Conservatives in media have been quick to draw comparisons between the Obama administration's reported proposals to crack down on gun violence and the actions of Adolf Hitler to suggest that President Obama will engage in firearm confiscation. These historically inaccurate comparisons owe part of their genesis to the National Rifle Association, which has compared proposals to regulate firearms to orders during the Holocaust.
In his book, America Disarmed: Inside the U.N. & Obama's Scheme to Destroy the Second Amendment, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre likened the United Nations Small Arms and Light Weapons Destruction Day, held on July 9, 2001, to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels' order that books authored by Jews be publicly burned.
LaPierre then suggested that the burning of guns could “help set the stage for mass executions of gun owners” just as Goebbels' order precipitated the mass killing of Jews.
July 9 was not the first time bonfires were lit to destroy resistance to the power of the government. Nazi “Germany's Josef Goebbels ordered all Jewish books to be burned in public in May 10, 1933. University towns were centers of Jewish Books Destruction Day.” As the Völkischer Beobachter (Populist Observer) reported on May 12, 1933, “The German student body of the Berlin universities assembled yesterday for a torchlight procession on Hegel Platz. They formed up, accompanied by a truckload of 25,000 books and writings harmful to the people. The procession ended at Opera Platz where as a symbolic act, these un-German writings were set aflame on a pile of logs.”
The burning of Jewish and un-German books was followed within a few years by the burning of Jews and other supposedly un-German people. Jewish Books Destruction Day helped change popular consciousness so as to pave the way for genocide. Likewise paving the way for genocide was the systematic disarmament of Jews and all other opposition elements, in Nazi German itself and in conquered territories.
How long until a U.N.-declared official day of hate is celebrated with governments actually killing people? [America Disarmed: Inside the U.N. and Obama's Scheme to Destroy the Second Amendment, Pages 106-107]
LaPierre concluded by asking, “Will the mass burning of firearms help set the stage for mass executions of gun owners?” [Page 108]
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has routinely condemned such comparisons. In November 2011, the ADL called a film that compared abortion in the United States to the murder of Jews in Nazi Germany “one of the most offensive and outrageous abuses of the memory of the Holocaust we have seen in years.” ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman also stated:
The creators of the film clearly don't get it. No Christian who understands Jewish suffering should resort to inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust to send a message that abortion is wrong. This was one of the most painful chapters in human history. Must the memory of the 6 million and millions of other victims be continually misused and abused by those with another agenda?