Dictators Abhor An Armed Populace

ob04“The most dangerous president is the president who knows no limits to his authority.”  Bradley Blakeman

Based on newly discovered, secret documents from German archives, diaries and newspapers of the time, Gun Control in the Third Reich  by Dr. Stephen Halbrook, gives the readers  the definitive, yet hidden history of how the National Socialist Nazi regime made use of gun control to disarm and repress its enemies and consolidate power.

Dr. Halbrook’s book is the first thorough examination of the laws restricting firearm ownership that rendered Hitler’s political opponents, as well as the Jews, defenseless.   It also makes a compelling case that the National Socialist regime considered suppression of firearm ownership by disfavored groups a critical element of achieving its objectives.

Gun Control in the Third Reich spans the two decades from the birth of the Weimar Republic in 1918, through Kristallnacht in 1938. The book then presents a panorama of pertinent events during World War II regarding the effects of the disarmament policies that applied to  German citizens, including  military veterans  and Jews, that prevented opponents from mounting resistance to the Nazi Party’s totalitarian policies.

The assumption that the German people were, as one, brainwashed into blindly and willingly following Hitler’s genocidal mania is false. A segment of the German population detested the Nazi regime but could do nothing about it – because they were disarmed and, in many cases, destroyed. Gun control gave the Nazis free rein to impose their reign of terror, free from dissent.

The National Socialists considered anyone who wasn’t a Party member an enemy of the state. As they consolidated power, Hitler’s minions “strengthened” existing gun control laws passed by Liberals, to reflect that fact. Eventually, anyone who didn’t surrender their guns to the authorities who was later found to have a firearm was shot, hung, garroted, sent to a concentration camp, starved or gassed. The same applied to nationals in Nazi-controlled territories.

There is nothing new under the sun.  While the United States has remained free and prosperous since Hitler’s defeat, we cannot take for granted the safeguards built into our  constitutional system to deter the rise of unchecked power.  Even if the threats to liberty that we face are different from those posed by the Third Reich, the lessons of history remain instructive.  Not every person who seeks disarmament is a dictator, but without question, dictators abhor an armed populace.

Source:  Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D. in philosophy and author.  

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