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| {{About|a fringe theory regarding gun laws in Nazi Germany and other authoritarian regimes|the history of German gun laws|Gun legislation in Germany}} | |||
| The '''Nazi gun control theory''' is a ]<ref name=Nuckols130131/><ref name=Winkler2011p83/><ref name=Harcourt2004/><ref name=Spitzer2004/><ref name=Kohn2004p187/><ref name=Bryant-HolocaustImagery/> speculating that gun laws in ] were a significant component of the Third Reich's plan, and that victims, especially ], might have more effectively resisted ] if they had been armed or better armed. | |||
| Proponents of the Nazi gun control theory are primarily U.S. gun-rights advocates, and discussion of Nazi gun laws in this context is almost exclusively aimed at U.S. gun laws and policies. It is often framed as a ] argument. When discussing the theory, adherents sometimes cite other authoritarian regimes like ] and the ], which allegedly could have been inhibited by more private gun rights and gun ownership. | |||
| The theory is not supported by mainstream historiography, legal or political science scholarship. | |||
| ==Nazi gun control theory arguments== | |||
| The earliest references to the Nazi gun control theory are in the U.S. Congressional hearings for what became the ].<ref name=Knox2009p286>{{cite book |last=Knox |first=Neal |year=2009 |title=The Gun Rights War: Dispatches from the Front Lines 1966 - 2000 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=dA3pGSYG2yIC&pg=PA286 |publisher=MacFarlane |location=Phoenix, Arizona |page=286 |isbn=9780976863304 }}</ref><ref name=Winkler2011p339>{{cite book |last=Winkler |first=Adam |year=2011 |title=Gunfight:The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CR1YBPB5nmkC&pg=PA339 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |page=339 |isbn=9780393077414 }}</ref> Proponents of the theory argue that Nazi confiscation of weapons from their opponents rendered disfavored groups (e.g. Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Poles) helpless and prepared the way for ].<ref>{{cite book |last=McGuire |first=M. Dyan |editor-first=William |editor-last=Chambliss |title= Courts, Law, and Justice |publisher=SAGE |date=2011 |page=119 |url= http://books.google.com/books?id=9Z-nv-sCMBYC&pg=PA119|chapter=Gun Control Laws |isbn= 1412978572}}</ref> Proponents of the theory posit a ] question: What if the Nazis had not disarmed the German Jews and other groups? They suggest such victims might have successfully resisted Nazi repression if they had been armed - or better armed.<ref name=HalbrookGCTR>{{cite book |last=Halbrook |first=Stephen P. |year=2013 |title=Gun Control in the Third Reich |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=rLErnwEACAAJ |publisher=Independent Institute |location= |isbn=978-1-59813-162-8 }}</ref> | |||
| Gun rights advocates such as gun law litigator ], ] leader ], and ] leader Aaron Zelman, have argued that ] policies and laws were an enabling factor in the Holocaust that prevented its victims from implementing an effective ].<ref name=Harcourt2004>{{cite journal |last=Harcourt |first=Bernard E. |year=2004 |title=On Gun Registration, the NRA, Adolf Hitler, and Nazi Gun Laws: Exploding the Gun Culture Wars (A Call to Historians) |url=http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4029&context=flr |journal=Fordham Law Review |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=653–680 }}</ref>{{rp|653-5}}<ref name=Halbrook2000>{{cite journal |last=Halbrook |first=Stephen P. |title=Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews |journal=Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law |year=2000 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=483–535 |url=http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/article-nazilaw.pdf }}</ref>{{rp|484}}<ref name=LaPierre1994>{{cite book |last=LaPierre |first=Wayne |year=1994 |title=Guns, Crime, and Freedom |url= |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Regnery |pages= |oclc=246629786 }}</ref>{{rp|87-8,167-8}} Their arguments refer to laws that disarmed "unreliable" persons, especially ], but relaxed restrictions for "ordinary" German citizens,<ref name=Harcourt2004 />{{rp|670,676}} and to the later confiscation of arms in countries it occupied.<ref name=Halbrook2000 />{{rp|533,536}} | |||
| In 2000 in "Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews," Halbrook said his article presented "the first scholarly analysis of the use | |||
| of gun control laws and policies to establish the Hitler regime and to render political opponents and especially German Jews defenseless."<ref name=Halbrook2000/>{{rp|485}} | |||
