Article was originally published in NATIONAL VANGUARD Magazine
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                 Is Gun Control a Nazi Scheme?

With gun owners increasingly aware of the Jewish leadership of the gun-banning
  movement, a group of Jews in Milwaukee claiming to be defenders of the Second
  Amendment have been noisily denouncing gun control as a "Nazi" scheme. The group,
  calling themselves Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, assert that Adolf
  Hitler was the father of all gun grabbers. The proof of this, they claim, was the German
  Weapons Law (Waffengesetz) of March 18, 1938, which was enacted by Germany's
  National Socialist government. They have succeeded in persuading at least one magazine
  read by firearms enthusiasts to publicize their claims repeatedly (Guns and Ammo, May
  1993 and March 1994).

  The truth of the matter is that the 1938 German law specifically provided for the ownership
  and carrying of firearms, including handguns, by law-abiding German citizens. Jews, of
  course, were not German citizens -- the National Socialists defined citizenship in ethnic
  terms -- and the law specifically barred Jews from having any role in the manufacture of
  firearms or ammunition or from being firearms dealers (but not from purchasing or owning
  firearms).

  The German law certainly was not an ideal one from the viewpoint of today's beleaguered
  American patriot, because it did have certain licensing requirements. A permit
  (Waffenerwerbschein) was required to buy a handgun (but not a long gun), and a separate
  license (Waffenschein), good for three years, was required to carry any firearm in public.
  Actually, the German law was less restrictive than most state and local laws in the United
  States were before the current campaign to nullify the Second Amendment shifted into high
  gear in 1993. More significantly, it ameliorated a law which had been enacted ten years
  earlier by a Left-Center government hostile to the National Socialists (the government
  headed by Wilhelm Marx and consisting of a coalition of Socialists and Catholic Centrists).
  The 1938 law irritated the Jews by pointedly excluding them from the firearms business,
  but it clearly was not a law aimed at preventing the ownership or use of firearms, including
  handguns, for either sporting or self-defense purposes by German citizens. As noted
  above, it actually relaxed or eliminated the provisions of a pre-existing law.

  The facts, in brief, are these:

  * The National Socialist government of Germany did not fear its citizens. Adolf Hitler was
  the most popular leader Germany has ever had.

  * The spirit of National Socialism was one of manliness, and individual self-defense and
  self-reliance were central to the National Socialist view of the way a citizen should behave.
  The notion of banning firearms ownership was alien to National Socialism.

  * Gun registration and licensing (for long guns as well as for handguns) were legislated by
  an anti-National Socialist government in Germany five years before the National Socialists
  gained power. Five years after they gained power they got around to rewriting the gun law
  enacted by their predecessors, substantially ameliorating it in the process (for example,
  long guns were exempted from the requirement for a purchase permit; the legal age for gun
  ownership was lowered from 20 to 18 years; and the period of validity of a permit to carry
  weapons was extended from one to three years). They may be criticized for leaving certain
  restrictions and licensing requirements in the law, but they had no intention of preventing
  law-abiding Germans from keeping or bearing arms.

  The highlights of the 1938 German Weapons Law (which in its entirety fills 12 pages of the
  Reichsgesetzblatt with legalese), especially as it applied to ordinary citizens rather than
  manufacturers or dealers, follow:

  * Handguns may be sold or purchased only on submission of a Weapons Acquisition
  Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), which must be used within one year from the date of issue.
  Muzzle-loading handguns are exempted from the permit requirement.

  * Holders of a permit to carry weapons (Waffenschein) or of a hunting license do not need
  a Weapons Acquisition Permit in order to acquire a handgun.

  * A hunting license authorizes its bearer to carry hunting weapons and handguns.

  * Firearms and ammunition, as well as swords and knives, may not be sold to minors
  under the age of 18 years.

  * Whoever carries a firearm outside of his dwelling, his place of employment, his place of
  business, or his fenced property must have on his person a Weapons Permit
  (Waffenschein). A permit is not required, however, for carrying a firearm for use at a
  police-approved shooting range.

  * A permit to acquire a handgun or to carry firearms may only be issued to persons whose
  trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit. In particular, a
  permit may not be issued to:

  1. persons under the age of 18 years;

  2. legally incompetent or mentally retarded persons;

  3. Gypsies or vagabonds;

  4. persons under mandatory police supervision (i.e., on parole) or otherwise temporarily
  without civil rights;

  5. persons convicted of treason or high treason or known to be engaged in activities hostile
  to the state;

  6. persons who for assault, trespass, a breach of the peace, resistance to authority, a
  criminal offense or misdemeanor, or a hunting or fishing violation, were legally sentenced to
  a term of imprisonment of more than two weeks, if three years have not passed since the
  term of imprisonment.

  * The manufacture, sale, carrying, possession, and import of the following are prohibited:

  1. "trick" firearms, designed so as to conceal their function (e.g., cane guns and belt-buckle
  pistols);

  2. any firearm equipped with a silencer and any rifle equipped with a spotlight;

  3. cartridges with .22 caliber, hollow-point bullets.

  That is the essence. Numerous other provisions of the law relate to firearms manufacturers,
  importers, and dealers; to acquisition and carrying of firearms by police, military, and other
  official personnel; to the maximum fees which can be charged for permits (3 Reichsmarks);
  to tourists bringing firearms into Germany; and to the fines and other penalties to be levied
  for violations. (A full text and translation of these German gun laws is available from
  National Vanguard Books, PO Box 330, Hillsboro WV 24946 USA, for $14 postpaid.)

