Tapsearch Com EditorHitler's gun control
February 6th 2007 16:32
Three years ago I wrote (I was 19, so I don't present this as an article necessarily worth reading):
"[T]he American right has often asserted that Hitler's gun control enabled the Holocaust. Some scholars have taken issue with this far-reaching assertion, as Hitler merely expanded pre-existing measures, but it is clear the Nazi leader did like the policy.
"Take, for example, this chilling 1938 quote: 'The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.'"
This is a pretty moderate interpretation -- Hitler liked gun control as much as he liked any form of "control," but that alone didn't enable the Holocaust. Some scholars, though, are starting to go so far as to call Hitler pro-gun.
Stephen Halbrook (whom I interviewed for this Reason piece) demolishes this in a new article.
Best part:
"[The] suggestion that the Nazis supported Second Amendment-type values assumes as insignificant that the Nazis disarmed, intimidated, threw into concentration camps, or exterminated all of 'the people' they identified as inferior by reason of race or religion, or as otherwise untrustworthy by reason of politics or any other reason whatsoever. Other than that, [the argument] surmises, Hitler was a disciple of a liberal arms policy."
The whole notion that Nazis didn't disarm Jews is, of course, absurd.
As Halbrook writes:
"The Nazis were 'pro-gun' for themselves, the Gestapo and other police, the Wehrmacht (armed forces), and citizens they trusted as having been indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology; they were 'anti-gun' for Jews, political opponents, and any and every person who might not march lock step with the National Socialist program."
Hat tip: John Lott.
"[T]he American right has often asserted that Hitler's gun control enabled the Holocaust. Some scholars have taken issue with this far-reaching assertion, as Hitler merely expanded pre-existing measures, but it is clear the Nazi leader did like the policy.
"Take, for example, this chilling 1938 quote: 'The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.'"
This is a pretty moderate interpretation -- Hitler liked gun control as much as he liked any form of "control," but that alone didn't enable the Holocaust. Some scholars, though, are starting to go so far as to call Hitler pro-gun.
Stephen Halbrook (whom I interviewed for this Reason piece) demolishes this in a new article.
Best part:
"[The] suggestion that the Nazis supported Second Amendment-type values assumes as insignificant that the Nazis disarmed, intimidated, threw into concentration camps, or exterminated all of 'the people' they identified as inferior by reason of race or religion, or as otherwise untrustworthy by reason of politics or any other reason whatsoever. Other than that, [the argument] surmises, Hitler was a disciple of a liberal arms policy."
The whole notion that Nazis didn't disarm Jews is, of course, absurd.
As Halbrook writes:
"The Nazis were 'pro-gun' for themselves, the Gestapo and other police, the Wehrmacht (armed forces), and citizens they trusted as having been indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology; they were 'anti-gun' for Jews, political opponents, and any and every person who might not march lock step with the National Socialist program."
Hat tip: John Lott.
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