Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Gun Control In The Third Reich 20140913

Mr. Justice burton and decisionmaking in the Supreme Court 1945 to 1958. And long memory, the black experience in america when it came out in 1982. Why era failed peer should mention that was her favorite. Child care, womens rights in the myth of a good mother. Other tales of american justice, episodes of racism and sexism in the courts came out in 1999. The other when she mentioned is a favorite of hers that shes written, my face is black is true. Callie house and the struggle for x slave reparations. Her most recent, power in words, the story behind Barack Obamas speeches, mary frances berry, thanks for spending three hours with a son in depth. Thank you for spending the time with me. I enjoyed it. Cspan created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and brought as a Public Service by your local cable and satellite provider. This is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here is our prime time lineup, tonight at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, stoically a life, he sits down with representative James Cliburn to discuss civil rights. At 8 fortyfive retired general tony zinny talks about isis in the use of american force. And corruption in the International Oil industry. Our prime time programming continues at 11 00 p. M. With new york senator kissinger brand who talks about her life in politics and encourages women to make a difference in the world. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Attorney Stephen Halbrook argues the nazi germany in government used guncontrol to disarm and repress its amenities and consolidate power. He spoke at the independent institute in oakland, calif. Is about 90 minutes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Theroux and im a founder and president of Independence Institute. I am delighted to welcome you this evening. This is another meeting of the independent policy forum and in addition to our audience here and a Conference Center in oakland, california, i welcome our viewers on cspan and also those joining us worldwide to our Live Streaming on line. Independent policy forum is a series of lectures, seminars, and debates at the independent institute. We are delighted to have Stephen Halbrook with us who will be speaking on lessons for us for nazi guncontrol. And guncontrol in the third reich, gun control in the third reich disarming the jews and enemies of the state. For those new to the independent institute you confined information in registration packets, online in our program. We sponsor in depth studies in economic issues, purpose is peaceful, prosperous and free society grounded in a commitment to human words. They are published as books such as Stephen Halbrooks and numerous conference and media project one of our other publications is the independent review. And he will not be sorry. And the seminole classic rags called crisis in leviathan. We neither seek nor accept government funding, but support for private contributions, memberships and the sale of books and events such as tonight. With tragic shootings in the u. S. We have seen a triggering of a new debate over gun control. Are there lessons from history we should be mindful of. Based on recently discovered secret documents from german archives, diaries and newspapers, Stephen Halbrook has written an unprecedented new history of how violence in the liberal Democratic Society or system,dented new history of how violence in the liberal Democratic Society or system, free 1930 germany, free nazi germany led to guncontrol measures that were utilized by the National Socialists to disarm and repressed opponents and consolidate power. Ironically enough, books on the third reich and holocaust failed even to mention the laws restricting firearms ownership with very few exceptions. These policies rendered political opponents including jews who were viewed as political opponents powerless. Skeptics surmise a better armed populist would make no difference but the nazi regime certainly did not think so. A ruthless piece of trust literally crushed by an ownership by disfavored groups. Guncontrol in the third reich stands two decades from the wine mary republic in 1913, through crystal knock or, quote, night of broken glass in 1 hi8 and the pertinent events during world war ii involving disarming policies. Research fellow at the Independence Institute dr. Stephen halbrook is renowned constitutional legal scholar, attorney and author who won three cases before the Supreme Court. Interviewed on cnn, fox, court tv and elsewhere and published in the wall street journal, usa today and other publications. His many books in addition to the guncontrol gun control in the third reich included founders Second Amendment, securing civil rights, let every man be armed and target switzerland. Swiss armed neutrality in world 1 thank you, a pleasure to be here. Getting rather gauge of do. Cant remember how many times we have done this. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Special thanks and recognition to my wife brenda and my daughter melissa who graduated from high school and theyre in the audience, in the back if you will waive or something. I got interested in this subject in new sounds like ntteri germany and e proponents of this legislation said there was no evidence they were using registration records and they didnt do Much Research to come to this conclusion. I got interested way back when and what was incredible to me is no historian deals with this subject, virtually unmentioned whatsoever, and a few books that a footnote or something. And i want to say at the beginning of the title of this presentation has to do with art there lessons to be learned . The lessons speak for themselves. I will not engage in the kind of discourse in which i would say that some proponent of some legislation that is nazi like or that these are gestapo tactics or anything like that. I dont think we need to engage in that kind of rhetoric. There is too much of that the goes on but one thing is clear, there has been a lot of denial about what took place in nazi germany and it is time the historical record be made clear and that is what i set out to do in the book many years ago. I wrote the book and did