re: Gun Control in Nazi Germany

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To say that Gun Control under the Nazis was lessened is technically accurate but realistically erroneous.

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I disagree. It's realistically true and little understood by most. I'm as pro-gun as they come but I see this as a fallacious parallel used by the pro-gun community for rhetorical purposes and I hate it when either side does that.

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For example, going from an implicit ban to strict and limited registration is but a nominal change.

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Well this is not the case with the 1938 law. It widely expanded gun freedoms in regard to rifles and ammunition sales. It was a significant scaling back of the strict laws from the 1928 legislation, of which I believe more accurately fits your description as it imposed strict and limited registration to counter the implicit ban instituted by the first Weimar government and the Treaty of Versailles.

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Further, at the heart of the argument is guns in the hands of those who oppose the government - the Jews. Obviously, and as you state also, the laws enacted by the Nazis were as strict, if not more, towards Jews.

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Without a doubt the Nazis stripped Jews of their gun rights, but this was late in 1938 after Kristallnacht. Even Jews saw no further restrictions on their ownership with the first 1938 legislation, though were removed from the manufactuing and distribution process. As I said earlier, their plight had very little to do with not having gun freedoms and everything to do with the fact that they were being legislated out of the economic sphere and citizenship even prior to losing gun freedoms. The role of gun control in the subjugation and oppression of Jews in Germany was very limited in spite of popular contemporary rhetoric claiming the opposite.

Not to mention, as I mentioned earlier as well, the Jews in Germany affected by this law were a few hundred thousand or so. The majority of Jews affected by the Holocaust were foreign Jews, most in the East, and this law had no bearing on them whatsoever, so to imply that gun restrictions in late 1938 led to the Jews plight is rather absurd.

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But the 1938 law also contained restrictions based on "trustworthiness", and who better to apply that criteria than your local nazi Gestapo?

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Fair enough that that is a highly arbitrary term but what is the evidence of how it was applied? And who made such decisions? It may have been local civil servants and not "Gestapo" personnel at all. And I'm certainly not arguing that the Germans had great and free gun laws at that time that would satisfy American standards. But simply that they in fact did greatly expand gun freedoms for those that fit their citizenship standards and the notion that gun control was immediately implemented as a primary and necessary tool to oppress the Jews is historically untrue.

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So, from a Jewish perspective, the argument that Nazis instituted laws restricting their gun rights is quite accurate.

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And I've not stated that this statement would be inaccurate. But to argue that it happened almost right away and was seen as an essential method by the Nazis in persecuting them or that this removal of gun liberties was essential to the orchestration of the subsequent Holocaust to come is simply a spurrious claim.