JM - maybe we need a little 'tongue in cheek' icon.
I asked for examples of 'near verbatim' copy between the 1938 Nazi Weapons law and the 1968 Gun Control Act, because I am pretty certain they don't exist. The JFPO material qualifies as 'urban myth.'
There were at least two weapons laws promulgated by the Hitler regime in 1938. The first, on March 18, was primarily an extension of the Weimar Republic's 1928 gun law, which already required
gun owner licensing, gun registration and put
restrictions on importation, sale and possession of various types of weapons. If anything, that earlier 1928 law came closest to our 1968 GCA, but it was nowhere close to 'verbatim.' Hitler's March 1938 law restricted handguns, but also made it easier for 'persons of good reputation' (i.e., Nazi party members) to get them.
The second law, published in Reichsgesetzblatt 188 on November 11, 1938, specifically placed weapons restrictions on Jews. Again, no language even remotely resembling GCA 1968.
The claim that Nazi weapons laws somehow set an ominous pattern for US gun control is bogus, IMHO. In 1938, Hitler was tremendously popular in Germany, there was no viable opposition and no possibility of one, guns or no guns.
The notion that the 1938 gun laws led to, or contributed significantly to, the Holocaust is equally specious. Nazi intentions had been spelled out long before (see
Mein Kampf). By 1938 German Jews were already suffering oppression and confiscation of properties. Gun and owner registration had already been in effect for 10 years. Even had guns been readily available to Jews, they would also be available to the overwhelming majority of non-Jewish Germans who happily supported Hitler in his anti-Semitic campaign. The idea of an armed Jewish uprising in Hitler's Germany is preposterous.
Our own home-grown gun grabbers are scarey enough - we don't need to make up Nazi bogeyman stories.
