Of Holocausts and Gun Control
![handle is hein.journals/walq75 and id is 1247 raw text is: OF HOLOCAUSTS AND GUN CONTROL
DANIEL D. POLSBY
DON B. KATES, JR.*
This essay seeks to reclaim a serious argument from the lunatic fringe.
We argue a connection exists between the restrictiveness of a country's
civilian weapons policy and its liability to commit genocide' upon its own
people. This notion has received a good deal of disdainful public attention
over the past several years because of the Oklahoma City bombing, the
Republic of Texas siege, and the inflamed subculture from which the
defendants in those incidents emerged. Some Americans, it appears, believe
that their country is on the verge-if not in the grip-of a virtual coup by a
sinister international directorate of Jews, one-worlders, and Trilateralists. For
them, acting on this belief means arming oneself and confronting
representatives of government with distrust, if not open hostility. By now it is
widely appreciated that people with this particular fixation can be extremely
dangerous. Yet their delusions take a special bitterness from the fact that
* Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, Northwestern University; attorney and criminologist,
Novato, California. Thanks for constructive comments on earlier drafts to Robert Cottrol, Rutgers
University School of Law; Ted Robert Gurr, University of Maryland Political Science Department;
Barbara Harff, U.S. Naval Academy Political Science Department; C.B. Kates, F.A.C.S., Novato, CA;
Marilyn King, Novato, CA; Gary Lawson, Northwestern University School of Law; Rudolf J.
Rummel, University of Hawaii Political Science Department. Grateful acknowledgement is also due to
the Julius Rosenthal Fund and the Kirkland & Ellis Research Fund of Northwestern University for
subsidizing this essay. The usual disclaimers apply.
1. By genocide we mean attempts to exterminate not only gene pools but also masses of
political opponents. The complexities of defining genocide and distinguishing it from other varieties of
murder and oppression are addressed in Barbara Harff, Recognizing Genocides and Politicides, in
GENOCIDE WATCH 27 (Helen Fein ed., 1992) [hereinafter Harff, Recognizing Genocides]; see also
Barbara Harff & Ted Robert Gurr, Victims of the State: Genocides, Politicides and Group Repression
Since 1945, 1 INT'L REV. VICTIMOLOGY 23 (1989).
It would probably be more accurate to adopt the term geno/politicide, defined as follows:
the promotion and execution of policies by a state or its agents that result in the deaths of a substantial
portion of a group. In genocides the victimized groups are defined primarily in terms of their communal
characteristics. In politicides, by contrast, groups are defined primarily in terms of their political opposition
to the regime and dominant group.
Harff, Recognizing Genocides, supra, at 27-38. For stylistic reasons, we prefer genocide to
describe both phenomena. In addition, we follow Harff's distinction between genocides and
pogroms, which she describes as short-lived outbursts by mobs, which, although often condoned by
authorities, rarely persist. Id. at 38. If the violence persists for long enough, however, Harff argues,
the distinction between condonation and complicity collapses. See id. at 37; see also Harff & Gurr,
supra, at 24 (defining genocide to include instances in which state agents assist or knowingly
acquiesce in the killing of undesirable groups by vigilantes, 'death squads,' or private militia, and
also instances in which governments simply ignore their obligations to protect vulnerable minorities
attacked by murderous mobs or profiteers); see generally examples discussed infra notes 111, 113-14,
and 118 and accompanying text
1237](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/walq75&div=44&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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