New York, NY, December 16, 2013 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned the remarks of a board member of the National Rifle Association who, in fulminating against the mayor of Jersey City’s gun safety proposals, asked why “he is not getting it” considering that “his grandparents were Holocaust survivors.”
Speaking on NRA News, Scott L. Bach, a member of the NRA board and executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, criticized the proposal by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop to survey vendors bidding to supply firearms to local law enforcement about how they handle gun safety issues. Among his comments, Bach stated that, “His (Fulop’s) grandparents were Holocaust survivors according to Wikipedia. So you’ve got to wonder why he is not getting it.”
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:
No matter how strong one’s objections are to a policy, or how committed an organization is to its mission, invoking the Holocaust to score political points is offensive and has no place in civil discourse.
It is especially disturbing that in the debate over gun control in America, Holocaust analogies and references to Nazi Germany flow so freely off the lips of critics of gun control. There is absolutely no comparison of the issue of gun control in the U.S. to the genocidal actions of the Nazi regime.
Scott Bach’s critique of Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop’s gun control measures undermines and trivializes the historical truth of the Holocaust as a singular event in human history that led to the murder of six million Jews and millions of others. That he did so by invoking Mayor Fulop’s family history makes it all the more offensive.
In January 2013, ADL, concerned over the proliferation of remarks comparing gun control legislation in the United States to policies upheld by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, called on critics of gun control legislation to stop using references to Hitler and the Nazis, saying they are historically inaccurate and offensive, especially to Holocaust survivors and their families.