When the National Socialist Government came into office, on January 30, 1933, it was confronted with widespread chaos and confusion in the social, economic and political life of the nation. A similar state of affairs existed in the legal sphere and in the administration of justice. The situation was too critical to allow of any time being lost in dealing with it.
If each of the men in the fable about the blind men and the elephant were required to construct a model of an elephant, there would be three very different models. The blind man who felt only the tail would build a model as he described an elephant in the fable — as “a sort of rope.” The blind man who felt the leg and said an elephant was like a tree would produce a tree-like “elephant,” while the man who felt only the trunk would construct his “elephant” like a snake.
A common belief among defenders of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is that the National Socialist government of Germany under Adolf Hitler did not permit the private ownership of firearms. Totalitarian governments, they have been taught in their high school civics classes, do not trust their citizens and do not dare permit them to keep firearms. Thus, one often hears the statement, “You know, the first thing the Nazis did when they came to power was outlaw firearms,” or, “The first thing Hitler did in Germany was round up all the guns.”