On 30^th anniversary of mass killing by Chinese government forces, New York State encourages a similar event in the U.S.

June 4, 2019 – BUFFALO, N.Y. – Thirty years ago today, on Sunday, June 4, 1989, an estimated 10,000 unarmed pro-democracy protesters were mercilessly shot and brutally run over in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. This disgusting state-sponsored mass murder was perpetrated by communist China’s 27 Army of Shanxi Province. According to a recently declassified cable written the day following the massacre, then-British ambassador to China Sir Alan Donald speculated the Chinese government chose the 27 Army to prosecute the bloodbath because its troops were “the most reliable and obedient.”

In addition to estimating Tiananmen Square casualties at 10,000 and inferring the bureaucratic reasoning behind deployment of the 27 Army, Sir Alan recorded a range of additional stunning observations in his June 5, 1989 cable. The ambassador said his account of the massacre was based on information from a source who had spoken to a “good friend” in China’s State Council, effectively its ruling cabinet. The State Council member, Sir Alan said, “has previously proved reliable and was careful to separate fact from speculation and rumour.” Among the details conveyed by the cabinet source regarding the Tiananmen Square massacre were the following:

• The violent repression of the Tiananmen Square protests occurred after some members of China’s State Council considered that civil war was imminent;
• The 27 Army was ordered by the Chinese government to spare no one;
• Wounded female students were bayoneted as they begged for their lives;
• Human remains were collected by bulldozer, incinerated, and “hosed down the drains”;
• A mother was shot as she tried to go to the aid of her injured three-year-old daughter;
• The 27 Army armored personnel carriers opened fire on the crowd before running them over;
• Armored personnel carriers ran over troops and civilians at a speed of 40 miles per hour;
• Students understood they were given one hour to leave the square, but were attacked by troops after five minutes;
• Students linked arms, but were mown down;
• Armored personnel carriers ran over civilian bodies numerous times to make “pie”;
• Snipers shot many civilians on balconies, street sweepers, and other locations for target practice;
• The massacre continued even after the first wave of killings;
• 1,000 survivors were told they could escape, but were then mown down by specially prepared machine gun positions;
• Army ambulances who attempted to give aid were fired upon, as was a Sino-Japanese hospital ambulance. With the medical crew dead, their wounded driver attempted to ram his attackers, but was blown to pieces by an anti-tank weapon; and
• A 27 Army officer was shot dead by his own troops, apparently because he faltered. Troops explained they would have been shot if they hadn’t shot the officer.

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“Today, 2AWNY.COM remembers the estimated 10,000 unarmed civilian victims brutally murdered at Tiananmen Square by the communist Chinese government just 30 years ago,” 2AWNY.COM Civil Rights Advocate Steve Felano said. “The Tiananmen Square massacre is one of the most compelling and instructive instances of government tyranny to occur in recent memory. I, and numerous other Western New Yorkers, were alive at the time of this horrible event, and so it drives home the message that democide has and certainly can occur within all of our lifetimes.”

Sir Alan Donald’s disturbing account of the Tiananmen Square atrocity clearly demonstrates the dire consequences of allowing government to hold a monopoly on the application of force over its citizens. One of the best ways we can honor the victims of this tragic event is to understand how it happened, and act aggressively to avoid a similar occurrence in the future. To achieve this, we must acknowledge that the Tiananmen Square massacre was a direct result of tyrannical New York-style gun control policies.

Specifically, communist China’s 1981 Measures on Firearms Control, which expanded and replaced the 1951 Provisional Measures on Firearms Control, disarmed the civilian population and completely removed any meaningful bulwark against the Tiananmen Square mass killing. As 2AWNY.COM explained when it acknowledged the fifth anniversary of China’s minority repression campaign last month, there are myriad similarities between the gun control programs enforced by the communist Republic of China and far-left progressive New York State. Additionally, the most contemporary data analysis clearly shows that the type of highly restrictive gun control in place in New York State, closely mirroring that of China and centering on magazine capacity limits and bans on so-called ‘assault weapons,’ is not consistently related to overall homicide or suicide rates.

Rather than acknowledging the above and leveraging the Tiananmen Square atrocity as a teachable moment, New York State’s progressive autocrats have instead continued to allow imperial gun control edicts like the SAFE Act to stand, and enacted similarly unconstitutional limits on the natural right to keep and bear arms that further align the state with communist China’s totalitarian intentions. Therefore, all New Yorkers who continue to support the misguided fallacy of unconstitutional gun control policy prescriptions are ideologically complicit in the 1989 Tiananmen Square mass murder, and are willing participants in New York State’s suicidal march towards the occurrence of a similarly horrid event in the United States.

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However, despite the majority dark and disturbing events that occurred in China on June 4, 1989 and New York State’s apparent interest in fomenting something similar stateside, there is a silver lining. Consider the famous ‘Tank Man’ photo taken on the day of the massacre. As referenced by Tiananmen Square Survivor Dr. Yang Jianli in his 2018 TEDxCMU talk, Author Pico Iyer said of the image:

“The heroes of the tank picture are two: the unknown figure who risked his life by standing in front of the juggernaut and the driver who rose to the moral challenge by refusing to mow down his compatriot.”

In addition to honoring the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre today, 2AWNY.COM also honors the heroes of the event – those, like the tank driver referenced by Iyer, who refused to comply with imperial government edicts to visit democide upon their fellow citizens. Today, we likewise honor the men and women of Western New York law enforcement who have and continue to refuse to enforce New York State’s imperial gun control edicts, because they know where such unconstitutional policy prescriptions lead, and they are not interested in laying the groundwork for another Tiananmen Square to be suffered by a future generation of New Yorkers.  

Civilian non-compliance with, police non-enforcement of, and court-ordered repeal of unconstitutional gun control edicts, like the New York State SAFE Act, are critical to avoiding a future Tiananmen Square-style massacre in the United States. On this 30^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, it is time for New York State to end its failed experiment with the false promise of gun control. As evidenced by the three-decades-old horrid display of government-sponsored murder in Beijing, gun control kills far more people than it has or ever will save.

To learn more about any of the above, please contact Steve Felano at (518) 852-1863 or sfelano@2AWNY.com.

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2AWNY is a force multiplier for the numerous Second Amendment civil rights advocacy enterprises forming the backbone of Western New York’s vibrant gun culture. We act as a 2A news and information distribution, policy analysis, and organizational driver for the many interest groups seeking to defend and expand Second Amendment civil rights throughout the region. 2AWNY is dedicated to assisting in the organization, promotion, and funding of legal challenges to the unconstitutional New York State gun control regime. We seek to make Western New York the epicenter of New York State’s Second Amendment civil rights renaissance. Learn more at WWW.2AWNY.COM.