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CUBA: LESSONS IN GUN CONTROL AND MEDICINE


By Larry Pratt

December 3, 2004 
NewsWithViews.com

If we are willing, we can learn much from the experiences of others. Or, as it has been said in the negative: "Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

A look at the history of Cuba should make us run screaming in terror from anything smacking of socialism. Brain surgeon Miguel Faria has laid it all out for those who will check out his book Cuba in Revolution.

Faria is a refugee from Fidel Castro's socialist "paradise." He still has family trapped inside that socialist island prison - a prison that has imposed draconian gun controls throughout the island. Any prison will attempt to achieve total control of guns and restrict their possession to just the guards. Well, it turns out that the most effective tool for gun control in Cuba is the poverty spawned by socialism. Nobody can afford a gun.

Communist Cuba offers an interesting parallel to Nazi Germany. Both Hitler's Germany and Castro's Cuba were preceded by regimes that imposed gun control to keep guns out of the wrong hands. In both cases, gun control failed to keep the bad guys from getting all the guns they wanted and using them to consolidate their grip on power following seizure of the reins of government.

Hitler took several years to disarm the population using gun registration lists, but Castro moved against private gun ownership the second day he was in power. He sent his thugs throughout the island using the gun registry lists - compiled by the preceding Batista regime - to confiscate the people's firearms. Different tactics, same objective. A defenseless people don't give the all-wise leader any lip.

Another parallel between Cuba and Nazi Germany is the prostitution of psychiatry. Psychiatrists were willing tools of the Nazi regime to "diagnose" opponents as mentally ill. Cuba is no different. And the mental hospitals are horror chambers where victims of the Castro thugocracy are drugged into submission. Alternately, they are electro shocked into compliance.

Lest we think America is immune from psychiatry's willingness to pursue a political agenda in the name of science, we should recall the University of California at Berkeley study earlier this year. A number of psychiatrists concluded that they had identified the personality type that adequately described both Hitler and Ronald Reagan.

Medicine beyond the field of psychiatry has not been immune from practicing politics instead of medicine. Medical journals have been filled with gun control opinion masquerading as science. We can thank Dr. Faria for having coaxed the very politically correct Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into doing a review of the literature on gun control. This lead to one of their first honest moments - they concluded that there was no evidence that gun control has ever worked in the United States.

As we know from the crime data, gun control actually accompanies higher crime rates, and empowering citizens to carry guns on the street actually lowers crime. We wish Dr. Faria success in getting the CDC to take the next step and recognize this. After that, we can hope he will get the psychiatrists to admit that one has to be crazy to take their political opinions seriously.

An interview with Dr. Faria on Larry Pratt's Live Fire can be heard on the web at: www.gunowners.org/radio.htm.

� 2004 Larry Pratt - All Rights Reserved

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Larry Pratt has been Executive Director of Gun Owners of America for 27 years. GOA is a national membership organization of 300,000 Americans dedicated to promoting their second amendment freedom to keep and bear arms.

GOA lobbies for the pro-gun position in Washington and is involved in firearm issues in the states. GOA's work includes providing legal assistance to those involved in lawsuits with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal firearms law enforcement agency.

Pratt has appeared on numerous national radio and TV programs such as NBC's Today Show, CBS' Good Morning America, CNN's Crossfire and Larry King Live, Fox's Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC's Phil Donahue show and many others. He has debated Congressmen James Traficant, Jr. (D-OH), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Vice President Al Gore, among others. His columns have appeared in newspapers across the country.

He published a book, Armed People Victorious, in 1990 and was editor of a book, Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution & Militias, 1995. His latest book, On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense of Liberty was published in 2001.

Pratt has held elective office in the state legislature of Virginia, serving in the House of Delegates. Pratt directs a number of other public interest organizations and serves as the Vice-Chairman of the American Institute for Cancer Research.

The GOA web site is:  http://gunowners.org. Pratt's weekly talk show Live Fire is archived there at: http://www.gunowners.org/radio.htm   E-Mail: ldpratt@gunowners.org


 

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Hitler took several years to disarm the population using gun registration lists, but Castro moved against private gun ownership the second day he was in power.