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Hitler imposed gun control on Jews. This is a matter of record. The thought of a bunch of Jews owning guns really upset him. The man was intolerant of Jews with guns.
Drudge ran a photo of Hitler and Stalin right above this headline: White House Threatens ‘Executive Orders’ on Gun Control.
Leftists in the print media went ballistic. Why, the very outrage of implying such a connection between tyranny and gun control! That guy Drudge: he is a disgrace! Read this article.
Then the Left-wing Salon published an article insisting that Hitler was not really against the private ownership of guns. Not really. It just sort of seems that way when you look at the historical record.
Did Hitler prohibit Jews from owning them? Well, yes, he did. Was this significant? In no way. In fact, it’s irrelevant. Why? Because the Jews were already a target. So, gun control had nothing to do with it. Gun control was peripheral. Ignore gun control.
Besides, the writer continued, the Left-wing Weimar Republic – whose leaders held views close to Salon’s on gun control – was the real culprit. It disarmed people. Don’t blame Hitler. The idea that Hitler disarmed Germans is a myth. Pay no attention to it.
University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explored this myth in depth in a 2004 article published in the Fordham Law Review. As it turns out, the Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime. After its defeat in World War I, and agreeing to the harsh surrender terms laid out in the Treaty of Versailles, the German legislature in 1919 passed a law that effectively banned all private firearm possession, leading the government to confiscate guns already in circulation.
So, we learn that because the Weimar Republic was hated by voters for having signed the Treaty of surrender (which the military that had started the war and lost it had refused to sign), the Weimar government was hated. So, it banned guns. But this in no way should be regarded as an act of an unpopular government that was trying to keep power. No, no, no.
The author did let this cat out of the bag: gun registration was part of a program of gun control. “In 1928, the Reichstag relaxed the regulation a bit, but put in place a strict registration regime that required citizens to acquire separate permits to own guns, sell them or carry them.
As everyone with any knowledge of German history in the 1920s knows, the Nazis ignored this law. In 1933, they took over. They suppressed all dissent. How? Because they were armed, while the rest of the population wasn’t. Is there cause and effect here? Salon does not mention this causal sequence. It’s clearly irrelevant, assuming you are a gun control promoter along Weimar lines.
You want to see the logic of these people. Follow this line of reasoning. This is the best that the author can come up with.
The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general. Does the fact that Nazis forced Jews into horrendous ghettos indict urban planning? Should we eliminate all police officers because the Nazis used police officers to oppress and kill the Jews? What about public works — Hitler loved public works projects? Of course not.
I am not making this up. See for yourself.
Drudge has more readers than any other journalist. His headlines shape the reading habits of tens of millions of readers. He runs links like these:
This sort of thing outrages obscure journalists on the Left, whose outlets have little influence. One of them even mounted a campaign not to link to Drudge’s site to show the hated image of Hitler and Stalin. He linked to some other site, which had lifted it from Drudge’s site. “Also, don’t link to Drudge – link to twitpic,” the Washington Post’s James Downie added. There! That will show him!
It really is amusing. Leftist journalism has not only lost its mojo, it has lost its sense of reality. To understand the Left’s position on gun control, watch this.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wAFAywYZK-M%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US
January 17, 2013
Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 31-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.
Copyright © 2013 Gary North