research for 15 years. The sources either in english or german, published sources dont deal with this topic. It was necessary to do a lot of Archival Research in germany. I did some myself and reporter one of the best Archival Researchers in germany who does this topic, who knows these records very well. And there are interesting conclusions presented in the book. Historically, the way it all started was at the end of the great war. There were communist uprisings, the mark fell, the republic was established. There was a virtual civil war. I did a little show and tell. The street seems to show you from that period. If you have seen any documentarys, people running every which way and machine guns in the street and steel helmets and a voluntary groups that sided with the government to repress the communist uprisings, they wanted an uprising that would have taken place in russia, a bolshevik tight to. There was quite a lot of chaos and the the verisign treaty there was the idea in germany that all arms or military arms had to be surrendered including by civilians. There were legal interpretations in germany that no civilian could own any gun and they could all be turned in and there were court cases in the early 1920s but things calmed down somewhat but then we head to 1923 and you had the great inflation and a communist uprising in hamburg which was ruthlessly put down. And in munich they seized a beer hall, they didnt succeed in seizing the state. Interesting phenomenon and easy to see the beer hall in this company. Then go and write mine comes in prison, and things calm down a lot after that. 1928, there was a gun control law that was the first of its kind in germany and it required a lot of record keeping, there was no Registration System but there were records that could be subject to police inspection. A curious thing about it. There was no debate in the legislature, it passed without any debate whatsoever which would be a phenomenon in itself. But things started getting rare enough again as we approach the 30s and in 1931 for the first time, germany adopted a legislation or a decree, their religious leader decrease the executive branch could make and called for registration of the german states that adopted it. You had berlin and most of the large jurisdictions adopting firearm registration and some areas did not do so but by and large most places did. In 1931 before this took place, the nazi party had declared itself in favor of legal elections by that point but there was an incident, a hotel, an individual named verner best who was a nazi theoretician and he was heavily involved in the storm troopers. The document purported to deal with if there was a communist revolt and the nazi needed to seize power which many people interpret to mean this was the plan for nazi sees power, they had things like rationing of food, jews would not get any food supplies, and it had a provision where anyone would be ordered to turn in their firearms within 24 hours or be executed. This individual, verner best, would go on to become an official in the gestapo and we will hear from him later this evening. These documents were discovered, they were not taken too seriously. Nonetheless, there was still a lot of street fighting between the communists and the nazis. They were armed thugs in the streets and so it was decided in december of 1931 the executive branch would decree firearm registration legislation. At that time, the republic, the executive branch could rule by decree. You read a lot about executive decree today. This allowed the executive branch basically to not bother consulting the legislative branch but simply make the crease and this was one of them. This decree covers a lot of subjects and the brice counselors at that time, will assess my electronic abilities, heinrich bring, the head of the german government, and there was something called the enabling act which allowed the executive branch to issue these decrees and that is what he did and that was one thing they adopted, a horrible precedent because when the nazi scheme to power they could rule by decree just as well. One particular decree, this is the decree about internal security. About misuse of weapons. When you look at the first provision, section i provided for registration of all firearms by all people. Then it had a provision which stated that any time the officials, the authorities decided, it was needed for public security. That is an interesting thing to put in firearm registration law, quite honest that they would admit because when you have firearm basically registration debated and proposed, never confiscated them. They had it right in the law they can decree is the public emergency and there is a duty to turn them in. That came down right before christmas of 31 and the equivalent to the attorney general, the directives saying you have to be careful with these registration records. This went to the officials that are keeping them. We dont want them to fall in the hands of extremist groups or radical elements. He said dont keep him as a local Police Department, put him in more centralized facilities for safekeeping. That was a directive, i assume that is what they did. They didnt have computers at that time but they did get the ibm Punch Card Technology by the time the nazi scheme into power. There was a lot in his own lifetime. They could pull away registration records for gun owners or jews or protestant or catholic, the whole works, the record done everything. 