Washington – A Republican congressman from the US state of Alaska claimed during a debate on gun control last week that Jews were killed in the Holocaust because they were unarmed.
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Rep. Donald Young, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives and a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) board, made the claim in support of his argument against imposing gun control regulations.
Responding to a question from Dimitri Shein, a Democrat running for Young’s Congress seat, about protecting school children, Young answered: “How many millions of people were shot and killed because they were unarmed? Fifty million in Russia, because their citizens weren’t armed. How many Jews were put into the ovens because they were unarmed?”
In a video from the event, published by Shein, the Alaskan congressman also expressed his belief that school teachers should be armed to protect their students.
Young is currently serving his 23rd term as Alaska’s only representative in the House of Representatives, first winning election in 1973. According to a 2017 New York Times report, Young has received nearly $250,000 in funding from the NRA throughout his career, making him the sixth top career recipient of NRA funds in the House.
Arguing against gun control by providing the example of the murder of Jews during the Holocaust is a tactic that has previously been adopted by gun rights advocates.
In 2015, then-Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was criticized after stating during a CNN interview that “the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, slammed Carson’s comments, stating that “gun control did not cause the Holocaust; Nazism and antisemitism did.”
The fierce debate over gun control in the US has resurfaced in the aftermath of a February 14 shooting at Florida’s Majory Stoneman Douglas High School, during which 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz walked into his former school and shot dead 17 people.
Stam a Gaylem who doesnt know history. Yiden in the Warsaw Ghetto had GUNS. Lots of guns. Less than 1% survived. In the Budapest Ghetto there was no guns. Not a single gun. Yiden set in Beth Hamidrash (like for 3000 years) 60% Survived and created the Large Frumme communities in Brooklyn, NJ, LA, London, Jerusalem etc. We are the people of the BOOKS (Not guns)
Its about time Yiden should stand up to this Holocaust denier Republicans, Yiden were murdered by Nazis with tanks, planes,machine guns etc. Anyone voted Rebulican is a partner in this Neo-Nazi propaganda.
Bar Kochba had guns and we know the results: GALUTH
The insulting argument by the alt-NRA goy and Benny Carson is really a way of blaming the Jewish victims of the Churban and saying the Jews contributed to their own destruction by being weak. Fact is that the overwhelming population of Jews in Europe were unarmed civilians and largely religious pacifists (charedi). The ONLY armed Jews were Zionists and those who joined the Resistance. Over 15 million armed Soviet soldiers were killed, so how were unarmed (or even armed) civilans to fight the heinous nazis? DOWN WITH THE BLOOD HUNGRY NRA.
It’s idiotic. I asked my grandfather about this. He responded that the German army too over Poland in about a week. Moreover, bullets and guns cost money. My grandfather’s family was 9 kids in 3 rooms and they would wait till food was a day old at the market so the price would go down. They could have saved up for 2 weeks to buy a bullet, another year to buy gun and then would have no idea how to load it or use it.
It took the Russians 4 years and millions of casualties to beat back the Germans yemach shemam, and might not have won the war at all according to some military historians, had not Hitler yemach shemo declared war on America, giving FDR the opening to join Britain, the only European power left standing.
Armed civilians would have been able to save themselves and their famalies with hunting rifles?
i am not a rabbi
but did not moses lead an army against amalakites?
did joshua lead an army against cannanites ?
did king david lead an army against philastines?
did maccabees lead an army against selucids ?
The alt-yidden on this site support the NRA, the Trumpf decision to divide Yerushalyim and the racist white supremicists. They learned ZERO from the churban. Its on their heads now.
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The Congressman from Alaska is an idiot! There were Jews with guns, who fought with the partisans, and in the Warsaw Ghetto,and who killed many Nazis. However, to use the NRA, and equate the gun debate with the Holocaust is despicable.
I believe all of you are missing the point from a philosophical perspective. If all citizens in pre-nazi Germany were armed, it is much more difficult for a dictatorial rising to take control of armed citizens due to the potential of resistance. This is certainly a base of the idea of the 2nd amendment in the US. To bring up the idea that the guns were available in the Warsaw Ghetto, but most were killed is ridiculous. The whole idea of an armed society is to prevent the gathering of individuals into a camp or ghetto. Once you are gathered into a camp or ghetto, game over. The point that the Warsaw ghetto took place is actually that much more remarkable.
I am not a Rabbi nor historian and I’m certainly not as smart as the group of guys posting here
I do however believe in Gods law and what we here call natural law of self defense
The Torah mandates we look after our lives – maybe preserving life trumps many other Jewish laws
If you are not armed trained and aware you maybe committing a sin
Anyway all you scholars know a lot but in my simplicity I know to not trust the government to protect me but only the Almighty and doing my active part
To #15 - Your argument means bupkis. If all of the citizens in Germany were armed with rifles and pistols, what chance would they have stood against the Tiger Tanks, or the Luftwaffe with their bombs? The Russians had thousands of artillery pieces and thousands of tanks, and it took years to smash the Wermacht.