| Advocates of Nazi gun control arguments propose a ] in which the Nazis did not disarm groups like the German Jews and other suppressed populations.<ref name=HalbrookGCTR /><ref name=Bryant-HolocaustImagery>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bryant |first=Michael S. |editor-first1=Gregg Lee |editor1-last=Carter |encyclopedia=Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture and the Law |title=Holocaust Imagery and Gun Control |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=oD46JBOhMU0C&pg=PA411 |edition=2nd |date=May 4, 2012 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |volume=2 |location=Santa Barbara, California |isbn=9780313386701 |oclc=833189121 |pages=411-415 |accessdate=March 21, 2014 }}</ref><ref name=Winkler2011p83>{{cite book |last=Winkler |first=Adam |year=2011 |title=Gunfight:The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CR1YBPB5nmkC&pg=PA83 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |page=83 |isbn=9780393077414 }}</ref><ref name=Kohn2004p187>{{cite book |last=Kohn |first=Abigail |year=2004 |title=Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=T20AHxh2qZUC&pg=PA187 |location= |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=187 |isbn=0-19-515051-1 |accessdate= }}</ref> In a newspaper opinion piece, legal scholar and historian ] asked:<ref name=Cottrol991107>{{cite news |last=Cottrol |first=Robert |date=November 7, 1999 |title=The Last Line of Defense |url=http://articles.latimes.com/1999/nov/07/opinion/op-30850 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |type=opinion |location= |publisher= |accessdate= }}</ref><blockquote>Could the overstretched Nazi war machine have murdered 11 million armed and resisting Europeans while also taking on the Soviet and Anglo-American armies? Could 50,000-70,000 Khmer Rouge have butchered 2-3 million armed Cambodians? These questions bear repeating. The answers are by no means clear, but it is unconscionable they are not being asked.</blockquote> | |||
| In a 2011 open letter to then New York City mayor ], JPFO rabbinic director Dovid Bendory asked: "Are you aware that the Nazis disarmed Jews prior to Kristallnacht and that those same Nazi gun laws are the foundation of the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968?"<ref>Coscarelli, Joe. , '']'' (March 9, 2011).</ref><ref>, ] (May 3, 2011).</ref> | |||
| ==Reactions to the arguments== | |||
| Law professor ] says Nazi gun control arguments are part of a "shaky intellectual edifice" underlying "belief in widespread gun ownership as a defense against tyrannical government." He says the idea is "gaining traction with members of Congress as well as fringe conspiracy theorists."<ref name=Nuckols130131>{{cite journal |last=Nuckols |first=Mark |date=January 31, 2013 |title=Why the 'Citizen Militia' Theory Is the Worst Pro-Gun Argument Ever |url=http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-the-citizen-militia-theory-is-the-worst-pro-gun-argument-ever/272734/ |journal=] |publisher=The Atlantic Monthly Group |volume= |issue= |accessdate= }}</ref> Fellow law professor ] says: "This radical wing of the gun rights movement focuses less on the value of guns for self-defense against criminals than on their value for fighting tyranny."<ref name=Winkler2011p83/> He says the militia groups that grew in number across the U.S. after the early 1990s organized "to fight off what they saw as an increasingly tyrannical federal government and what they imagined was the inevitable invasion of the United States by the United Nations."<ref name=Winkler2011p84>{{cite book |last=Winkler |first=Adam |year=2011 |title=Gunfight:The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CR1YBPB5nmkC&pg=PA84 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |page=84 |isbn=9780393077414 }}</ref> Winkler wrote that " some on the fringe," ] "was proof that the government was determined to deprive Americans of their constitutional rights."<ref name=Winkler2011p85>{{cite book |last=Winkler |first=Adam |year=2011 |title=Gunfight:The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=CR1YBPB5nmkC&pg=PA85 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |page=85 |isbn=9780393077414 }}</ref> | |||
| Nazi gun control theories are not supported by mainstream scholarship.<ref name=Harcourt2004/><ref name=Spitzer2004>{{Cite journal |last=Spitzer |first=Robert J. |year=2004 |title=Don't Know Much About History, Politics, or Theory: A Comment |url=http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol73/iss2/14/ |journal=Fordham Law Review |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=721-730 }}</ref><ref name=Kohn2004p187/><ref name=Bryant-HolocaustImagery/> | |||
| In a 2004 issue of the '']'', legal scholar ] said Halbrook "perhaps rightly" could claim to have made the first scholarly analysis of his Nazi-gun-registration subject, but as a gun-rights litigator, not a historian.<ref name=Harcourt2004/>{{rp|669-670}} Harcourt called on historians for more research and serious scholarship on Nazi gun laws. "Apparently," Harcourt wrote, "the historians have paid scant attention to the history of firearms regulation in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich."<ref name=Harcourt2004/>{{rp|679-680}} According to Harcourt, "Nazis were intent on killing Jewish persons and used the gun laws and regulations to further the genocide,"<ref name=Harcourt2004/>{{rp|676}} but the disarming and killing of Jews was unconnected with Nazi gun control policy, and it is "absurd to even try to characterize this as either pro- or anti-gun control." If he had to choose, Harcourt said, the Nazi regime was pro-gun compared with the ] that preceded it.<ref name=Harcourt2004/>{{rp|671,677}} He says that gun rights advocates disagree about the relationship between Nazi gun control and the Holocaust, with many distancing themselves from the idea. White nationalist ] wrote: "When you have read , you will understand that it was Hitler's enemies, not Hitler, who should be compared with the gun-control advocates in America today."<ref name=Harcourt2004/>{{rp|667-8}} | |||