1933, hitler and his party come to power and immediately start attacking physically their political enemies. That would be social democrats, the party that probably had more power than any other in that period as a single party but also liberal parties, conservative partys, they multiplied day by day. The more opposition that a rose, the more this repression would happen and all opposition was invariably called communist. If you oppose what the nazis were doing you were called communists and you read the newspapers at that time you will find on a daily basis accounts of searches and seizures of firearms and the rest of socalled communists so that goes on 1933, and you had the use of the firearm records, i have all whole chapter on this, and i got the records direct from herman gehring, the high official in the nazi regime and he basically said you need to check the political reliability of all persons with firearms permits and found records where local authorities went and gave a name and said what that persons profession was and whether he was politically reliable, he is a social democrat and his weapon permit is going to be confiscated as well as his gun and you go down the list and i found there was one jew where they wanted to take his weapon permit but another one, they let him keep it at least for that point. Political reliability meant you supported nazism or National Socialism and that you were not reliable if you did not and so fees were records not from the registration of guns but from the licensing, people who have licensed permits to possess guns, to carry guns, to purchase guns, things like that. Or ammunition. There was some repression against jews in 1933, not as harsh against the political opponents because the dictatorship wanted to consolidate its power. It was use of the law and physical force and any means necessary to make sure the nazi party became supreme. For all anybody noon in those days it would be just another temporary government. The government would rise and fall quickly, sometimes maybe they were in power a couple years and sometimes a few weeks. Adolf hitler wanted to make sure his power was consolidated and more emergency decrees to justify the communist insurrection that is going on and so we have to ban free speech, assembly, things like that and they did a lot of the same things. The registration law if you go to provisions after gun registration, no public assemblies and no free speech. You could not make politically subversive speeches so these things seemed to go together. There was one case, more than one case or one famous case of a search and seizure operation against jews in germany. This was in april of 1933. There were raid that took place in the jewish quarter in berlin and here are some illustrations, this picture and the next one, and illustrations of that raid. This is from the nazi paper that says raid in the jewish quarter. If you read the article follows, it talks about the subversive literature that was seized and the guns that were seized in search and seizure operations. Here you see a number of Uniformed Police in the jewish quarter in berlin in that quarter and basically it was kind of more of a side show, the repression of jews at that time but the biggest factions are against the communists or political opponents. The second illustration from the same article that is an elderly jewish man and that is to the left, a criminal Police Inspector interrogating him and you see the little square, that is a radio. They are broadcasting this interview and the nazis were masters of propaganda so they are putting this raid on the radio and depicting it as these jews, they should be in the country and here is this old man pretending he doesnt know why he is being arrested and interrogated. You are supposed to get it, that he is a jew, and shouldnt have a gun, shouldnt have subversive literature and all that. That is an example of some of the repression going on. As time goes on the coming months it gets more internal because the nazi party was like a criminal gained. You had hitler wanting absolute power. 1934 you have been basically wiping out in the night of the long night the as a leadership, ernest rome and others. It becomes like a fight within the mafia its self or who is going to be the cop and at the same time everything was coming under nazi control. Political parties were abolished, labor unions were abolished. Sports had to come under the control of the reich and that included gun clubs and there were a lot of independent gun clubs, some of them had been in existence for hundreds of years in germany and if they refused to make their leaders of the club nazi members then the Club President and Vice President and all that, these people would be arrested and taken into gestapo custody. This is in the period of forcing into the line where all elements of society were being taken within the Nazi National socialist agenda. We go through that period. At the same time you start having a lot more focus on getting at the jews and how horrible they are and here is our friend bernard best and he is the one who offered the 1931 document which talked about the execution of persons who were gun owners who didnt turn the man within 24 hours, if there was a nazi takeover. He was actually, he had a law degree, some sort of Judicial Office and when the nazis came to power he became chief Legal Adviser of the gestapo, the secret state police. In that role he had quite a policymaking role. One of his documents about gun ownership for jews, look at it closer in a minute. But he was involved in getting the jay stamp put on jewish identities and passports and he was involved after the war began sent first to france and then denmark after 1931 when the war began every country not occupied by the nazis they had a policy of putting up posters and saying turn in your files within 24 hours or you will be executed. That is exactly the same document from 1931 that he had personally authored and he was in charge of those policies and the others in occupied countries. If you ever go to the museum in france where napoleons body is. They have got one of those original posters there, you turn in your guns within 24 hours and they didnt put a date or time when the clock started ticking. It just says that. I have done you are going to turn it in, you are five minutes late actually i have got a lot of original records on that. Was the decrees they made throughout the occupation, so many frenchmen wouldnt go by it they kept publishing it over and over in the paper, you have 24 hours and the next day you have 24 hours and they did start executing a lot of people. That is also in the newspapers and the french were so bad about turning in their guns there came a time when the commander in paris that we wont publish the names anymore, were just going to shoot these people. That is another subject. Verner best was in charge of some of those programs. We will return to him in a moment. This is good because that is the document that is next. This is a document authored by turner best. The gestapo in stenson had asked about issuing