The Rude Pundit - Sorry, Gun Nuts: Hitler Actually Relaxed Most Gun Laws

[thucythucy]

96. "Ask yourself what Hitler's purpose was in putting that law into place."

I would imagine it had the same purpose as the laws, enacted at roughly the same time, prohibiting Jews from having sex with "Aryans," from practicing law or medicine, from congregating in public, from publishing, from teaching, from attending universities, from being veterinarians, etc. etc.

It was to ostracize and demonize and isolate.

Interestingly enough, you haven't disputed the fact that the Nazis did indeed loosen gun control laws for "Aryans"--roughly 99% of the population -- and somehow no viable internal resistance arose from those armed masses. When actual resistance did occur, it was either in the form of non-violent underground agitation (the White Rose, brutally suppressed even though its members, some of whom were in the military, had access to weapons), or an attempted military coup (whose weapon of choice was the planted time bomb).

The broader fact is that American society of the 21st century is so entirely different from the Germany of the 1930s that all NRA talking points trying to make this analogy are absurd. It's like calling President Obama a Kenyan or a socialist--simple ranting for the simple minded.

The whole notion that a populace armed with personal fire-arms could stop a government intent on tyranny is ridiculous on its face. The idea that we should arm ourselves with this specific purpose is also a denial of our democratic institutions--tantamount to saying that all power comes from the barrel of a gun--a sentiment that bears more in common with the totalitarian who coined it, as opposed to anyone who professes to be an American patriot.