Unarmed Citizens
A letter (Jan. 5) from a reader ridiculed the idea that an unarmed populace is at the mercy of its armed government, proudly pointing to the toppled East European regimes with strict gun control.
He seems to have missed the point: The people of these countries suffered brutal tyranny for four decades. That tyranny ended only when the people with the guns (the Soviet Union) decided to stop oppressing them.
The government of Romania, not in the pocket of the Soviet Union, wasn’t inclined to relinquish power. It was toppled not by the unarmed citizens, but by the Romanian army. The citizens were fortunate that time.
All previous grasps at freedom by the unarmed populace (Hungary, 1956; Czechoslovakia, 1968; China, 1989) were stomped down because the armed rulers chose not to allow sovereignty of the people.
PETER STEPHENSON
Fullerton
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