Ben Carson didn’t back down from controversial comments about the Holocaust on Friday, telling George Stephanopoulos that less Jews would have been killed during the Holocaust if they were armed with guns.
After the Anti-Defamation League slammed Carson on Thursday for saying the likelihood of Hitler being able to kill as many Jews as possible during the Holocaust would’ve decreased if Jews were armed, Carson called the criticism “total foolishness.”
“I’d be happy to discuss that in depth with anybody but it is well known that in many places where tyranny has taken over they first disarm the people,” he said on “Good Morning America.”
“There’s a reason they disarm the people. They don’t just do it arbitrarily.”
Stephanopoulos didn’t press back at Carson, pivoting to get the former neurosurgeon’s thoughts on the turmoil among the Republican congress.
Carson has been widely panned across TV news and social media for appearing to blame victims of the Holocaust for their tragic fate.
“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said on CNN Thursday. “I’m telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take guns first.”
“Ben Carson has a right to his views on gun control, but the notion that Hitler’s gun-control policy contributed to the Holocaust is historically inaccurate,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the organization. “The small number of personal firearms available to Germany’s Jews in 1938 could in no way have stopped the totalitarian power of the Nazi German state.”
Days earlier, Carson was criticized for appearing to blame the victims of the recent mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. After that mass shooting, Carson expressed he thinks people in peril by a school shooter should charge the gunman instead of waiting to be shot.
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