Message from @POTUS George W. Bush.
Discord ID: 793289534812061707
A year before Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, the German Interior Minister directed that gun registration records be made secure to keep them from falling “into the hands of radical elements.” His efforts proved futile: the records fell into the hands of the Nazi government, which used them to disarm its political enemies and the Jews. By 1938, the Nazis had deprived Jews of the rights of citizenship and were ratcheting up measures to strip them of their assets—including the means to defend themselves. The horrific consequences have names etched in our consciousness: “The Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) and the Holocaust.
From an [earlier answer on this topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3o4f89/what_was_the_state_of_gun_ownership_in_prefascist/)
it was actually Weimar Germany that instituted wide-scale legislation restricting firearms in 1922 with the *Republikschutzgesetz* (law for the protection of the Republic). Under the rubric of "endangering public safety," the *Republikschutzgesetz* outlawed the organizations from owning unauthorized weapons, the creation and brandishing of a weapons arsenal, and criminalized the failure to report on the existence of weapons arsenal. But gun control and regulation was not the primary focus of the *Republikschutzgesetz* but rather to restrict the operations of various anti-republican groups and provide grounds for their prosecution. The *Republikschutzgesetz*'s provisions on firearms were predicated upon a pre-existing January 1919 Reichstag legislation which banned the private ownership of firearms to meet provisions of the Versailles Treaty which called for a wide-ranging German disarmament, including non-state affiliated militias.
The 1928 Law on Firearms and Ammunition liberalized restrictions on guns and their ownership, but still provided a strict regimen of regulation and permits. Applicants for gun ownership had to demonstrate both necessity and reliability. In the latter case, members of itinerant groups such as gypsies or criminals were forbidden from gun ownership. The 1928 law also waived the need for a permit by state officials since they had already demonstrated the requisite amount of political loyalty and responsibility.
The Third Reich's 1938 *Reichswaffengesetz* had much of the same language as its Weimar predecessor, but it paradoxically was a simultaneous liberalization and restriction of existing gun laws. The *Reichswaffengesetz* ended a number of restrictions in the 1928 law for rifles and shotguns and largely focused on restricting private handgun ownership. It also eliminated the need for transfer permits for rifles and shotguns and held that a legal hunting license sufficed as a permit for holding firearms. members of the NSDAP were also a privileged group and thus could more easily obtain the requisite permits.
Where the *Reichswaffengesetz* and its Weimar equivalent parted ways was the former's restrictions on gun ownership by individuals deemed subversive to the state. To an extent, this was a change in degree as the Third Reich was much more explicit about who was a state enemy while the Weimar law was more circumspect. The *Reichswaffengesetz* provided a later justification in November 1938 for the Interior Ministry to prohibit Jews from owning any type of dangerous weapon. The *Reichswaffengesetz* was of a piece with other legislation of the Third Reich: it set up Aryan Germans as a privileged elite, especially those who served the state and the party, while restricting the civil rights of those excluded from this racial compact.
Where the *Reichswaffengesetz* and its Weimar equivalent parted ways was the former's restrictions on gun ownership by individuals deemed subversive to the state. To an extent, this was a change in degree as the Third Reich was much more explicit about who was a state enemy while the Weimar law was more circumspect. The *Reichswaffengesetz* provided a later justification in November 1938 for the Interior Ministry to prohibit Jews from owning any type of dangerous weapon. The *Reichswaffengesetz* was of a piece with other legislation of the Third Reich: it set up Aryan Germans as a privileged elite, especially those who served the state and the party, while restricting the civil rights of those excluded from this racial compact.
As for Ben Carson's recent comments and the wider sentiments about gun legislation in Germany as exemplified by all too typical facebook posts and [this bumper sticker](https://shop.jpfo.org/images/products/57_large.jpg), they have a number of faults that makes their historical analysis very problematic. First off, these type of arguments tend to come up quite short when it comes to both explaining the context and the nature of these laws. For example, the Weimar government passed these laws on gun ownership in no small measure because there were a large number of paramilitary *Freikorps* groups operating in Germany who explicitly stated their goal was to overthrow the Republic. Sometimes these stated goals turned into action as with the Kapp *Putsch* or the NDDAP's Beer Hall *Putsch*. Furthermore, examining the *Reichswaffengesetz* in isolation from other German legislation loses a good deal of the picture; arguments as exemplified by Carson's assume that gun legislation *preceded* wider erosion of civil liberties when that clearly was not the case here. The [Nuremberg Laws](http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007695), which provided a whole panoply of civil rights restrictions, preceded the *Reichswaffengesetz* by a good three years. From a historian's standpoint, it is more valuable and fruitful to look on laws on gun ownership as part of a larger process of social exclusions and restrictions directed at Jews rather than a vital precondition for them.
Where the *Reichswaffengesetz* and its Weimar equivalent parted ways was the former's restrictions on gun ownership by individuals deemed subversive to the state. To an extent, this was a change in degree as the Third Reich was much more explicit about who was a state enemy while the Weimar law was more circumspect. The *Reichswaffengesetz* provided a later justification in November 1938 for the Interior Ministry to prohibit Jews from owning any type of dangerous weapon. The *Reichswaffengesetz* was of a piece with other legislation of the Third Reich: it set up Aryan Germans as a privileged elite, especially those who served the state and the party, while restricting the civil rights of those excluded from this racial compact.
As for Ben Carson's recent comments and the wider sentiments about gun legislation in Germany as exemplified by all too typical facebook posts and [this bumper sticker](https://shop.jpfo.org/images/products/57_large.jpg), they have a number of faults that makes their historical analysis very problematic. First off, these type of arguments tend to come up quite short when it comes to both explaining the context and the nature of these laws. For example, the Weimar government passed these laws on gun ownership in no small measure because there were a large number of paramilitary *Freikorps* groups operating in Germany who explicitly stated their goal was to overthrow the Republic. Sometimes these stated goals turned into action as with the Kapp *Putsch* or the NDDAP's Beer Hall *Putsch*. Furthermore, examining the *Reichswaffengesetz* in isolation from other German legislation loses a good deal of the picture; arguments as exemplified by Carson's assume that gun legislation *preceded* wider erosion of civil liberties when that clearly was not the case here.
The [Nuremberg Laws](http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007695), which provided a whole panoply of civil rights restrictions, preceded the *Reichswaffengesetz* by a good three years. From a historian's standpoint, it is more valuable and fruitful to look on laws on gun ownership as part of a larger process of social exclusions and restrictions directed at Jews rather than a vital precondition for them.
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