gun permits to jews. This was december of 1935 because there was never any decree or law against jewish possession of guns in germany until the time we look at the documentation in a few minutes. This, verner best advises that jewish people are considerable danger to the german people. Nothing had happened. In germany the german jews had done nothing, no assassinations, no attacks on the nazis, they had a Central Association we will talk about in a minute that did their best to alleviate harsher and harsher conditions but he is making this policy statement that you have to look at the political reliability. In most cases we dont think jews are politically reliable meaning nazi supporters and therefore you have to be careful about issuing gun permits to jews and basically advising dont do it. It has got to be approved by gestapo officials. The local police wont issue these permits. So this was addressed to the gestapo, the gestapo, the gestapo and all the other relevant Police Agencies so here you have nothing had changed that jews were eligible for gun permits but one more thing, to get a permit to acquire a gun or to carry a gun you had to meet certain criteria, you had to be trustworthy so anyone considered untrustworthy by the authorities you dont get your gun permits. They had a discretionary issuance we would call it today. It shows you the danger of language like that if you have subjective language, to allow for ease to decide who gets a permit as opposed to objective criteria like conviction felon handling and things like that. This is burner best, another footnote on him, there had been a nazi turncoat who revealed box hammer documents from 1931, when the nazis came to power best had that guy a arrested and he was mysteriously killed while trying to escape. And the nuremberg cases and he was not executed but was in prison for a while and lived to tell the tale. He had a guy murdered that had revealed those documents. Now we move on to getting ford 1938. As time went on the economic crews were tightening, jewish assets were being confiscated, and conditions were getting very harsh. This was before the start. David had to be warned later but jews were doing so. There were many who considered themselves germans and many of them very conservative german patriot and they were not about to leave. They thought there would be an end to this at some point. September and october of 1938 this would not be revealed until there was a diss arming of jews going on by the authorities and again some of people you never heard of, famous nazi officials at the time, the guy over here you recognize, that is himmler, the Police President of berlin called hellsdorf. He figured prominently in this. She would orchestrate the disarming of the berlin jews in september and october of 1938 and he had quite an interesting experience. He had been in the as they, he was a gungho nazi, heavily involved in disarming the jews in 1938. But when the Police President came he strongly objected to those, because hitler unleashed brownshirts to go wild in the streets, that is not the kind of thing a police chief appreciate it but he was in munich. Nineteen fortyfour helldorf had joined the opposition to hitler and when the bomb attack took place in july 20th, 1944, and it was often burt and his conspirators who were exposed and rounded up, helldorf was part of that conspiracy. He would be one of those, who was hung by piano wire, he met an hon. End. That was the case. So the opposition to hitler, they had been part of the nazi party but they came around to a point where whether it was because they had enough oppression of the jews or hitler was becoming an idiot, couldnt win the war, we are going to get him. We passed the 70st anniversary, four days ago, july 20th, 1944, to 2014, quite a historic date of when the bomb went off and unfortunately some idiot had moved it away from hitler and it didnt kill him. Helldorf plays a prominent role in disarming the adjournment jews and we have an article from november 9th, 1938. This article was not published that they were disarming the jews until november 8th. There was a polish jewish teenager who walked into the German Embassy in paris and shot a german diplomat. Not a very powerful official at all but it was just the kind of event that the nazi regime could latch onto to justify what it was about to do. It could be conventional story was this young teenager had relatives who were polish jews and they were deported from germany and in really oppressive conditions and whatever. Was he trying to get revenge for that or was he manipulated by nazi agents so a jew would kill somebody and you would have the excuse to launch program that came next. The article talks about in the last in the few the last few weeks, doesnt give the starting date, jews are being disarmed, disarming german jews, it tells you they supposedly seized 2,569 hand weapons, 1702 shoes of the guns and 20,000 cartridges. What kind of bureaucrat do you have to be to count cartridges . I dont know. It goes on to explain that the jews, it was named emphatically known to the jews they have to turn in their guns and other weapons and who knows what they consider a hand weapon, like a letter opener or dagger . It was made known to them, the article states, i suspect by putting up notices in the jewish quarters in berlin, maybe word of mouth. We do know they had the records on all gun owners, jewish gun owners, berlin and registration, the nazis had information, in germany at that time when you were born they would put in the records whether you were jewish, protestant, catholic so they had these records they could correlate so notice was given to them and as the article says we had to use harsher means because they were not turning them in and curiously, it says those without licenses, the order went out to all of them to turn them in. We had that document because we will get to an instance that exemplifies the fact that all of them were required to turn in their guns. This was published, the first notice to the world that the jews were being disarmed in germany and this was summarized and published in the newark times and other papers, prominent papers in the u. S. Britain, countries like that. Now we go back in history and bring it right up to the same period