September 06, 2007
"Arms in the Hands of Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety"
The abstract for a paper by Stephen Halbrook explains this post's title:
The above title to this article is a quotation from an arrest report of a Jewish gun owner just weeks before the Nazis launched the pogrom known as the Night of the Broken Glass in 1938. His name was Alfred Flatow, and he was an Olympic champion who had registered firearms before the Nazis came to power. Once in control, the Hitler regime used the registration records to disarm their enemies so they could not resist.
The article begins with an examination of three arrest reports which reveal much about the campaign to disarm the German Jews. It then examines original sources to trace how such arrests were part of a systematic plan to render Jews defenseless. When the Night of the Broken Glass was sparked, the Nazis conducted massive searches and seizures of Jewish homes and business to complete the disarming as well as to burn and loot property and to fill the concentration camps with victims.
There is considerable debate today about the Second Amendment and whether the populace at large should have access to firearms or whether they should be restricted to the military and police. This article eschews any policy debate, and instead traces exactly how the Nazis utilized firearm laws and decrees to disarm the German Jews as a prelude to comprehensive repression. Based in large part on German archival resources, the article contributes to a neglected topic in human rights and Holocaust studies.
Did you know that gun control (i.e., the confiscation of all privately-owned firearms upon penalty of death) was a priority for Germany during the years of Nazi rule?
Of course, they never wanted anyone's guns, other than the Jews'.
At first.
Interesting parallel: many American gun control statutes were implemented in order to deny blacks the means of self-defense, only later becoming more widely used against other groups of citizens.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 6, 2007 01:01 AM
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