Nazi-style gun control?

Opponents of gun control are quick to claim that Adolph Hitler tightened his grip on power by confiscating everyone’s guns. Alex Seitz-Wald, political reporter for Salon, writes that the facts tell a different story:

NRA head Wayne LaPierre dwelled on the Hitler meme at length, writing: "In Germany, Jewish extermination began with the Nazi Weapon Law of 1938, signed by Adolf Hitler."

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Unfortunately for LaPierre et al., the notion that Hitler confiscated everyone’s guns is mostly bogus. And the ancillary claim that Jews could have stopped the Holocaust with more guns doesn’t make any sense at all if you think about it for more than a minute.

University of Chicago law professor Bernard Harcourt explored this myth in depth in a 2004 article published in the Fordham Law Review. As it turns out, the Weimar Republic, the German government that immediately preceded Hitler’s, actually had tougher gun laws than the Nazi regime.

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The 1938 law signed by Hitler that LaPierre mentions in his book basically does the opposite of what he says it did. "The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition," Harcourt wrote.

There is much more to this fascinating story here.