again in a moment. The gentleman in the middle is alford flattop, a three time gold medal winner in the olympics in 1896 in gymnastics and the fellows on his left and right are two other gymnasts who were prominent germans, olympic stars at that time. Alfred flattop was jewish, that didnt make much difference in those days, he went on to become a top figure in german athletics in terms of promoting gymnastics and writings. Got it from a scientific basis and he became quite a prominent individual. As we will see in a moment he made the mistake of registering some guns and was picked up for that, but what happened later in his life was when they had the olympics in berlin in 1936, all former olympic champions were invited to that as special guests but afro Alfred Flatow would not intend because there was a amish impression they hid he did not want to dignify the regime because jews were being severely attacked at that time but that there called it off to clean up their act for the olympics so they could give the show to the worlds so he refused to go. Then we turn the clock up to 1938. In a moment we will go over what happened in terms of his guns but by 1942 the war had come about, they were wearing the star of david and he was deported to the verizon concentration camp, kind of a concentration camp for intellectuals and people like that. It was not the worst one in the world probably for that reason but within a few weeks of being there he was starved to death. He met his end that way. Now we get to the reason i am talking about him. There was a lot of detective work going on in this book. My archivists in germany found some reports of jews in the weeks before and sent them to me and we didnt know the significance of this until i started researching it. At the top it says report about a political case. The regime had the police could arrest you for political reasons. That is what this is and we start looking at the information on it. That is Alfred Flatow, his place of birth, his current address, i didnt know who this guy was. I googleed him, born on that date, place of birth turns out to be this olympic star. That made it pretty interesting. It asked political affiliation and it says jew. That is so weird political affiliation. Doesnt say communist or anything like that. Was a communist, he was not political. You go further down, this was the biggest mystery of all. This was the crime scene. Kurt, 16. That was not his home address. That is farther up in the report. Finally my research, when susan telephone books. This turned out to be the Police Station. So the crime scene at the Police Station is kind of weird. We put two and two and more together in a few minutes and see what was going on there. And it has what was seized, one jagger, 31 knuckle busters and i dont know okay, heavy hands . He had a bicycle shop and sold stuff. In those days there was street fighting going on it if you wanted to protect yourself and didnt have a gun you might want a knuckle buster. It is very bizarre. What is not bizarre is one revolver, two pocket pistols, a twentysomething rounds of ammunition. That was confiscated from him and in the book, in the illustrations you will see the next page of this report but i will tell you what was in it. It was a four page report. The next page was possession of weapons. It cites a section number of the law that makes it criminal. There is no section number to fight. It was not illegal for jews to have a weapon at that time. Then it goes on to the statement of fact and repeats the same quantities of weapons that were confiscated and it says arms in the hands of jews are a danger to Public Safety. That sounded familiar. Turner best, the gestapo guy, said that in his directive. The most important part for our topic, the arms are registered at Police Stations 13 on jan. 261932. Written confirmation is there. In 1932 he registered his gun with the police during that period. The records are still bare. That is how he knew he had his weapons. Then look at the rest of the report. In the illustration, the translation of it is there. At the end of the report, being turned over to the gestapo which is the underside of the gestapo. It does not say what happened, i suspect he was interrogated and released after a while. For the next arrest report, there were 12 minutes later comment at the same crowd scene at the Police Station and so what i know doesnt take too much to surmise. These jews had been ordered to turn in their weapons and that is what they were doing, at the Police Station turning them in and they were in line and the next fellow gets turned over to the gestapo as well and so on so what do you have . They register the guns, the nazis know they have some because of registration records, they are ordered to turn demand are arrested and effectively disarmed and the nazis could move on to the next stage. The next stage got to actually point to make it go. What it shows you is it suggests not just the jets but it proves this was planned by the nazis, they were getting ready, disarming of the german jews and this would make it easy to carry out and make sure there was no resistance. This individual was haunts whiteman and he was head of the jewish Central Association in germany. The Umbrella Group for all jewish organizations and he was an attorney. Helm and his associates had to try their best to represent the Jewish Community in that country under the worst of conditions when the order came down it came down nationwide in germany that the jews turn in their weapons because he was apparently in munich. Either him or his associates went to see the Munich Police chief about this. Turn in the weapons. What was repeated to him was jews are a danger to Public Safety. Jews with guns are a danger to Public Safety. He records in his autobiography that he had bought a new brownings gun but doesnt sell what time he turned in, he was personally disturbed, just bought this, now i got these idiots. So he would be arrested and thrown into the concentration camp. He escaped with his wife who was a famous historian to england and the United States. Here we have a motley crew, you know who they are, september of 30 eighth and they are going to play a major role in what is about to come. After Herschel Greenspan shot the german diplomat