Media Matters
After a National Rifle Association lobbyist equated a proposal to expand background checks to the Nazi policies of Adolf Hitler, a prominent guns rights activist defended the offensive comparison and took it further, comparing gun registration to the Nazi practice of tattooing Jews with identification numbers.
The NRA is under fire after its Washington state lobbyist Brian Judy was heard telling opponents of the state's background check proposal that one of the proposal's primary supporters, who is Jewish, is "stupid" because "he's put half-a-million dollars toward this policy, the same policy that led to his family getting run out of Germany by the Nazis." Judy went on to mock the intelligence of Jewish individuals who support gun safety.
Now Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), is coming to Judy's defense.
Gottlieb reacted to Judy's comments on Seattle's CBS affiliate, saying "I don't see anything wrong with those remarks," before comparing the "registration" of Jews with number tattoos during the Holocaust to firearm registration:
ESSEX PORTER, KIRO 7: You're Jewish, are those remarks appropriate?
GOTTLIEB: I don't see anything wrong with those remarks. I mean it's a historical fact that Adolf Hitler registered people's firearms and then confiscated them.
PORTER: Gottlieb says many gun owners see it this way.
GOTTLIEB: Gun owners don't like the idea that Jewish people had to have, you know, numbers tattooed and registered on their arms. They don't like the fact that they have gun owners that get registered either.
