"We are in danger of forgetting that the Bill of Rights reflects experience with police excesses. It is not only under Nazi rule that police excesses are inimical to freedom. It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end." --Justice Felix Frankfurter
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing." --Adolph Hitler
Gun control laws are depicted as benign and historically progressive. However, German firearm laws and hysteria created against Jewish firearm owners played a major role in laying the groundwork for the eradication of German Jewry in the Holocaust. Disarming political opponents was a categorical imperative of the Nazi regime. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This right, which reflects a universal and historical power of the people in a republic to resist tyranny, was not recognized in the German Reich. This article addresses German firearms laws and Nazi policies and practices to disarm German citizens, particularly political opponents and Jews. It begins with an account of post-World War I chaos, which led to the enactment in 1928 by the liberal Weimar republic of Germany's first comprehensive gun control law. Next, the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was consolidated by massive searches and seizures of firearms from political opponents, who were invariably described as "communists." After five years of repression and eradication of dissidents, Hitler signed a new gun control law in 1938 which benefitted Nazi party members and entities but denied firearm ownership to enemies of the state. Later that year, in Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass), in one fell swoop, the Nazi regime disarmed Germany's Jews. Without any ability to defend themselves, the Jewish population could easily be sent to concentration camps for the Final Solution. After World War II began, Nazi authorities continued to register and mistrust civilian firearm owners, and German resistence to the Nazi regime was unsuccessful. The above topic has never been the subject of a comprehensive account in the legal literature. This article is based on never before used sources from archives in Germany, German firearms laws and regulations, German and American newspapers from the period, and historical literature. It contributes to the debate concerning firearms ownership in a democracy and presents 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.
http://www.eliasound.biz/hulet/pdfs/article-nazilaw.pdf
AND
http://www.eliasound.biz/hulet/pdfs/heller_2nd_amendment.pdf
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing." --Adolph Hitler
Gun control laws are depicted as benign and historically progressive. However, German firearm laws and hysteria created against Jewish firearm owners played a major role in laying the groundwork for the eradication of German Jewry in the Holocaust. Disarming political opponents was a categorical imperative of the Nazi regime. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This right, which reflects a universal and historical power of the people in a republic to resist tyranny, was not recognized in the German Reich. This article addresses German firearms laws and Nazi policies and practices to disarm German citizens, particularly political opponents and Jews. It begins with an account of post-World War I chaos, which led to the enactment in 1928 by the liberal Weimar republic of Germany's first comprehensive gun control law. Next, the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 was consolidated by massive searches and seizures of firearms from political opponents, who were invariably described as "communists." After five years of repression and eradication of dissidents, Hitler signed a new gun control law in 1938 which benefitted Nazi party members and entities but denied firearm ownership to enemies of the state. Later that year, in Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass), in one fell swoop, the Nazi regime disarmed Germany's Jews. Without any ability to defend themselves, the Jewish population could easily be sent to concentration camps for the Final Solution. After World War II began, Nazi authorities continued to register and mistrust civilian firearm owners, and German resistence to the Nazi regime was unsuccessful. The above topic has never been the subject of a comprehensive account in the legal literature. This article is based on never before used sources from archives in Germany, German firearms laws and regulations, German and American newspapers from the period, and historical literature. It contributes to the debate concerning firearms ownership in a democracy and presents 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.
http://www.eliasound.biz/hulet/pdfs/article-nazilaw.pdf
AND
http://www.eliasound.biz/hulet/pdfs/heller_2nd_amendment.pdf