# The Hitler gun control rumor - believing the generation of survivors vs. believing this generation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208 "2013-11-18T21:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/41 "2013-11-22T05:53:42Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > That’s a red herring. It does not matter that the Nazis did not love gun control for gun control’s sake, because they loved gun control _as a weapon_. That is what you should be taking away from this: that forbidding people the right to defend themselves, the right of their children to be educated, the right to associate freely with others, are all weapons that can and have been used to oppress innocent people. Would you derive any statement about modern gun control from the facts of Nazi Germany? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/42 "2013-11-22T09:09:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Well, obviously. That was my point. Germany during the Nazi period stripped Jews of all their rights. Singling out the gun restrictions is silly, it seems to me. They took away the right of Jews to do anything. Doing _any_ of those things is bad. You seem to think it’s only bad if you do _all_ of them. Legislating that people cannot send their children to school is bad, even if you don’t also forbid them from marrying. Legislating that people cannot own their own business is bad, even if you don’t also prohibit their children from going to school. And legislating that people should have neither the right nor the ability to protect their own lives from an aggressor is bad, even if you don’t also ban them from owning a business. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/43 "2013-11-22T11:07:14Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Doing _any_ of those things is bad. You seem to think it’s only bad if you do _all_ of them. You,on the other hand, seem to be thinking; Nazis == bad Nazis had gun control ----\> guncontrol == bad ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/44 "2013-11-22T11:59:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 1. I said occupied France, not Vichy France. Though Vichy France might have been considered occupied in a sense, they pretended it wasn’t - for a while. Right, brainfart there. Sorry. > [@](#): > > 1. Unless you think more private ownership of guns would have kept the Nazis from winning, I don’t understand what the state of gun laws before the invasion has to do with anything. My point was that Hitler never had to grab the French people’s guns in the first place (or spend any effort doing so) because they’d already been grabbed earlier, by a strictly non-Nazi government. More private ownership of guns in occupied France (or in in-the-process-of-getting-blitzed France, for that matter) would have accomplished jack squat. Even as far as the Resistance is concerned - the Brits kept sprinkling much of Europe with cheap Stens anyway, and where they didn’t the maquisards would typically bushwhack a few isolated German soldiers or police goons and take theirs. Maybe raid a kommandantur or a police station to tool up further, and go from there. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/45 "2013-11-22T20:05:42Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Doing _any_ of those things is bad. You seem to think it’s only bad if you do _all_ of them. That is the most patently absurd reading of what was actually written imaginable. It has no relation to anything **Captain Amazing** actually wrote. It’s no wonder you consider it a red herring. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/46 "2013-11-23T11:40:09Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > So, this has been brought up on various websites throughout the net, and I thought it would be cool to discuss it here: the Hitler gun control debate. > You guys may know that conservatives in the U.S. (I’m one myself) have pointed to Hitler as a prime example of the dangers of gun control. They say that Hitler took firearms away from citizens before beginning his mass murders via camps and gas chambers. I just think they’re conflating Hitler with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who did confiscate guns before killings. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/47 "2013-11-23T12:32:02Z")
I find it amusing when conservatives point to anything having to do with Hitler or the Nazis to defend their conservative ideology. Hitler came into power by playing on people’s fears, appealing to an unquestioning sense of nationalism, and by disenfranchising unpopular minorities all with the aid of a non-stop propaganda machine. Which party does that sound more like? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/48 "2013-11-23T17:05:18Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > My response is, it doesn’t matter. Hitler was an evil man, who did evil things, but regardless of what his stance was, it means nothing. For instance, Hitler loved dogs; does this mean that dogs are bad pets? No, but it does mean they’re good fucks. ---
**Author:** ![so\_it\_goes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@so\_it\_goes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/so_it_goes)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/49 "2013-11-23T18:24:19Z")
Been keepin up w/ this thread since my original post to see if I had missed something fundamental to my thoughts on hitler & gun control, & I see-at least within the parameters of this discussion-that I have not. Among other things, hitler was a megalomaniac. I don’t believe for a second that he thought either the masses or the Jews were a serious threat to his power. Yep, the rights that hitler took from the Jews was done through legislation-everything he did from his climb to power to his siezing & occupation of land was done scrupulously within the strict letter of law. So, okay, this can be construed as a cautionary tale in general ( but we already knew that, right?), but I contend that hitler’s actions against the Jewish people should be taken as a whole: to demoralize them, make a good dog & pony show for all of the German people, and to feed…whatever it was in him that ate that shit up. In short, hitler was so convinced of arian superiority that he never doubted his final solution would be carried out. It was his will. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/50 "2013-11-23T18:26:59Z")
> [@so\_it\_goes](#): > > I don’t believe for a second that he thought either the masses or the Jews were a serious threat to his power. Of course not - Hitler was popular. For every armed rebel there would have been five armed citizens willing to help the authorities in putting them down. ---
**Author:** ![so\_it\_goes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@so\_it\_goes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/so_it_goes)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/51 "2013-11-23T19:14:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Of course not - Hitler was popular. For every armed rebel there would have been five armed citizens willing to help the authorities in putting them down. German government, post treaty of Versaille, was CRAZY complicated w/several parties participating in the legislature and all competing for elections and their chance to come to power. I don’t believe hitler ever did reach an actual majority in elections during his coming up. A whole lot of people who turned in Jews & other German citizens, did so out of fear of reprisal- often their own children would tell on them if they turned a blind eye to some infraction of nazi law or ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208/52 "2013-11-23T21:20:10Z")
> [@so\_it\_goes](#): > > German government, post treaty of Versaille, was CRAZY complicated w/several parties participating in the legislature and all competing for elections and their chance to come to power. I don’t believe hitler ever did reach an actual majority in elections during his coming up. A whole lot of people who turned in Jews & other German citizens, did so out of fear of reprisal- often their own children would tell on them if they turned a blind eye to some infraction of nazi law or ideology. Yeah, and a lot more did it willingly. Maybe in 1933 Hitler didn’t have the absolute support of the German people. But by 1936 or so they were behind him en masse. And even if they didn’t agree with him, he was the government, and good citizens do what the government says. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hitler-gun-control-rumor-believing-the-generation-of-survivors-vs-believing-this-generation/674208.md?page=2)