In 1993, Jay Simkin and Aaron Zelman of the group Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership published a document titled "Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny," which highlights the similarities between the Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938 and the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968.  Dedicated to the "tens of millions of victims of Nazi 'gun control," the book maintains that "the Nazi Weapons Law is the blueprint for 'gun control' in America."  The following is a synopsis of their points:

• Access to ammunition and reloading components (bullets, gun powder, brass, and especially primers) will be controlled.
• Police-issued ammunition and reloading components acquisition permits will be required..
• A Firearms Owner Identity card issued by the federal government will be required.  (In fact, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Jersey already have such cards.)

• Copper, copper alloys, brass, and steel bullets are now classified as armor-piercing "cop-killer bullets" and so prohibited, and these restrictions will be justified based on health or environmental grounds.
• Bans on ammunition sales may be imposed.  In fact, temporary bans occurred throughout the early 1990s in Los Angeles and Chicago.
• Access to firearms will be taxed, and the penalties for evading this tax will be severe.
• Those who do not renew their permits will have to surrender their firearms to the government or sell them at distress prices to those who can still afford the permits.
• The term "sporting purpose" will be redefined to slash the right to own whole classes of firearms.  Thus, the right to own firearms will depend on a bureaucrat's whim.  Certain military features such as pistol grips, bayonet lugs, and flash suppressors will be removed. 

Is this hyperbolic fear-mongering, or are these type of restrictions being implemented?  

The Democratically controlled New Jersey Assembly under Governor Phil Murphy has passed the following measures to tighten already stringent gun laws.  Murphy asserts that "he supports these measures as "a public health matter" and wants legislation to encourage the sale of so-called "smart guns" which use technology to restrict who can fire them."

Consequently, A2761 "reduces the maximum capacity of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds [but] exempts firearms with .22 caliber tubular magazines from 10 round limitation."  People who "currently own magazines with more than 10 rounds could keep their firearms, though they would have to register them and pay a $50 fee."

A2760 "revises the definition of destructive device to include certain weapons of 50 caliber or greater."

In addition, Murphy has announced his "intention to reverse a Christie-era regulatory change that made it easier for people to carry concealed handguns in New Jersey."  Thus, "A-2758, defines what applicants for a handgun permit need to show in order to demonstrate a 'justifiable need.'"

Hence, the state will determine "justifiable need."  Thomas R. Rogers, a New Jersey resident who passed the required background checks, completed required firearm training courses and met every other requirement to be eligible to obtain a permit to carry firearms in public was denied his Second Amendment constitutional right because he could not "establish a clear and present threat to his safety."  This despite the fact that he was robbed at gunpoint many years ago and now services ATMs in high crime areas.

Another proposal, A-2757, would require all firearm sales to be conducted through a licensed retail dealer, who would then have to conduct a background check on the intended recipient.  Thus, the measure "is designed to require background checks for private gun sales, although the legislation has exceptions for transactions between family members, law enforcement offices and collectors."  Consequently, the bureaucrats decide.

It is ironic that Murphy is speaking against the backdrop of the JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council), many of whom take a liberal stance and may not know the history of gun control and the Holocaust.

In Gun Control in the Third Reich, author Stephen P. Halbrook demonstrates how "effectively totalitarians and mass murderers have relied upon gun registration and other firearms controls to round up 'enemies of the state.'  Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and Mussolini all seized upon gun laws to punish, incarcerate, and even exterminate their opponents, while permitting their own evil cliques to expand and strengthen the state and party monopolies on gun ownership."

Particularly telling is the fact that it was not Hitler who initiated gun controls.  Rather, "extensive gun registration and controls were actually implemented by liberal Weimar Republic leaders in the late 1920s."  It is also illuminating that "[t]he German subsidiary of IBM ... provided the dictatorship with its new punch card and card-sorting system, allowing for an enormous amount of data ... to be stored ... per card.  This was very useful to the 'census' reports that Nazis were assiduously compiling and cataloguing." 

Consider the massive accumulation of information that the IRS and now Facebook and other social media sites have been compiling on Americans.  Then there are the incremental attacks on our First Amendment rights and the recent government assault on Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights.

Moreover, in this day and age of identity politics, when one blithely checks off racial categories on college registration forms or is asked about gun ownership at the doctor's office we should not be so naïve about possible nefarious intentions. 

As documented in Halbrook's book, "mayoral administration and appointed police leaders in Buffalo, New York declared their intention to descend upon the homes of recently deceased Buffalonians who, as determined by 'crosschecking' (no IBM punch card system needed in 2015) were also legally permitted gun owners.  Their mission: to remove firearms from the decedents' homes, while families and friends are still grieving and organizing their loved ones' wills and affairs.  In their plan, Buffalo officials would execute this ghoulish confiscation scheme before families had time to consider whether to apply for retention of the family firearm, or perhaps to make a gift to another relative or responsible party."

It is not only Jews who should bear in mind the history of gun control.  Nicholas Johnson documents this in Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms.

In fact, "African-Americans arguably have the richest tradition of gun-rights advocacy despite being targeted by and resisting local, state and federal gun-control measures since before America's founding." Thus, "[r]estrictions on black ownership of guns and racial conflict in the late 19th and early 20th centuries set the stage for the massacre and destruction of entire black communities." 

Clayton E. Cramer in "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" asserts that "the motivations for disarming blacks in the past are really not so different from the motivations for disarming law-abiding citizens today.  In the last century, the official rhetoric in support of such laws was that 'they' were too violent, too untrustworthy, to be allowed weapons.  Today, the same elitist rhetoric regards law-abiding Americans in the same way, as child-like creatures in need of guidance from the government."  Consider the double standard of celebrities and  politicians as they surround themselves with several layers of armed security while lecturing Americans about gun control.

Cramer asserts that "the forces that push for gun control seem to be heavily (though not exclusively) allied with political factions that are committed to dramatic increases in taxation on the middle class." 

More recently, in Greensboro, North Carolina, Mark Robinson spoke about the assault on "law-abiding gun owners."  Robinson stated, "I'm the majority.  I'm a law-abiding citizen who's never shot anybody, never committed a felony.  I've never done anything like that."

But it seems like every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter's feet.  You want to put it at my feet.  You want to turn around and restrict my right, Constitutional right that's spelled out in black and white, you want to restrict my right to buy a firearm and protect myself[.]

It does not make any sense.  The law-abiding citizens of this community, of other communities we are the first ones taxed and the last ones considered.  And the first ones punished when things like this happen.

The majority of the people in this city are law-abiding, and they follow the law.  And they want their constitutional right to be able to bear arms.

They want to be able to go to the gun show and buy a hunting rifle or sport rifle.  There are no military grade weapons sold at the gun shows.  An AR-15 is not a military grade weapon.  Anybody [who] would go into combat with an AR-15 is a fool.  It's a semiautomatic .22 rifle.  You'd be killed in 15 minutes in combat with that thing.  So we need to dispel all these myths, and we need to drop all this division that we got going on here.  'Cause the bottom line is, when that Second Amendment was written, whether the Framers liked it or not, they wrote it for everybody.  And I am everybody.  And the law-abiding citizens of this city are everybody.  And we want our rights, and we want to keep our rights[.]

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.