>Point is well taken, in the face of grand State terror. But the terror only was able to happen because of the thousands of small terrors that preceded it, and went unopposed. Kristalnacht was an act of the bullying of the defenseless. A cossack charging down the streets of the shtetl knew he would not be shot off his horse. When the thug yanks open the door he doesn't expect a shotgun blast.

And the situations described in Seven Samurai (and the Hollywood attempt of repeating it) were no state thing at all, but still the same. The thugs just didn't bother to become official.

>The plight of Europe's Jews was unique, in that there were a lot of cultural issues that factored in.

The unique thing is that they were literate enough to have survivors who will write about that. Other than that, there were thugs in all times, there were groups who could be bullied without punishment, and there was nobody to make literature out of that. Too bad, you won't be on the picture.

> A gun is only as effective as the will to use it. And the will is sometimes weakened by the failure of civilized, decent people to recognize that there is such a thing as evil beyond their imagining. But when the realization dawns - imagine the Warsaw ghetto with more than a few handguns. The outcome may have been the same, but the message may have been different.

This right to rebellion of one social group against the other group which happens to have the power (or just takes the power by force and without punishment) somehow doesn't equal the right of every Jeanie Q Sixpack to stash a double barrel next to the fridge. There was that bit of organization and militia, wasn't there?