  The requirements of "trustworthiness" and of proof of need when obtaining a permit are
  troubling, but it should be noted that they were simply carried over from the 1928 law:
  they were not formulated by the National Socialists. Under the National Socialists, these
  requirements were interpreted liberally: a person who did not fall into one of the prohibited
  categories listed above was considered trustworthy, and a statement such as, "I often carry
  sums of money," was accepted as proof of need.

  The prohibitions of spotlight-equipped rifles and hollow-point .22 caliber ammunition were
  based on considerations that the former were unsporting when used for hunting, and the
  latter were inhumane.

  It was not until 1945, when the communist and democratic victors of the Second World
  War had installed occupation governments to rule over the conquered Germans that
  German citizens were denied the right to armed self-defense.

  Despite these facts, there are a number of people among those who support Second
  Amendment rights who have fallen for the Jewish trick of associating gun-grabbing with
  Hitler and the National Socialists. These people sometimes make such statements as, "The
  first thing Hitler did when he came to power was round up all the guns." Such statements
  are demonstrably false, and when they are made by a person who genuinely supports
  Second Amendment rights they reveal the person's ignorance or dishonesty. When they
  are made by a Jewish group it is clear that their intent is to confuse the public and
  deceitfully deflect blame from their fellow Jews.

---------

The following is a letter written to Dr Pierce about the above information, followed by a letter to JPFO:

<block>July 28, 1999

To: Dr William Pierce, Director, National Alliance (National@NatVan.com) From: John Bryant (NewSocit2m@aol.com)

Dear Dr Pierce:

In your weekly email/broadcast which I received on 6/5/99, you asserted that the JPFO had been lying about nazi gun control laws. I sent them the letter below quoting your email in order to get their response, but they did not make one, and have not done so in any of their regular bulletins as far as I can tell. This suggested to me that you were correct; however, information has recently come to my attention which indicates that you are wrong, at least in your charge that JPFO is lying. Specifically, in the New American of 2 August in an article in their Gun Report section entitled "Lessons of History" (p 40), Robert W Lee cites information by 'author and attorney stephen Halbrook, who has studied and written on anti-gun policies implemented by Hitler's Nazi regime'. The following is a quotation from the article:

"One of the many examples he [Halbrook] cites is Kristallnacht ('Night of the Broken Glass'), the infamous rampage against Germany's Jews in 1938. 'It was preceded by the confiscation of firearms from the Jewish victims", Halbrook recalls. On November 8th of that year, the headline of a New York Times report from Berlin read: 'Berlin Police Head Announces "Disarming" of Jews'. The accompanying story stated: 'After invading [sic], Nazis used pre-war lists of gun owners to confiscate firearms and many gun owners simply disappeared. Following confiscation, the Nazis were free to wreak their evil on the disarmed populace ...'. "The Times further reported the next day that the 'Berlin Police President, Count Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been "disarmed" with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms, and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.' "The Nazi attack [Kristallnacht] came on November 10th [2 days after the confiscation]."

Will you respond, Dr Pierce?

Subj: nazi gun control laws Date: 6/5/99 To: webmaster@jpfo.org CC: captained@home.com

To JPFO:

You may know that in an email today, Dr William Pierce of the National Alliance accused your organization of lying about the gun control laws of nazi Germany. I would appreciate your reaction. I have excerpted the relevant portion of his communication below. Thanks for your attention.-- John Bryant (NewSocit2m@aol.com)

I am sure that there are a few individual Jews among them who do not favor gun control. But the fact remains that the Jew-controlled mass media and Jewish legislators and powerful Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith are the primary moving force behind the effort to abolish the Second Amendment, and knowledgeable patriots always have recognized this fact.

So a few years ago a handful of Jews set up an organization called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and their principal activity has been to proclaim loudly that gun control is not a Jewish but a "Nazi" scheme. They run around the country announcing, "We're Jews, and we're against gun control." They also buy advertisements in gun magazines which assert that Hitler's first move after he became chancellor of Germany was to round up all privately owned firearms, so that the German people could not rebel.

That is the opposite of the truth. Actually, Hitler's government abolished many restrictions on buying and carrying firearms which had been established by the preceding, liberal government. The Nazis believed in self-defense and encouraged firearms ownership and proficiency among German civilians. Hitler was the most popular leader the Germans have had in this century, and he was not afraid of his fellow citizens. He rode slowly through crowds of cheering Germans in an open car. No bulletproof glass, no police screening of the people who were allowed to shake his hand, no metal detectors. Quite a difference from Bill Clinton!

When I first encountered the lies of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, I went to the trouble of digging up the original German law digests from the 1920s and 1930s which contained the exact texts of the German firearms laws, published at the time the laws were enacted, and I translated them into English and published my English translations along with photo-facsimile copies of the original German laws. And yet the Jews have succeeded in confusing many patriots -- an all too easy task, unfortunately -- and convincing them that Hitler was the father of all gun-grabbers, that Jews in America are divided on the issue of gun control, and that people who propose new gun control laws are likely to be admirers of Hitler.

NOTE: Neither Pierce nor JPFO responded to my letters. -Birdman