Por que? Why? They are all in prison! Por que? Why? Because they have no means to resist!
Lesson here? Is this the point of this article? DUH!
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