In 1934, after the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler gave himself the power (after the Enabling Act) to be a totalitarian regime, legally write laws, and rendered the parliament useless. In 1938 Hitler passed the
German Weapons Act, which only applied to the new qualified “citizen”. Under this law, which applied to all guns and ammunition, it was specifically prohibited for Jews to hold, manufacture, or deal in firearms or ammunition, while making it easier for those in the Nazi regime to acquire and transfer rifles, shotguns, and ammunition. This law exempted holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, Nazi regime members, officials of the central government, states, and employees of the German railway from gun ownership restrictions. The legal age for purchasing firearms was lowered from 20 to 18 years of age, and permits were made valid for three years instead of one. This act did not change the 1928 requirement for all gun manufacturers and dealers to maintain records with information about who purchased guns and the firearms’ serial numbers, which were to be delivered to a police authority yearly. On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior (Wilhelm Frick) promulgated the
Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons which effectively deprived all Jews living in those locations of the right to own a firearm or any other weapon. Historian William Sheridan Allen noted that the Nazis also went house to house confiscating firearms, targeting “subversives”.
So, knowing all of this, did Hitler ban guns? No, he did not. Some might even say that he made the gun control laws more lenient…for his allies. However, he did ban Jews from owning guns, or even holding them! After all, if you disarm your enemy, and arm your allies, who can rebel? Fortunately, others stood up to him; but who wants to take the chance, and hope someone else will defend them?
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