Previously, a candidate for president was considered pro-Second Amendment if he opposed onerous restrictions on gun ownership.  It also helped if he liked to go hunting with guns.  That was really all that was required.

But Ben Carson and Donald Trump have now upped the stakes on defending the Second Amendment.

First it was Carson, suggesting that fewer Jews would have died in Nazi Germany if their guns hadn't been confiscated by Hitler.

The Anti-Defamation League, whose religion is liberalism and government control, not Judaism, was quick to condemn him.

The Anti-Defamation League condemned the comments, saying in a statement: “Ben Carson has a right to his views on gun control, but the notion that Hitler’s gun-control policy contributed to the Holocaust is historically inaccurate. The small number of personal firearms available to Germany’s Jews in 1938 could in no way have stopped the totalitarian power of the Nazi German state.”

What the ADL is saying is that since ownership of firearms could not have totally stopped the Nazi regime from committing genocide, it wasn't worth being armed.  The reality is common sense: if some Jews had been armed, some could have fought back, and some would have escaped and survived.  Was the prospect of several hundred or several thousand additional Jews surviving really small potatoes to the Anti-Defamation League?  They are so in love with government control (and certain members of Hizb’allah) that they should call themselves the Anti-Diaspora League.

When confronted with criticism, Ben Carson fought back.  When asked if he was comparing our government to Nazi Germany, he still didn't back down.  He made the commonsense point that the Second Amendment is there to protect us not against our current government per se, but a future government that may be tyrannical.  And given how lawless and unconstitutional our current government has acted, and how Obama is talking about acting unilaterally and unconstitutionally again to curtail gun rights, it's never a bad time to talk in the abstract about the benefits of gun ownership to protect us from a possible future tyrannical government.

And then it was Donald Trump's turn, when he said he "felt much better" carrying a gun.

Donald Trump has a concealed weapon permit and says he "sometimes" carries a firearm.

"I will tell you, I feel much better being armed," the billionaire businessman said Sunday in an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation.

Have you ever heard any candidate say that he feels safer carrying a weapon for personal protection?  I feel that this is a first as well.  By saying this, Trump is personally showing his support for people who want guns to protect themselves.  It's a lot more than just saying in the abstract, "I support the right to guns for self-defense"; he is saying he personally feels that way, too.

Now, having said that, I have no idea whether Trump actually has a gun or ever carries it around.  But by making it personal, he makes it seems that he stands firmly behind those who believe in gun ownership for self-defense, in a way that makes other politicians who merely abstractly support the concept seem less committed.

It's refreshing.  And perhaps it partially explains why Trump and Carson are leading in the polls.

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.