r/canadaguns • u/BSDTerra • Feb 27 '14

Swiss arms reclassified as prohib

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u/OxfordTheCat Feb 27 '14 edited Feb 27 '14

The major thing that the Nazis did was remove the arms from the people and centralize them in the hands of the government.

This is grossly inaccurate.

Restrictions on firearm ownership became significantly less restrictive for the average German under Hitler.

Private ownership of all firearms in Germany was forbidden by German law in 1919 as a result of restrictions imposed by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles.

It wasn't until 1928 that Germans were allowed to have any private ownership, and Hitler significantly relaxed the laws in 1938.

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u/airchinapilot Feb 27 '14

This is correct. However the Nazis did reduce ownership rights for undesirables.

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u/OxfordTheCat Feb 27 '14

Yeah, they expanded and added Jews to the no-guns list.

... they didn't have to do much else: There were already laws in place to disallow gypsies and other types to own guns from the previous decades, and that raised my eyebrows as well.

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u/airchinapilot Feb 27 '14

There has been some good scholarship on this. I was lead to read it by a pro gun post urging pro-gun advocates to no longer use the Nazi example.

The points where the Nazi example has relevance is

  1. the dangers of an authoritarian government (duh)
  2. registration making it easier for an authoritarian government to confiscate firearms