The Myth of Nazi Gun Control

GunCite ^ | Last updated: 7/21/2001 | By N. A. Browne

[vannrox]

This is not to say Hitler did not value gun control. After having occupied Russian territory Hitler said:

Der größte Unsinn, den man in den besetzen Ostgebieten machen könnte, sei der, den unterworfenen Völkern Waffen zu geben. Die Geschicte lehre, daß alle Herrenvölker untergegangen seien, nachdem sie den von ihnen unterworfenen Volkern Waffen bewilligt hatten.

[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.]

[sheik yerbouty]

That quote about says it all.

[VadeRetro]

The end notes seriously undercut the article, yes. Read also, Mila 18 by Leon Uris or anything else reasonably accurate about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

[Khepera]

KaPow

[inquest]

What this article fails to mention is that the Nazis did make good use of the Weimar gun-control laws. The old government required registration of every gun owner. The Nazis then used those registration lists to simply confiscate weapons from those they didn't want armed. That the gun-control statutes were initially enacted against the Nazis only makes the irony more supreme - and the lesson for us more instructive. As such, the article misses the whole point. It's not that gun control, or other consitutional protections, exist to restrain a truly evil and power-hungry government, but to restrain moderately responsible governments from hastily enacting measures and precedents that we'd very much regret later.

Further, I'd have to see more evidence that these laws were in any way instrumental in keeping the Nazis at bay. If it was already at the point where the government couldn't control them, then I fail to see what good a gun-control law would have done. The Nazis would have simply circumvented it, just like our own criminals do.

Finally, it's impossible to speculate on how history might have been different if no such registration lists existed for the Nazis to go on, but the fact that they considered it worthwhile to confiscate people's guns, suggests to me that they considered it a threat to their power for people to own guns.

[chuknospam]

Hmmm, this person bases their entire article on only two sources that are likely watered down, skewed & interpreted. I offer the research by Stephen Halbrook,PhD far more indepth, 20 sources, many are original documents. http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/registration_article/registration.html

[chuknospam]

Lets try that again:

http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/registration_article/registration.html

[norton]

"Gun control was not initiated at the behest or on behalf of the Nazis - it was in fact designed to keep them, or others of the same ilk, from executing a revolution against the lawful government. In the strictest sense, the law succeeded - the Nazis did not stage an armed coup."

Point of order!
The Brown Shirts used clubs and knives fairly effectively and were wont to parade around in caravans of uniformed thugs posing as a popular army. Those laws passed to 'keep them down' worked only to keep the level of violence at a more savage level. Once they had a grip on power, an unarmed populace was in no position to oppose them (assuming it would have chosen to do so)...

A citizenry that is capable of defending itself is in FACT the last barrier to a dictatorial government regardless of how that government came to power.

The Warsaw Ghetto should be sufficient clue to the impact - a very few armed resistors just may have changed history.

[Atlas Sneezed]

The www.guncite.com website from which this is drawn is an outstanding site that has powerful credibility because it honestly debunks or corrects the few pro-gun myths, and presents the hundreds of pro-gun truths (and demolishes the multitude of anti-gun myths.)

I suggest a browse of the whole site.

[parsifal]

Author makes many good points I had never considered. If true, us gun nuts need to leave the Nazi thing out of our arguments. parsy the armed and dangerous.

[El Gato]

The fact remains that the Nazi's did use the 1928 law to disarm their opponents, once they took the reins of power. While it's true that German Jews, being good Germans and due to the factors given, were not likely to rebel early on in what would have at first appeared as just another pogrom, who can say what they might have done, had they been armed, once the true nature of events became clear? It would have taken just one WW-I veteran sniper to have changed the course of European (and American) history. It could also have been some other target of the Nazi's, say a Gypsy, who did not have the Jews history of submission going again him..or her.

Then there are the Jews and others from the conquered eastern countries. There resistance might not have changed the course of events directly, but it would have tied down a bunch more troops, if more had acted like those few in the Warsaw Ghetto did. That in turn would likely have shortened the war, saving lives on all sides.





Of course the Jews

[JZoback]

"Mila 18"

One of the greatest books I have ever read

I read it when I was about 14 years old.

Stayed up the whole night and finished it

[VadeRetro]

Anyone who can get through a Leon Uris novel in 24 hours has my deepest respect. It is a gripping read, though.

[IronJack]

"German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order." -- Adolph Hitler, 1938

Let us rewrite Posse Comitatus so that we may deploy American military forces to keep the peace in the event of a domestic terrorist attack. -- Sen. Joe Biden, 2002

[IronJack]

If this is supposed to neutralize the argument that a disarmed populace aided Nazi totalitarianism, it is a dismal failure. Nowhere does it refute the notion that an unarmed citizenry is easier to (mis)manage than their armed counterparts, or that domestic insurrection is a formidable obstacle to authoritarian rule.

This "article" is a waste of electrons for anyone but gun haters.

[Dales]

The article is both right and wrong.

The Nazis did come to power mostly through success at the ballot box. They had tried to take power by force (see the Beer Hall Putsch) but had failed. However, they had organized gangs of hoods that were intimidating political opponents using violence as a means, with corrupted police turning a blind eye, that helped forment their ballot successes. These groups (that would later become the SA and the SS) would not have had as much success in intimidating political foes to the Nazis were the populice armed, and the author of this piece fails to mention that.

Further, when General Beck and several others in position to attempt a coup against the Nazis were formulating their plans, which they did fairly often but nearly always got cold feet over, they realized that the people could be no help due to brainwashing by propaganda and because they had no arms. The army was the only hope, and they never felt confident enough in their chances for success. If the people were armed, then a counter-propaganda campaign could have been used to rile up some armed resistance to aid in a potential coup.

Gun control was not enacted by the Nazis. But as someone mentioned above, the Nazis took full advantage of the consequences of gun control. It was perhaps the most poignant example yet of the edict that gun control only disarms the honest and leaves the thugs armed.

[JZoback]

bump

[Tallguy]

There is little or no european tradition of private gun ownership as there is in the US. Therefore, this argument is factually true but does not really address the greater question.

I would like to ask the author what he thinks would have happened if just a few Jewish shop owners had posessed firearms. Would Krystalnacht have happened, or would it have been nipped in the bud when one of the Brownshirt flying columns ran smack into an armed shopkeeper? To jump to another analogy: how many government agents were tied down, and for how long, by David Koresh? I'm only focusing on the armed standoff. See my point? Private gun ownership need only be legal -- it does not necessarily have to be very widespread -- to have an impact in checking government action.

[JZoback]

The simple conclusion is that there are no lessons about the efficacy of gun control to be learned from the Germany of the first half of this century.

Even if this statement is true, we do not need to go back in time to learn these lessons

Great Britain and Australia are two perfect examples of guns control laws reaping the dreaded "unintended conquesences" maxim today, right now with terrible results

[brityank]

The only feasible argument that gun control favored the Nazis would be that the 1928 law deprived private armies of a means to defeat them. The basic flaw with this argument is that the Nazis did not seize power by force of arms, but through their success at the ballot box (and the political cunning of Hitler himself). Secondary considerations that arise are that gun ownership was not that widespread to begin with, and, even imagining such ubiquity the German people, Jews in particular, were not predisposed to violent resistance to their government.

The same can be said for most peoples and nations:

... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Less than twenty percent of the populous were in some favor of the usurpation of authority started in the 1770's, and probably most did not favor the results after the Revolution; but the enlightened attitude of the Founding Fathers that created the system of government they laid out in the Constitution swung the tide of the people to their favor.