| Political scientist ] has said—as has Harcourt—that the quality of Halbrook's historical research is poor.<ref name=Bryant-HolocaustImagery/> About Halbrook's argument that gun control leads to authoritarian regimes, Spitzer says that "actual cases of nation-building and regime change, including but not limited to Germany, if anything support the opposite position."<ref name=Spitzer2004/>{{rp|728}} | |||
| Regarding the Nazi gun control counterfactual history argument, anthropologist Abigail Kohn wrote:<ref name=Kohn2004p187/><blockquote>Such counterfactual arguments are problematic because they reinvent the past to imagine a possible future. In fact, Jews were not well-armed and were not able to adequately defend themselves against Nazi aggression. Thus, reimagining a past in which they were and did does not provide a legitimate basis for arguments about what might have followed.</blockquote> | |||
| Holocaust scholar Michael Bryant says Halbrook, LaPierre, Zelman, ], and others' "use of history has selected factual inaccuracies, and their methodology can be questioned."<ref name=Bryant-HolocaustImagery/> | |||
| In January 2013, ] (ADL) director ] said: "The idea that supporters of gun control are doing something akin to what Hitler’s Germany did to strip citizens of guns in the run-up to the Second World War is historically inaccurate and offensive, especially to Holocaust survivors and their families."<ref name=ADL130124>{{cite press release |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=January 24, 2013 |title=ADL Says Nazi Analogies Have No Place In Gun Control Debate |url=http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/holocaust-nazis/adl-says-nazi-analogies-have.html |location=New York |publisher=Anti-Defamation League }}</ref> | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| *] | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| '''Works that endorse Nazi gun law theories''' | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Beck |first= Glenn |last2=Balfe |first2=Kevin |last3=Beck |first3=Hannah |year=2013 |title= Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns |url= http://books.google.com/books?id=0iNKX98B8OUC&pg=PA108 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location= |pages=108-128 |isbn= 1476739870 |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite journal |last1=Kopel |first1=David |year=1995 |title=Lethal Laws |url= http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/61lethal.pdf |journal= New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=355–398 |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite journal |last1=Polsby |first1=Daniel D. |last2=Kates |first2=Don B. |year=1997 |title=Of Holocausts and Gun Control |url=http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/lawreview/vol75/iss3/4 |journal=Washington University Law Quarterly |volume=75 |issue=3 |pages=1237–1275 |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite book |last=Simkin |first=Jay |last2=Zelman |first2=Aaron |year=1992 |title=Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny |url= |publisher=Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership |location=Milwaukee, Wisconsin |pages=139 |oclc=29535251 |accessdate= }}" | |||
| '''Works that criticize Nazi gun law theories''' | |||
| *{{cite journal |last=Aronsen |first=Gavin |date=January 11, 2013 |title=Was Hitler Really a Fan of Gun Control? |url=http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/hitler-stalin-gun-control |journal=Mother Jones |publisher= |volume= |issue= |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20130112184532/http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/hitler-stalin-gun-control |archivedate=January 12, 2013 |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite news |last=Frank |first=Monte |date=July 13, 2013 |title=The Holocaust taken in vain to promote gun rights |url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/13/holocaust-promote-gun-rights |newspaper=The Guardian |location= |publisher=Guardian News and Media |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite journal |last1=Homsher |first1=Deborah |year=2004 |title=Response to Bernard E. Harcourt's On Gun Registration, the NRA, Adolf Hitler, and Nazi Gun Laws: Exploding the Gun Culture Wars (A Call to Historians)|url=http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4031&context=flr |journal= Fordham Law Review |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=715–719 |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite journal |last=Nuckols |first=Mark |date=January 31, 2013 |title=Why the 'Citizen Militia' Theory Is the Worst Pro-Gun Argument Ever |url=http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/why-the-citizen-militia-theory-is-the-worst-pro-gun-argument-ever/272734/ |journal=] |publisher=The Atlantic Monthly Group |volume= |issue= |accessdate= }} | |||
| *{{cite news |last=Seitz-Wald |first=Alex |date=January 11, 2013 |title=The Hitler gun control lie |url=http://www.salon.com/2013/0/11/stop_talking_about_hitler/ |newspaper=Salon |location= |publisher=Salon Media Group |accessdate= }} | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
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