Time: Wed May 28 17:19:56 1997
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Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 17:09:05 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: L&J: COMPARING NAZI AND U.S. GUN LAWS (fwd)
<snip>
>
>FORWARDED On Wed, 28 May 97 09:04 PDT, tbw00@amdahl.com (Tom Whittaker)
>wrote:
>
> COMPARING NAZI AND U.S. GUN LAWS
>
> Alan Bock
> Orange County Register Columnist
>
> A call from the PLO to disarm all the Jewish settlers in the
>West Bank region, in the wake of the despicable massacre of Arabs
>in a mosque and subsequent unrest, got me thinking about a book
>I've been reading. It's most unlikely that the Israeli government
>would carry out the PLO's wishes, of course. But we've heard calls
>to disarm Jews before.
> The last time Jews were effectively disarmed by law was when
>the Nazis passed their Weapons Law in 1938, which specifically
>stated that no Jew could own firearms or be involved in any
>business involving firearms, from manufacturing to retailing.
> Aaron Zelman and Jay Simpkin of Jews for the Preservation of
>Firearms Ownership, in a provocative but persuasive book, argue
>that the Nazi Weapons Law of 1938 provided a direct model for the
>1968 Gun Control Act in the United States. They make the case in
>"Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny," published by JPFO.
> The Nazi law built on previous gun-control laws passed during
>the Weimar period. The 1938 law tightened up previous laws and
>(of course) made sure Jews couldn't have weapons or have anything
>to do with them. It was passed to protect the Nazi regime, which
>had been elected with a plurality (i.e., a minority) and faced
>widespread opposition within the populace. It required a license
>to own almost all kinds of weapons, except for certain government
>officials and Nazi Party functionaries and members.
> The 1968 Gun Control Act also exempts government entities from
>the controls that apply to law-abiding citizens. It also uses
>federal control of interstate commerce to convert what the U.S.
>Constitution calls a "right" into a government-granted privilege-
>-even as the Nazis did.
> There's another curiosity. The 1928 Weimar weapons law
>created the category of "hunting weapons" and treated such weapons
>differently from other weapons. So far as Jay Simkin, who's
>researched the subject extensively, know, this is the first time
>that category appears in any country's weapon-control laws (of
>which there were almost none in the world before 1920).
> In the 1968 Gun Control Act the term "sporting purpose" is
>introduced, making its first appearance in any federal law or court
>decision. While "sporting purpose" is nowhere defined, the
>secretary of the Treasury is authorized to use this vague concept
>to decide which weapons can or cannot be owned by private persons.
> All this might be coincidence, of course. If you want to
>control people's access to weapons, which is what gun control is
>all about, there are certain provisions you'll include.
> What Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership did,
>after hearing people talk about apparent parallels between the Nazi
>law and the 1968 U.S. law, was to get original copies of the Nazi-
>era and prior laws and have them translated. Then they placed the
>provisions of the 1938 Nazi Weapons Act side by side against
>provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act.
> The parallels are downright eerie. The U.S. version tends to
>be wordier and more bureaucratic-sounding than the Nazi version.
>But the powers granted to authorities and the requirements placed
>on people who want to own firearms track very closely.
> Particularly dramatic are the various forms prescribed for
>firearms dealers and government agencies. Not all laws include
>examples of the forms they want used. The Nazi law does. So does
>the U.S. law.
> Is there a more tangible connection? The JPFO researchers
>looked at the representatives and senators who had been most active
>in promoting gun control in the 1960s, seeking a German connection.
>They found that the late Sen. Thomas Dodd, D-Conn., had been a
>senior member of the U.S. team that prosecuted Nazi war criminals
>during the Nuremberg trials. He lived in Germany, and his official
>duties required him to look at Nazi records and Nazi laws.
> Then another researcher pointed them to the published record
>of the hearings held before the 1968 law was passed. And there was
>a letter to Senator Dodd from the law librarian of the library of
>Congress, dated a few months before the 1968 law was passed:
> "Your request of July 2, 1968...for the translation of several
>German laws has been referred to the Law Library for attention.
> "In compliance with your request...we are enclosing herewith
>a translation of the Law on Weapons of March 18, 1938...as well as
>the Xerox copy of the original German text which you supplied."
> So Dodd had his own copy of the Nazi law and asked the
>Library of Congress to translate it for him during the time the
>1968 law was being drafted. Where and when did he get it? Did he
>really use it as a model for the U.S. law? His family controls his
>papers. They haven't responded to requests to do research among
>them.
> However it happened, we have a Nazi-style, Nazi-inspired law
>on the books. JPFO wants a full-scale congressional investigation
>into how this happened, if not outright repeal, before we even
>think about any more "gun control." It's a good point.
>
>
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