Ben Carson quadruples down on his bizarre Nazi gun control argument

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who is behind only Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, is sticking to his argument that the Holocaust might have been prevented if Germany's Jews had been armed. Carson on Friday blasted the Anti-Defamation League for "total foolishness" after the organization asserted that "the notion that Hitler's gun-control policy contributed to the Holocaust is historically inaccurate."

The ADL, which is devoted to combating anti-Semitism worldwide, added, "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."

On Good Morning America, Carson retorted, "I'd be happy to discuss that in depth with anybody but it is well known that in many places where tyranny has taken over they first disarm the people. There's a reason they disarm the people. They don't just do it arbitrarily."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Carson is not the only conservative to compare gun control efforts to Hitler's dictatorial policies. As Nick Baumann at The Huffington Post pointed out, it is actually a fairly common conservative trope. But Carson's unconventional views aren't holding up as well under a national spotlight, and even his own campaign manager wants him to stop with all the Nazi talk.