at the Paris Embassy he lingered a couple days. The regime or the party was having its annual burger brow event in munich where the old comrades from the 1923 beer hall would get together and i guess give toast to their fallen comrades except it hillary wouldnt drink. Mr vegetarian and fish shooting sport, but basically the phone call came in to say the diplomat had died so hitler and goebbels had some combinations and hitler said lets let the s a have a fling until goebbels orchestrates orders went around to all authorities, police type authorities in germany basically saying the s a is in charge, police are not to intervene, firefighters are not to intervene unless the fire might spread from a Jewish Synagogue to a nonjewish facility. The brown shirts starting that night going through the next day and night going on this horrible rampaged throughout germany. What we have here it is the morning after the first actions against jews, himmler, the head of the ss, head of their monopolies issues this proclamation and what it says is it is illegal for jews to have weapons. And you see the s s symbol, himmler issues this degree in munich and decrees persons who according to the nuremberg laws jewish it is forbidden for them to have weapons and any violators will be put in concentration camps and will be subject to 20 years incarceration. Had the war not come you can imagine you could have been a jew with a weapon, failed to surrender, this is 1938, you could be there until 1958. It is quite phenomenal friend of punishment there. That was decreed at that time. What was actually going on at that time was this, where you have attacks on jewish homes invariably justified by saying we are searching for weapons. I have thought whole chapter where people lived in those days either wrote books or were interviewed and they said when the brown shirts would come they would ask where are the weapons . They asked that at synagogues and orphanages. Why would we have weapons here but also in places where they did have weapons, rusty revolvers, jewish men played a major role in the german army in world war i. Many had been officers so they had their revolvers so because they were allowed to keep them after the war. There are numerous accounts of the jewish gun owners having to turn in their guns, getting arrested or trying to get rid of them through a Friendly Police officers or throwing them in the river or things like that so that takes place, you have familiar scenes like that is why they call it the night of the broken glass. And here we have the concentration camp, 10,000 jews in their, their heads shaved. Goebbels gave a press conference about november 10th or so. He said what are you talking about . Jewish men are being picked up . Then he left the press conference a few minutes in, came out and a swiss journalist asked him we are getting all these reports, what can you say about that . There have been a number of them picked up for weapons. So they arrested 20,000, many more, nobody really knows and they were not all arrested for weapons. They were mostly picking cup richard jewish people, people who were thought to have money because they had to pay their way to get out. For the nazi to engage in class warfare as they saw it, the Entitlement Program of the day. And so, that basically ends most of the book. We do have, i can turn it back if you look at this boring picture. We have an after word chapter like what happens next. It was interesting. If you were seized by the gestapo you could never get a judicial review of your incarceration or why you where there. Right afterwards there was a ruling verifying that. It was about a gun club where one of those gun clubs that didnt want to be nazi is so that was said, the ruling came down in that context but of course with the concentration camps for juice, if you were seized by the gestapo, you were in that custody couldnt get judicial review. If you were seized by the ordinary police you could have your case go to court and there was a case i found because there was an alternative decree by interior minister, jews could not have weapons and if they were arrested for that they went through ordinary proceedings and i did find a record of a jewish man who was arrested and didnt tell what the results of that was but he got a day in court. The rest of the book we have this kind of incidental review of some of the Different Things that happened and probably what people are most familiar with, with this issue, the ghetto uprising where a few jews were able to get guns and took over the ghetto in warsaw, stopped the deportation of few days. One of my favorite incidents of that is a german soldier had been shot and he was running and yelling you didnt jews have weapons and he was running away and goebbels said this does this shows what jews do when they have guns in their hands. I thought that was quite an endorsement. I think probably that is he not from me. If we want to move on, we have a few minutes for q a, questions, commentss. I will open it up. Wait for the mic. Get the mic. To those gun laws also apply to people who were not wholly jewish but part jewish . To the extent they were jewish by the number of laws and so that was very complicated and i think if you were down to only a fourth jew, maybe it wouldnt apply but i have seen charts of these things. How do you ever figure this out, who is a jew and who is not . You titles this talk are there lessons . What would you suggest . What are the lessons for us . I think it speaks for itself but i will say i will be more explicit but i always thought this topic speaks for itself. The lesson is be careful what you wish for. Another is history sometimes does repeat itself and there is the old comment that those who dont learn from history do repeat it. It doesnt always repeat itself and doesnt always do in the same way but i think we should be cautious. