In an argument against gun control an Alaska congressman suggested that Jews could have survived the Holocaust if they’d been armed.
‘How many Jews were put in the ovens because they were unarmed?’ Dan Young asked during a speech Tuesday.
His response came after a question posed by Anchorage Democrat Dimitri Shein, who is running for Young’s seat, Alaska Public Media reported.
‘How many Jews were put in the ovens because they were unarmed?’ Dan Young asked during a speech Tuesday. Young is pictured in June 2017
His response came after a question posed by Anchorage Democrat Dimitri Shein (left), who is running for Young’s seat, Alaska Public Media reported
Young made the comment during a speech to the Alaska Municipal League.
He is a National Rifle Association Board Member and has said he thinks arming teachers could prevent school shootings in the future. He has been a representative in Alaska since 1973.
The argument that gun control allowed the rise of Hitler and the tragedy of the Holocaust has circulated among gun-rights advocates for several years.
One of the fist times it was mentioned during a publicized speech was in 2015 when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer challenged Ben Carson.
‘I’m telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take guns first,’ Carson said.
Carson also argued that point in his book A More Perfect Union, and at least twice on the campaign trail.
The line has also been pushed by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his website InfoWars and by the NRA.
The argument that gun control allowed the rise of Hitler and the tragedy of the Holocaust has circulated among gun-rights advocates for several years
The argument has also been continually knocked down by gun control advocates who point out that personal firearms couldn’t have taken on the Nazis.
A law in 1938 did prohibit Jews from owning weapons – but there was some armed Jewish resistance during the war.
The Anti-Defamation league, in particular, has said it is ridiculous to suggest that if Jewish people had guns they could have stopped the Third Reich, which took over several countries with whole armies during the Second World War.
‘It’s mind-bending to suggest that personal firearms in the hands of the small number of Germany’s Jews could have stopped the totalitarian onslaught of Nazi Germany when the armies of Poland, France, Belgium and numerous other countries were overwhelmed by the Third Reich,’ Anti-Defamation League director Jonathan Goldenblatt wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed.