"Joe the Plumber" links gun control to Holocaust

(CBS News) Congressional candidate Samuel Wurzelbacher - who is better known as "Joe The Plumber" - is defending a controversial campaign video that suggests gun control led to the Holocaust.

"In 1911, Turkey established gun control," the Ohio Republican says in the video as he is shown loading a shotgun. "From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. In 1939, Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, six million Jews and seven million others, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated."

"I love America," a smiling Wurzelbacher concludes.

National Jewish Democratic Council President and CEO David A. Harris criticized the spot Tuesday and called on Wurzelbacher to apologize.

"Using the memories of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust to make a political point is never appropriate, under any circumstances," he said in a statement. "For Ohio Republican House candidate Samuel Wurzelbacher to imply that these innocent lives were taken because of gun control laws is simply beyond the pale."

Wurzelbacher defended the video to Politico.

"Different countries around the world have tried to disarm their citizens, and then have tried to exterminate their own now-unarmed citizens," he said.

Added Wurzelbacher: "If people are looking to be offended by this video, they are probably serving a political agenda. Unfortunately there are a lot of whiners out there."

Wurzelbacher's spokesman, Phil Christofanelli, described the candidate to Politicker as a "student of history" who knows that the Founding Fathers "understood that the 2nd Amendment was always the people's last defense against tyrannical government."

"It's a historical fact that Hitler implemented gun control before the Holocaust and that's just a fact that was pointed out in the video," Christofanelli added.

The Tea Party-affiliated Wuerzelbacher, who rose to fame in 2008 thanks to an in-person exchange with then-candidate Barack Obama in which Mr. Obama said it was beneficial to "spread the wealth," is facing veteran Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a heavily Democratic Northern Ohio district.

[Joedupont]

Dear CBS,
Until Jews honor their dead by recognizing other "Holocausts" they are not doing their dead justice. Ask the Ukrainians ,Armenians, Cambodians, Rwandans and dozens of other nationalities who were wiped out about loss and pain. The fact remains that Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher
is correct about the dangers of gun control. Those brave Jews in Warsaw just did not have enough firepower to save the day. They chose to die like men rather than be herded in cattle cars for extinction. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) of Wisconsin is dedicated to the preservation of gun rights in the United States and "to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone" God Bless you "Joe the Plumber" your concern about gun control should be shared by Jews, Christians and all citizens!

[csw36]

For Jews to have used this argument to avoid the Holocaust, they would have had to have well-trained armed forces - better armed than Nazi Germany and their Einsatzgruppen. That would include a well-trained militia, with tanks, bazookas, artillery and fighter aircraft. How many religious groups in one continent have that? How many religious groups have had anything like that since the Crusades, which, ironically, were then used to murder millions of Muslims and hundreds of thousands of Jews? What would you do if you were surrounded by armed men with machine guns? In the face of certain immediate death, would you not obey?

Whether Jews were armed with sticks and stones or tanks, they would still have been exterminated by Nazi Germany. Wurzelbacher's argument is ludicrous and insulting. It is non-sequitur ad hominum. Just because this man, who has no college degree, who has never held public office and who has no credentials as a historian or a military archivist, says that Jews and Armenians would not have been genocide victims had they been armed is not true. His argument is ridiculous. Furthermore, his grinning face after obliterating vegetables with a shotgun makes is candidacy for Congress that much less credible. We need fewer shotgun-grinning uneducated individuals in Congress and more well-educated, thoughtful and respectful candidates, such as Marcy Kaptur ("Joe's" opponent who has represented this district very well over decades).

In the wake of Mr. Wurzelbacher's video, there has been a wave of disapproval by international Jewish organizations as well as the vast majority of comments on the You Tube page showing the video. The Tablet, an international magazine, said, "That (Wurzelbacher's video) not only besmirches the magnitude of the Holocaust (and all genocide for that matter) in frustratingly different ways, but also embodies the same cavalier amnesia about suffering."

Ironically, two years ago, Ms. Kaptur's Republican opponent for Congress was Rich Iott, whose hobby of dressing up in a Nazi SS officer's uniform to play war games with friends also gained international condemnation. He lost the election badly. Somehow the GOP in Northwest Ohio continues to promote candidates who intentionally disparage the Jewish people. It's no wonder that Republicans have trouble electing someone dog catcher here. In fact, she isn't either.

My published article in The Examiner on this topic is here: http://www.examiner.com/article/joe-the-plumber-blames-armenian-genocide-and-holocaust-on-gun-control-laws.