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said in a case involving Police Search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment the Supreme Court case, what we dont want to exemplify in any way is what we have seen for example with gestapo tactics. What i think is not like we are a lot unique society where nothing bad could never happen so if we talk about gun registration or that kind of topics you have to talk about is there any benefit to it. I never heard of criminals registering their gun. People like Alfred Flatow and the communists never did. We have to assess to the extent some of the proposals, even constitutional, we have to assess what can happen. Are there bad things that can happen with it. All of these topics, all the different laws and decrees that the nazi past have to be taken into consideration that calculus. You mentioned the German Socialist Party, the nazi is were competing for political power between the communists or whenever. What is the difference between all that . It all seems the same on a political spectrum. Is there a difference between the nazi socialist German Socialist Party and communists or are they all the same . They had some slight differences. Because so many people i have talked to or have raised this issue with they say they were not sees what you expect . The fact that guncontrol generated the democratic republic is the real lesson you learn from history but that would be another book. [laughter] edits the a good point and then nobody would buy it if we said get control. [laughter] considering there were very few jews in germany how many actually dont weapons . What percentage . And who they know who to send out the orders to. The germans can cross reference. I have not seen any archived documents but the number of jewish gun owners or who have licenses they had neither of those but the history i went through is the jews were assimilated. Sometimes they were for target shooting. You dont hunt for food. [laughter] is illegal to get the hunting licenses but the record is the record. You could surmise there are members and that is another steady interesting to know those things. This is writeup my alley unfortunately they did not know a certain other quotation with those who have for about the past are condemned to to repeat its why is it meaningless it is repeated as a mantra with it Means Nothing is no longer go warning of the danger. That actual quotation comes from hegel who died in the 1850s. That was translated by one of the great intellectuals, a socialist and he simplified hegel a great lesson of history is that mankind learns nothing. So what do you adopt it to see going around you . With those live stream people what you think that the gun laws are dismissed as an exaggeration with the mainstream media. [laughter] would you go on the internet that hitler was the gun owners best friend but in the year 2000 and published the first with this subject from professor herb bernard that said basically why do want you disarm and kill the jews . But other than that, isnt that enough . [laughter] he was a friend of the National Socialist power and to occupy countries and kill other people without was to disarm and kill others. If you go on the internet you will see the same line of reasoning that the nazis made for everybody do it tonight. You will see it. I promise. Earlier in your talk you mention something and not remember reading and i find it fascinating about u. S. Government assigned a steady to find out about the control and in 1968 discussing the original proposal for the wests guncontrol law . Why didnt you mention that in the book . It is the introduction to the book. And the other book is a little more radical and that is a gateway to tierney. The sidebyside with the 1968 but it is scary of the overlaps. Keeping records on law abiding people with that gothic type the way it was published but to create the 1938 law you will see parts of the congressional record for the hearing record that dog had a copy that they loaned them to the library of congress but england had the same legislation so they did not have to translate the law for what they wanted to do. But he was aware of it. With the republic registration to be well intentioned but with some of that literature the legislation was well intentioned if you disagree with that can you tell us why and if you agree on what basis you believe it was wellintentioned . They perceive themselves as being well attention to it is the difficult thing to do but by and large of the of republic wanted to do those things but they had the proclivity to do that. But with that hyper inflation communist shooting police from buildings, nazis murdering people, but what do you come up to deal with that . It is easy to focus on the public those officials did not get what they wanted but Police Officials want to ban all guns and they said that a document took place in the discussion of the 1931 decree that the executive branch put out and what do you say . And some Officials Say it would not do good you have to go after the of criminals you cannot hyper regulate the law but the of their side is what you hear today. We have two major papers are in order. Papers are not in order. [laughter] here is another. [laughter] how do we inform state legislatures to what we currently see going on with the state law and how it is used . When you go through this history use the familiar things. And a mistrust for the general population to ban certain kinds of guns that is why you are all here. Is important to study what happened in history i was always amazed with anybody would say anything about this topic but they were in phatic they had to disarm. It wasnt like they did not have a jewish access to guns and it wasnt because it would be used with the of criminals but to disarm people to oppressed them and kill them. I dont describe that motive today but i do think they dont trust the people that people are trusted with arms under the european monarchy. Motives are one thing but reality is another. Speaking of wellintentioned as with the 1968 federal guncontrol law and as i understand it, the reason behind that was nuclear assassination assassination, Martin Luther king and the infinity brothers. How you relate that with that infamous . Is that weld intention and or an interpretation never let a good crisis go to waste . These bills have languished in congress until we had terrible political assassination is the way the dodd bill started out and then that was achieved in the final goal as well but also things were defeated like registration and has been ever since in right before pearl harbor the same of the farm owners with antiregistration and provision