I just read an article in National Review titled ‘How the Nazis Used Gun Control,’ by Stephen P. Halbrook. You should too, if you have not yet. In the meantime, or in case you do not, let me summarize.

The Weimar Republic instituted compulsory gun registration. Every German had to report gun ownership to the state.

This was apparently no big deal at first, when the moderate Weimar Republic was still the ruling government in Germany. But then the Nazis took power and used the gun registry to identify and move against political opponents.

Suppose you were a German living under Nazi rule, but objecting to it. And suppose you had spoken out, trying to organize your countrymen to resist Nazi oppression and mass murder.

And suppose the Nazis knew you were speaking out against them, and they wanted to silence you. If they had a reliable gun registration database, they could check it for your name. If you were not on it, they would realize you had no firearms with which to defend yourself. Knowing this, they could invade your home or attack your person any time they chose without fear of taking losses.

However, if they knew you owned firearms, how many, and what kind, they could search for them. And they would know exactly what to seize to completely disarm you.

There is no reason in the world it could not happen here.

Don’t say it couldn’t happen here. So many are ready to throw the Bill of Rights out the window in pursuit of Socialism. So many others are resigned to abdicate their liberties quietly rather than speaking up or defending them. There is no reason in the world it could not happen here.

History has proven repeatedly that a disarmed populace is at the mercy of whoever seizes the government. And the same evil which leads some persons to murder others can fill the heart of governing officials too. When it does, and the power of the State turns against its own people, the results are horrific.

There is simply no excuse for all this talk of giving up the 2nd Amendment to prevent future mass shootings. This plucking of heart strings, this constant manipulation and brainwashing by the mainstream media – none of it excuses falling into the trap. Once we surrender our God-given rights to possessing effective weapons, there is no going back.

Good on you if you love people and want to limit the violence done to those who are innocent. But look elsewhere besides gun control. Look to promoting virtue, respect, honor, love, and self-discipline. Look to restoring the Christian faith, sincere prayer and repentance to public life in this country. And look to parents instilling their own children with the tools necessary to live healthy, well-adjusted, and appropriately, rather than abdicating their responsibilities.

But do not give the Progressives what they have been clamoring for in gun control for the past century. We know Progressives only want gun control so they can control us more broadly.

The core thought here was the core thought there.

In studying history more broadly and, for the purposes of this discussion, in reading a great deal about Nazi Germany specifically, I am struck by something.

Let me ask you. Why were the Nazis so evil? Were they just cartoonishly delighted in being bad? The answer is a resounding ‘no.’ On the contrary, the Nazis thought they were doing the best thing in the world. They thought they were saving the world. The Holocaust and World War II were just collateral damage. The mass murder and oppression were just a down-payment, if you will, for the purchase of a new era in human history.

And the fundamental reason why the Nazis thought they were permitted to commit mass murder and genocide is the same fundamental reason, at its heart, for why Progressives want to take away our guns, defend and subsidize abortion, promote socialized medicine, and all the rest.

The core thought here was the core thought there: that the State is ultimately responsible for the collective, and decides in a moral vacuum what is expedient, and who should live and die based on the needs of the many rather than on universal standards of justice and truth. In short, both Nazi Germany and Progressive Americans believe that the State gets to play God and say what is good and evil, and dictate even the most intimate parts of our lives for us.

Do you think Germany knew on the front-end that widespread disarmament of the people was a pretext for locking away all Jews and political dissidents in concentration camps, and murdering millions?

Neither do many Americans realize the great peril represented by those who dehumanize the unborn, and thereby rationalize “terminating” human life where it is deemed inconvenient, trying to browbeat the nation into forfeiting its arms.

All that is missing is disarming us.

Where the authority, justice, truth, and righteousness of God are not observed, but where tens of millions of Americans have been dehumanized and brutally murdered with the blessing and protection of the government since Roe v. Wade, nothing is off the table. No horrific dystopian vision is unthinkable.

And where Progressive Democratic Americans hold nothing back, and care nothing for the truth in slandering and smearing their fellow countrymen for being Christians, or conservatives, or electing Donald Trump, but openly advocate violence and the loss of property and careers for the sake of social, religious, and political differences – all while we still do possess firearms and the means to defend ourselves – I would never feel the remotest security in surrendering my weapons.

It is the height of folly to suppose America could never see a radically violent Socialist political movement trying to round up and murder, or otherwise disenfranchise, those who are deemed unfit or a detriment to society. We already have the Left’s unwavering support of abortion. We already have the Left’s unrestrained hatred for Christianity and Republicans. All that is missing is disarming us, then someone getting the novel idea that conservatives and Christians should be ‘terminated’.

And consider the Florida school shooting. Broward County law enforcement, and even the FBI, were very familiar with the shooter before the attack. The authorities had been warned this was going to happen many times. Yet teachers and administrators at the school found their hands tied. Law enforcement did nothing to prevent it, caring more about self-preservation than saving lives.

But here we are, in the aftermath, with the Left insisting simultaneously that We The People should have even less freedom and ability to protect ourselves, and that the government can do no wrong.

The ingredients are all there.

Where the government can do no wrong by failing to act to stop or prevent a school shooting, even with ample warning from We The People, it is not a great leap to supposing next that the government can do no wrong if it becomes the active shooter.

Where We The People can have our hands tied in a school shooting – powerless to prevent it, or to defend ourselves and our children because the Left does not trust the people with power – we cannot trust that the government would restrain itself from disenfranchising and murdering us too over and against our objections if those who seized the government were filled with radical hatred for Christianity and conservatism. Or, if they did not do it, they would stand down while a Leftist mob did the deed.

The ingredients are all there.

In this case of the Florida school shooting, the victim is blamed. The NRA, conservative Christians, and We The People are blamed. And somehow the Left in all its self-delusion concludes the answer is to further disarm Americans.

Yet the Left works tirelessly all the while making America even more godless, even though it is that very godlessness which leads to mass murders. If the Left has its way – if we allow them to make our country more godless and reliant on them; and if we allow them to disarm us and hand all our power over to them – we can only expect violence and mass murder like that which occurred in Parkland to increase by orders of magnitude.

Not only this, but we have the lessons of history. When a government disarms the people, they let it, the government then does things which make the people wish they still had their arms.