Ben Carson Says Holocaust Would Have Been Less Severe if People Had Guns

2016 presidential hopeful Ben Carson has continued to speak out against gun control this week, suggesting that the Second Amendment gives the people the power, protecting them from a potential dictatorship.

Carson has repeatedly spoken out this week regarding the recent mass shooting at a community college in Oregon that left nine dead and nearly 20 people injured.

The retired neurosurgeon has argued that what is needed in America is not stricter gun control laws but more trained people capable of carrying guns and protecting others. Carson has called for schools to have a police officer or some other trained armed individual on campus.

In a recent interview with CNN, Carson suggested that armed civilians may have prevented as many deaths during the Holocaust in Hitler-controlled Germany.

"I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed," Carson told the media outlet. "I'm telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take guns first."

Carson's comments were condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, which argued that firearms would not have prevented the mass casualties caused by the Holocaust.

"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. 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," the group said in a statement.