Republican candidate suggests Jewish gun rights could have prevented Holocaust

Ben Carson tells CNN that Hitler would have been less likely to accomplish his goals if the Jewish people had been armed 

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has claimed that Jewish people living in Nazi Germany might have been able to prevent the Holocaust if they had been armed with guns.

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” the former neurosurgeon said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “I’m telling you that there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

Carson is currently polling in second place in the race to become the Republican presidential candidates, behind real estate mogul Donald Trump.

His comments follow outrage over his recent remarks on the killing of nine people at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week.

Asked how he would have responded, following reports that shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer had asked victims whether they were Christian before shooting them, Carson told Fox News: “Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me.

“I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.”

However, this contrasts with a personal story that Carson shared with SiriusXM radio on Thursday, in which he recalled being threatened by an armed man in a chicken restaurant in Baltimore.

“The guy comes in, puts the gun in my ribs,” Carson recounted. “And I just said ‘I believe that you want the guy behind the counter’…I redirected him.”

He didn’t elaborate on what happened to the unnamed person behind the counter, and the Baltimore police department said “there was not enough info to identify a police report in reference to the incident…date and location would assist in locating report”.

Carson’s outspoken remarks have won him both praise along with a boost in the polls, and condemnation.

He has recently called for kindergarten teachers to be armed, and provoked a backlash last month when he said he “absolutely would not agree” with a Muslim becoming US president.