Larry Pratt: “European Gun Laws Caused Holocaust, Prevented Jews From Defending Themselves”

Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, took issue with President Obama’s comment last week that the U.S. is “the only advanced country on Earth” that sees such a frequency of mass shootings, including the recent shooting that killed ten people in Oregon. Pratt told Florida talk radio host Joyce Kaufman recently that Europe, where some countries have stricter gun laws that the U.S., is actually “the most bloody place in the world” because of the wars that took place there in the 20th century.

“What he’s not, and apparently, very few people have really taken into consideration, is that Europe has been in the last 50, 60 years the most bloody place in the world, perhaps with the exception of Communist China and maybe Soviet Russia,” Pratt said.

“But tens of millions of people have been killed in wars and in concentration camps and if you throw Soviet Union…into Europe, then we really are talking about Europe being just about on the top of the bloody list. And we’re supposed to pretend as if none of these things ever happened.”

The Gun Owners of America executive director then went on to claim that it were European gun laws that caused the Holocaust, because “they made it virtually impossible for Jews to defend themselves when the Nazis came.”

“And that’s also another thing that people seem to keep forgetting. Because of the strict gun control laws in effect during the early decades of the past century, people across Europe, and Jews in particular, were systematically stripped of any type of weapon, including even knives in many cases. And what were the people eventually left with? Because they were mostly farmer countries, peasants only had their primitive tools to use as protection. In other words, if you weren’t in the army or police at the time, it was illegal to carry a weapon,” Pratt stated.

He added: “And then the Nazis came and started systematically eradicating Jews and sending them to death camps. I’ve never heard anybody ask why the Jews went so quietly. Well, I’ll tell you why – because they didn’t have any weapons to defend themselves against the German formidable military machinery. They basically had two options: they could go quietly and end up being worked to death in a camp half way around the world, or they could object right then and there and be shot like an animal and left to rot on the street. Things, and I dare say the course of the war, would have gone differently had Jews been allowed to own weapons.”

“And that’s why we in America need more guns and not less,” Pratt continued. “Now we have domestic terrorists, mentally deranged people and many other perils in our midst today, than the Jews in WW II ever had. And history has a way of repeating itself, so we’d better be on our toes and prepared, because we don’t want to make the same mistake. Are we going to trust the government to protect us? No. We are going to have to protect ourselves.”