Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

NRA Official Invokes Holocaust When Slamming a Mayor’s Push for Gun Safety

A National Rifle Association board member in criticizing a New Jersey mayor for supporting gun safety proposals noted the mayor’s grandparents were Holocaust survivors.

Scott Bach, also the executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, in an interview on the NRA News website rapped a 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.

“His grandparents were Holocaust survivors according to Wikipedia. So you’ve got to wonder why he is not getting it,” Bach said.

Bach pointed out that the mayor, who worked for Goldman Sachs prior to 9/11, joined the Marines after the 2001 terror attacks.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement issued Monday assailed using the Holocaust analogy.

“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,” Foxman said.

“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.”

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.