Surprise! Communist Chinese Support U. S. Gun Control – Larry Pratt

“…of course, what really endangers the security and freedom
of a people is when the only ones who are legally allowed to
keep and bear arms are those who work for the State.”
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Surprise! Communist Chinese Support U. S. Gun Control
by Larry Pratt, Executive Director, Gun Owners of America
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And now–as they used to say on the old “Monthly Python”
TV show–something completely different.
The Information Office of Communist China’s State
Council has issued a report–U. S. Human Rights Record 2000–
criticizing human rights in America.
That’s right. The country where Communism has killed
an estimated 100 million people, the country whose leader Mao
Tse-tung was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as
history’s greatest mass murderer, is complaining about human
rights in our country.
And–surprise!–one of the things the Red Chinese don’t
like about our country is that many of our citizens keep and
bear arms.
In a section about ways in which our freedoms are
supposedly in jeopardy, it is said: :The United States, the only
country where carrying a private weapon is a constitutional right,
is a society ridden with violence… The excessive number of
privately owned guns has resulted in tragedy for many innocent
people.”
OK. So, what is there to say about this breath-taking
hypocrisy on the part of the Chinese Communists regarding human
rights?
Well, the first thing that, ironically–unlike the Liberal
gun grabbers in our country–the Red Chinese at least acknowledge
that private American citizens do have a Constitutionally-protected
right to keep and bear arms.
But, of course, their report says nothing, at all about the
fact that as many as 2,500,000 of us, annually, use guns in self-
defense to protect our lives, the lives of our family and friends,
and our property.

Why was this information omitted?
This report doesn’t say.
So, we contacted the Communist Chinese Embassy in Washington
DC to ask why, and other questions. Here’s the way our interview
went with Yuan Yuan Zhang, press spokesman for the Red Chinese
government.

Q: Is there a constitutional right to keep and bear arms in
your country?
A: Certainly not.
Q: Is it illegal in your country for private citizens to keep
and bear arms?
A: It is not–one has to get a permit to carry weapons. Of
course some people carry weapons because of their official duties
such as policemen or soldiers.
At this point, Zhang tells how four or five years ago in
suburban Peking some private people had guns to shoot pheasants and
rabbits. But, “later on the government asked them to surrender their
weapons, actually purchased back their weapons,” he says, laughing.
“Purchased back”? Strange phraseology her since the govern-
ment never owned these guns.
Q: So, why were these guns confiscated by your government?
A: Well, sometimes you had a weapon in your closet and then
someone else stole it and that may uhhhh, you know, cause some
trouble…. Sometimes people just make their own rifles from make-
shift shops and turn our some kind of very primitive type of gun.
Q: And what happens if a person does this, if a person has
a gun but no government permit?
A: That’s a crime. That’s a big crime.
Q: Does that mean a fine and jail?
A: Yes! It would be dealt with in accordance with the criminal
code.
Zhang explains that his government bans the private ownership
of guns to ensure “the social tranquility and safety and security of
the population.” This is why they “confiscate or buy-back” weapons
possessed by private persons.
Q: Why does your report make no mention of the fact that as
many as 2,500,000 Americans use guns every year in self-defense?
A: I have a sense we are going to have a long conversation.
I have to go. I have a lunch engagement in three minutes.
Q: Are you aware that millions of Americans use guns in self
defense every year?
A: Yes, I am aware of that. I’ve been in this country for
many years. I know people use guns principally to defend themselves.
But even very decent citizens who have guns at home may sometimes find
that their weapons have been put to, you know, very wrong use–good
things in the wrong hands, you know.
Q: And sometimes people in the government who have guns put
them to wrong use, too. Did you know that?
A: (After a long pause) Of course I know that. Sure.
But Zhang adds: “We are not challenging the Constitutional
right in the U. S. We’re just presenting the basic facts. Yours is
the only country in the world that the Constitution allows its
citizens to carry guns.”
Q: But why does your report leave out the basic fact that
many, many times more Americans use guns for self-defense, than use
guns for bad things?
A: [Our report] is not intended to be a very, very exhaustive
study of gun issues. It is just a short article in trying to tell
people the human rights situation in the United States. Is not perfect.
We may be wrong about this gun-related matter. But we see this as one
of the areas in which we think the American peoples’ human rights are
in jeopardy because of this excessive ownership of guns.
Q: Are you aware that Americans won its freedom and independence
because, among other things, many of our private citizens had guns? Do
you know this?
A: Of course I know that. And you know Chairman Mao’s famous
quotation?
Q: Yes. He said that political power comes out of the barrel
of a gun.
A: We needed guns to fight the Japanese invaders. We have 100
million men in our militias with guns.
Q: But your point about Chairman Mao’s quotation is very
interesting. He said what he said when he was a private citizen and
not a member of the government, right?
A: Right.
Q: So, under your present laws, Chairman Mao would not have
been allowed to have guns!
A: I’m trying to figure out your point.
End of interview.

In their book ‘Lethal Laws’ (Jews for the Preservation of
Firearms Ownership, 1994)–which has been the key to genocide in many
countries throughout history–authors Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman and Alan
M. Rice note that as in Nazi Germany, “gun control” was the key to
genocide especially during the so called “Great Leap Forward” (1957-60).
At this time, “the government’s imposition of policies that
promoted massive rural starvation plainly depended on its monopoly of
armed force.”
Communist China’s first “gun control” law was enacted by the
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on October 22, 1957.
Article 9 barred the unauthorized making, purchasing, possession, repair,
or use of firearms or ammunition “in contravention of safey provisions.”
On September 2, 1983, the Second Meeting of the Standing
Committee of the Sixth National People’s Congress approved a law titled
“On Severely Punishing Criminals Who Gravely Endanger Public Security
of the Society.” This law stated:
(1) The following criminals who gravely endanger the public
security of the society may be punished more heavily than the severest
punishment currently stipulated in the Criminal Law, and may be
punished by the death penalty.
And who might some of these “criminals” be who deserve death?
Among those listed in this law: “A person who illegally makes , trades,
transports, steals or purloins weapons, ammunition or explosives in a
particularly serious way or with serious consequences.”
But, of course, what really endangers the security and freedom
of a people is when the only ones who are legally allowed to keep and
bear arms are those who work for the State. We must hope and pray
this never happens in America.

Reprinted with the permission of Gun Owners of America.
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Springfield, VA. 22151
703-321-8585
http://www.gunowners.org