and that the brady act. You have some protections but how good are they and how long will they last . That is the critical point. Something we see is the increase of militarization of the Police Forces or local Police Forces with the ramping up of the of firepower and it seems from reading the news to go against unarmed civilians than to go against those that could shoot back. But my question is is not clear how do you see this militarization of guns and a message from the third reich 1933 with the gestapo he made it where there were new Police Officers he said dont worry about it shoot first and ask questions later. The official statement to all of them said dont be afraid to shoot so lot more of these people came under arms but with that militarization of law enforcements is over criminalization of activity with the of legislative bodies and set eavesdropping. So like now they know where you go on the internet. It is quite the eavesdropping heaven. All we need to look at is hurricane katrina. The flooding of new orleans and the Police Department to rescue those without claiming anything on the roof and they were confiscating firearms. This is part of what was fostered as the leader hoodoo the way and the answer to everything he was copying mussolini. Mussolini is always right. Hitler was posing as the protector of germany of the german people we could go on that many times but going back to the United States there was a concerted attempts for those groups to come up with the new law to get rid of the patch works of the conflicting laws and what happened to it to. Roosevelts advisers told him say you are tough on crime and it worked he got a lot of votes doing thats. He is our leader and tough on crime. Talking about Public Safety but there are very few exceptions nobody talks about in history where some of those exceptions . I do not understand. Those that do discuss regulations . There are virtually nonexistent. The rise in the fall of the third reich it does not mention it. May be of a couple of books have a footnote that is it. Nothing else. There never has ben a question about this but i wanted to have the discussion to get into the fact outside of rhetoric. This is a real question not a statement. Do you have thus equal plant guncontrol america 2014 . [laughter] and still trying to document what happened in the past with dead control occupied france third 1944. Where they decree did they still would not turn in their guns per agreed to make it a triple felony as they have san people dont turn them and. Not even under the threat of death. My question is of little different it is a more practical considerations i dont know how many have purchased the gun from the dealer but there is enormous amount of paperwork even if they were all eliminated even those that provide for protection to get a gun if there is a recall how can we prevent that basic information from falling into government hands to achieve the results this book tries to prevent . Just to add to what you said there is no really answer that is the way reality is but california requires all handguns to go through license last year was the crime to register of that but that was repealed january 1st 2014 it is reported to the justice system. The record is there if you want your warranty send it in. They already know not to mention if you make a film called to the gun shop for the nra. They have your number. Is striking thing of the german lot the way they focus on political opposition. We usually think as applying to everybody that historically there has been guncontrol which you think of those targeting opportunities today with the irs that has liberalized . With a start to audit the gun owners . I would be shocked. Shocked. [laughter] i knew you would mention the irs. That could never happen here. [laughter] i cannot think of a better word they had idiotic examples of good control in modern times was during the of early days of the war in iraq to see the dispute bang of the Iraqi Parliament those that were associated with the regime so there was no Effective Authority there was plenty of problems between the different communities there was no police or army that all civilians had to turn in their weapons. This lack of a sense of reality that some of the people that believe is the gun control that they seem to espouse is quite remarkable not one of americas finest moments especially given our own tradition of citizen militia that is a rhetorical question. We will take one more. The two questions are related. What Supreme Court cases site k your work and could you contrast the perception of your previous books that led to those Supreme Court sidings and then what about this book perception . Whether this book will ever be cited in the Supreme Court case michelle be seen it is more historical you dont interpret the Second Amendment based on this but what i will say that makes it relevant to me with the registration that the district of columbia is being litigated right now i am involved in that case. There are historical reasons why politically but they passed a lot of laws bennett is rare for the registration to say why is little they nationwide but then to be cited by Justice Thomas and the current opinion with the 14th amendment and the right to bear arms was cited in the hell space and then it was also cited is the mcdonalds case. But the reception to this book . You have to talk touche david about sales. It has done very well. And has been very wellreceived. For that new republic. And it talks about the fact solvays people call each other nazis that i totally disagree with. So he mentions chapter one at mentions the debates in the u. S. There is more to the book them that. To started out it would still we the book one of the most interesting things january 1st when yearago. Says us a decadeslong slide remember now that he decreed all guns had to be registered their the first nation to require the registration so thank you germany. [applause] i especially want to thank stave steve with his work and i hope to give copies to others. It is one of the stories that resonate for a good reason. He is available to autograph copies. We also invite you to visit our web site. So i will applaud everyone here. Of it for review joining with us next time. [inaudible conversations]