The idea that Adolf Hitler disarmed his country en route to exterminating 6 million Jews is driving a specific kind of fear.
This fear has been promoted in books and articles, letter-writing campaigns and most recently social media and even an ad in our own newspaper.
It’s the fear that gun control will lead down a path of totalitarianism, although this is a borderline grossly negligent comparison.
Genocide and whether someone can stockpile assault weapons are way past apples and oranges.
This idea of Hitler is scary. It’s even scarier that the idea of Hitler is misused to promote fear, the ultimate weapon of choice by an industry already armed to the teeth.
Hitler’s role in gun control in Germany is quite different than what is portrayed. Mass gun registration and licensing started in 1928 under Kaiser Wilhelm. Hitler’s National Socialist Party wouldn’t come to power for another five years. And it wouldn’t be until 1938 that his government modified existing gun laws.
By the way. The quote being used widely, including in last Sunday’s paper on A7? Hitler didn’t say it.
There is no legitimate source containing this quote, and the use of it as fact has been debunked by University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt, who wrote extensively on the Hitler gun myth in the Fordham Law Review in 2004.
This is no apologia for Hitler; rather it’s the idea that the fear conjured up by Hitler or by calling someone Hitler-like intentionally attempts to override rational thinking. Hitler is but a boogey man in the anti-gun legislation fight.
Gun-control advocates are guilty of the same thing, as the parents of victims of the Sandy Hook massacre testify before Congress or when former Ariz. Rep. Gabby Giffords simply walks into a room. But they have a basis for their methods: children were murdered, Giffords is permanently brain damaged.
Instead, the fear-mongering created by the anti-gun-control lobby and the NRA is based on things that have occurred under different circumstances, like the American Revolution, or things that haven’t happened. The Second Amendment was based on the real fear of a return to tyranny and a government run amok.
But what after that? Fear of evildoers making their way into our homes to hurt our families? Fear someone would steal from our hard-earned material acquisitions? Fear the government is now coming after our guns and ultimately our freedoms?
All are valid, sure. But the problems come when one person’s fear is another person’s cash cow. Fear has translated to mega bucks for the gun industry, which contributes mightily to the NRA, which contributes mightily to politicians, which do enough to keep gun control unachievable and keep the lucrative cycle going.
The marketing of handguns for protection from shadowy bad guys and military-style weapons for the couch commandoes, sport shooters and, frankly, militia types, has increased drastically. Handgun sales have shot up 70 percent since 2008, earning an estimated $1.8 billion in sales last year. Revenue from assault rifles has doubled in the last five years, to $489 million.
This increase has come with the shifting political winds, too, which began its surge in 2009 when Barack Obama was first elected president, with the second wave coming off the combo of his re-election, Sandy Hook a month later and the announcement of new gun-control legislation.
That cycle continues as a small amount of proceeds from gun and ammo sales and massive donations from gun companies, retailers and individuals through several NRA foundations, has sent some $40 million to $90 million to the association.
It’s the NRA and other gun rights advocates that have targeted their spending: the top 20 U.S. politicians had a total of $2.63 million in contributions come their way. These will be the key men and women who will stand in the way of any non-GOP gun policy.
That is their right, just as it is the right of every man and women in this country to hold true to the right to bear arms, with no caveats and no concessions. But understand that in many cases your fears are being manipulated, with the unaired subplot that the threat to your freedoms is really a threat to someone else’s profit margin.
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