Something to think about…

From a friend who is in his 80s and has an interesting perspective…

Gun confiscation:  A family history

My compound first name is Jean-Pierre, but I answer to “J-P”   because most Americans cannot pronounce my name unless they speak French or have a head cold. In addition,  rhyming with ‘ ”gene” pisses me off, inasmuch as I am a proud male. (Since my name means “John-Peter,” I remind myself daily of my sexual identity by going to the john and finding my ____).

We were living in Paris when Hitler invaded France on my third birthday, 10 May 1940. Early in 1941, two Schutzstaffel  –  SS officers knocked on our door, and, in perfect French, told my father, Monsieur,  you have  a Belgian Thirifays 16-gauge double-barrel shotgun, serial number XXXYYY. Hand it over!”  Thanks to the French government’s firearm ownership list, my father lost his favorite hunting shotgun.

At age 3 ½, I was already causing   problems for my parents, who caught me in the balcony, spitting on German occupation soldiers, while shouting, “Sale Boche!”   (“Dirty block-head” , from the high & tight haircuts they favored). Fortunately, Wehrmacht Soldaten (regular German troopers)   were forgiving, but things got dangerous when my parents caught me pissing on the invaders’ helmets. We did not want to attract further SS attention. One could say that I was a precocious maverick….

In late 1941, we escaped by driving to Barcelona, evading a Ju-88 strafing the retreating French forces on the highway as we headed to Spain.  My mother, my sister and I embarked on a passenger ship, “XXXXXXXXXX,” as we sought refuge in Argentina, while my father returned to Paris to clear out his office.  He joined us in Buenos Aires several months later,   and met my second sister, who had been born enroute.

In   June of 1946, one month after my ninth birthday, Colonel Juan  Domingo Perón staged a coup and took over as Argentina’s National-Socialist dictator. Sho’nuff – eventually, his secret service came calling, looking for firearms. Having been stung by confiscation in France, my father said, “Cuáles armas de fuego?”  (“What firearms?) .  He had not registered his 16-gauge shotgun or my single-barrel .410 bore break-top shotguns, so he and I joyfully hunted three varieties of partridge, the Argentine hare, and waterfowl from early in my childhood.

I am proud American  citizen, to the political right of both John Wayne and Attila the Hun because I have experienced the penury of living under two Socialist régimes. I am a  member of the NRA and AZCDL,  and I remain active in opposing the likes of Schumer, Pelosi, Bloomberg, Sanders, Clinton, Biden, Obama, Kelly  and the rest of  the USA’s MarxiCrats (including treasonous RINOs) who wish to deprive me of my  God-given right to defend myself against the dictatorial excesses of a  Socialist dictatorship.

Will I fight for my country? Absolutely, and against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. I derive inspiration from Winston Churchill’s 4 June 1940 speech to the House of Commons: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

JP became an American citizen, joined the Navy after college, and became a Naval Aviator. He’s now retired, but still active in training new shooters and he is worried about what is going on here/now with the current lockdowns/absurd rules/etc. he’s seen it all twice before.

Comments

Something to think about… — 22 Comments

  1. Key words, “enemies both foreign and domestic.”

  2. “Sale Boche!” (“Dirty block-head” , from the high & tight haircuts they favored)

    My WWII ETO vet dad seldom referred to Germans as anything other than “Square Headed Krauts.” Didn’t realize that the occupied French had a similar appellation.

    • Not impossible, but certainly not easy. To repair mental programming, and physical conditioning, may be generational
      , that is the unknown tragedy.

  3. John- Yep!

    NRW- That they did.

    Jim- Amen!

    Rev- If only, but that would mean they would have to WORK for those ‘entitlements’…

    Stu- Excellent point.

  4. thanks for posting this one. always good to hear these things from those that lived it.

  5. Hey Old NFO;

    So many forgot the lessons of history and will have to relearn the lessons painfully…if they survive.

  6. But they’re not the enemy if they win…

    Yeah, our founding fathers would have been shooting already. And I seriously think it’s getting to that point.

    As to gun registration, fortunately, here in the Gunshine State of Florida, what registration? The only records are sales records kept by BATFE that supposedly aren’t ever entered into a searchable database and if you believe that, well, my friend, I used to work for a police agency and pulled things from supposedly unsearchable databases all the time.

    • If there’s a database, it’s searchable. Trust me. I’ve done it, legally.

  7. my wife likes to tell of her grandfather teaching her how to shoot the .22 rifle he gave her. He said that she’d need to have that skill “come the next revolution.” He was a full blooded Comanche and had personal experience in what governments could do to those they declared ‘deplorables’ and how well they kept to their word. I fear we are getting closer to that point when that skill will be needed again, and agree with Beans that some of our Founding Fathers would already have taken that path. Heck, I think our grandfathers (WWI vets) would have already done so.

    • Our WWI vets got run over by McCarthur and Patton during the Bonus March put-down, in which the army used cavalry, tanks, machine guns and bayonets to attack men, women and children.

      So…

  8. Tried to buy a Kindle copy of Rimworld and they said it was sold out but that they were expecting a new shipment in a few days. Weird.

  9. LOL. Was hoping, after I posted, that it would be recognized as a joke and no one would be frantically contacting Amazon to get the problem resolved.

  10. I met J-P in the 90’s when he was providing sales support for night vision gear we purchased for a .gov agency. He has some great stories about training folks in the Middle East.

    Good guy with razor wit.

  11. Hi Old NFO!!,
    I’m just 5 years “J-P’s” junior… Although I was born here in the U.S. in 1945… I recall the after daze of the war…..as told by those that came back from “over there!!!!”
    J-P was “Right On!!’
    “10-4!!!”

    skybill

  12. Someone get Jean-Pierre to record his stories for us. That would be something to see on YouTube. Wouldn’t be amazing to hear and see the people who lived the history tell it? That is one of the better parts of “Band of Brothers” the people who were actually there speaking.