P.S. I've strived to eliminate emotion from my post. However, your comment that Jews "did not die like men" is one of most uneducated, illogical and disgusting comments I've read in a long time.Guns and violence represent the worst aspects of humanity.

[Dr_Pangloss]

Only the history-illiterate think that the big events of history can be summed up in one or two sentences.

Hitler didn't ban guns. The government of the Weimar Republic put restrictions on guns because they were afraid of what the Nazis would do with them. When Hitler took over, he encouraged Germans to own guns unless they were on his hit list.

When the soldiers of the US and the USSR marched into Germany, they went from to house and confiscated plenty of guns.

The Iraqis had guns out the wazoo; they didn't overthrown Hussein. People in Iran have plenty of guns. No democracy there.

In over 200 years the number of times Americans have needed to violently overthrow their government is still zero.

[billyjean33]

These tea baggers just get crazier by the minute! Heaven help the poor ignorant, uninformed morons. Gotta stop getting all your info from Fox "news?"

[167irishboy]

Gun control? I don't think our founding fathers ever invisioned an average of 10 million guns being sold per year in America. That's one hundred million more guns on the streets of America ten years from now. That's two hundred million in the next 20 years. That is insane.

I used to be in the NRA, but I've come to the conclusion that they could care less about "joe plumber" being able to have a bunker full of guns and ammo. They represent the gun manufactures whose board of directors are in the business of constantly creating a "boogie man" to fuel gun sales. Then the next fifty generations of their family can live in castles and continue to exploit the sheep of America who are so easily manipulated.

There's always a monster "hiding in the closet." If it's not China, it's Russia. If it's not that, it's nuclear armageddon. These guys fantasize about America being like the Will Smith movie "I Am Legend." These people hope this will happen, Then they can finally say, "see, I'm not some gun nut that is bankrupting my family to buy 'end of the world' stock piles of guns, ammo, and supplies."

What they fail to realize is that in the history of America, Americans have always come together when natural disasters have hit and helped each other to rebuild. These events didn't evolve into gun fire battles in the streets between rival militias that create mob rule. Good has and will always prevail.

The only "boogie man" that threatens America is the love of money that the members of the board of directors for gun manufactures are addicted to.

[audemus]

.....thank you.

: )>

[audemus]

Someone should tell this Tea Party moron that the Jews were targeted in the second world war by Hitler and his gang NOT because they didn't have guns, but because these guys hated Jews.

[hdc77494]

Redicule the man all you want, but no one can argue that far fewer Jews would have died had they possessed the arms to defend themselves. The second amendment doesn't protect hunters and plinkers. It protects the people's right to keep arms to protect themselves from tyranny. I believe Joe's comparisons are entirely valid.

[dodinyc]

Oh yeah - If the Jew around the corner had a gun he could have defended himself against the German army and the rest of the German populace, who by your reasoning would ALSO be armed. Give me a break!

[Aceduece]

Is Old Joe, the deadbeat Dad, still behind on his child support payments?

[kevboom]

Everything that is wrong with American politics, wrapped up in one dummy. Ironically, the point he is making is somewhat valid, in that Americans should probably start arming themselves against Tea Party fanatics who would bite at the opportunity to send gays, lesbians, liberals, abortionists, non-Christians, non-whites, non-capitalists, educators, environmentalists, immigrants, the left-wing poor, and union members, to American concentration camps. In fact, maybe I will go buy a gun, to protect myself from Joe the Dumber and his band of idiot followers.

[hilario3]

Are all Republicans extreme Republicans? The reasoning behind
their actions are usually factless and brought forward to give
credence to insane views. How can the public embrace any ideas
from the distorted world of Santorum,Bachmann,Pawlenty,Palin,
Limbaugh and Beck? This party needs rational leaders to make
an insightful,respectful,informed political view that the public
will take to heart.

[nor-one]

Do they keep this idiot in a home only to release him every four years?? What a shinning example of true republicanism. The only brains in the party are the keepers and herders that control the crazys.

[derkitz56_oderneufrei707]

Abandon all hope ye who enter here....
The fact that an uninformed, illiterate, failure can represent Republican interests should give us pause. Is this not indicative of a disturbing, fundamental flaw in democracy? This not liberal versus conservative. This is a matter of standards of qualification. If you willingly lower the standards to the point where someone like JTP is a suitable candidate, you deserve what you get.