Russian history and my Mosin

[CAnnoneer]

I remember that quite well, thank you, without mementos of the killers in my house.

Joe, if you remember quite well without them, then their presence should not bother you any extra. I think you worked yourself into a contradiction.

[Perd Hapley]

This is one of those areas where both sides really just ought to agree to disagree.   

[roo_ster]

If Joe doesn't want any Mosins in his house, not only does he not have to buy any, the rest of them are that tiny bit cheaper due to reduced demand for the rest of us.

As for his reasons (the slaughter of his ancestors by Stalin's murderers & the terror famine*), that is good a reason as any. 

Probing & dissecting his antipathy toward them is bound to come up with a logical inconsistency, since the antipathy is based emotion rather than logic.  Some personal decisions are like that. 

As long as he doesn't try to restrict the rest of us from purchasing, I do not care.  I can even soldier on if he thinks my owning of a Mosin is sympathy for the commies or whatnot.  I am notoriously insensitive to the opinions of nearly all humanity, so generating a bit of apathy toward that particular opinion of Joe's is no great feat on my part.


FWIW, I own a Mosin M44 and will purchase more in the future.  I'd particularly like a Finn.





* May Walter Duranty burn in Hell with Stalin

[Joe Demko]

I remember that quite well, thank you, without mementos of the killers in my house.

Joe, if you remember quite well without them, then their presence should not bother you any extra. I think you worked yourself into a contradiction.

No contradiction.  It also won't bother me any less.  Is there some reason I must have relics of murderers in my house?  Those of you who are, seemingly, so concerned that Bolshevik/Stalinist/Soviet atrocities will be forgotten could preserve relics of those who were killed, could you not?  Do you? 

BTW, a clarification is in order.

This post from me:

I find keeping such items in my home to be the same as memorializing the deeds done with them.  Memorializing murderers and oppressors is not only rather creepy, but is precisely what Nazi and Soviet apologists do.

Was a sarcastic reply to this post: 

I find that anthropomorphizing a bit of metal and wood as if it carries the thoughts and intents and personality of the people who may have made or misused it is not only rather silly, but precisely what the antis do.

I should have included an  to make the sarcasm clearer. 

[CAnnoneer]

Joe, the practical impact of this thread is that you indirectly insult the "babies" of those of us who own milsurp weapons. I doubt anyone of us here keeps such while thinking that they were a tool of oppression or genocide. Maybe there are some sickos out there, e.g. the "Falling Down" type that would keep a used Gift Gas cannister etc., but I can't believe there are such on this board.

Whether any particular rifle was or not is hardly material in the here and now. I suspect Manedwolf and others see their Mosins as the tools of Russian peasants defending their country from Nazi invaders. Now you come and crap all over that, bringing up the alternative theory that their baby may have been used by NKVD. I don't see what this negativity accomplishes other than aggravate everybody.

[Joe Demko]

I will note that those of us who do not keep them were not-so-indirectly insulted.  If you want to look at a weapon that was issued by two repressive regimes (Czarist Russia being not too much better than the Bolsheviks who replaced it) and tell yourself that it was used by a heroic peasant defending his beloved Rodina from the evil Nazis, then I think you are willfully ignoring the larger part of the history you claim to be preserving.

[CAnnoneer]

I think you are willfully ignoring the larger part of the history you claim to be preserving.

I simply see the glass half full.

[Joe Demko]

I think you are willfully ignoring the larger part of the history you claim to be preserving.

I simply see the glass half full.

Okay.