Hitler Firing Off

I found this image all over. Anyone know who made it?

Thanks to recent politics, I've been seeing the same myth cropping up over and over. There are several different versions, but each one has the same central core: that part of Adolf Hitler's control of Nazi Germany rested on the fact that he managed to take the guns away from the German people. 

So did he?

Well. No. He didn't. In fact, he did the opposite. 

“This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”  –Adolf Hitler, 1935

This particular quote I've seen crop up several times. And it seems pretty damning, I mean, if you look at it, it's pretty clear that Hitler is talking about gun registration, an issue that's still pertinent today. And if Hitler liked it... it must be bad... 

Yeah. Only Hitler never said it. * First of all, the timeline isn't just wrong, it's backwards. The Weimar Republic (the government before Nazi Germany) had full gun registration in 1928 (the reason they did this requires a long explication that I don't want to get into here. Long story short, it was due to the Treaty of Versailles). 

Hitler deregulated gun ownership, for the most part. ** In 1938 with the 1938 German Weapons Act, he deregulated the buying and selling of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition. *** If you were a member of the Nazi party, you were exempt from all gun regulation.  He also lowered the legal gun-owning age from 20 to 18. If you were German, Hitler wanted you to have guns. And he wanted you to start young -- which is why the mandatory Nazi Youth Movement taught boys between the ages of 10 and 18 how to handle and use firearms. ****