Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rocker Ted Nugent Blames Jews for Gun Control in Anti-Semitic Rant

Right-wing rocker Ted Nugent made an anti-Semitic Facebook post blaming prominent Jews for pushing gun control, and urging followers to “raise maximum hell to shut them down!”

Published Monday, the post included images of Jewish politicians and activists — including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer — stamped with Israeli flags, alongside an inflammatory message.

“Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil. They would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP AND BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security! Know them well. Tell every1 you know how evil they are. Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!” Nugent wrote.

The Anti-Defamation League quickly condemned the post.

“Ted Nugent has a long history of being an equal opportunity offender. But his latest share on Facebook, making the outrageous suggestion that Jews are behind gun control, is nothing short of conspiratorial anti-Semitism,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

The Facebook images are labeled with mocking descriptions, such as “Jew York City Mayor Mikey Bloomberg” and “Sen. Chucky boy Schumer.” Over Emanuel’s face, text reads: “Served in Israel’s army during Gulf war.”

Among others included in the post are Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz and Democratic California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

Nugent, the voice of ’70s hits like “Stranglehold,” is an avid hunter, a board member of the National Rifle Association board member and a strong supporter of the Republican Party. He has a long history of making inflammatory statements. Most recently, after watching the Michael Bay film “13 Hours” about the highly politicized attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, he said President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be “tried for treason and hung.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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

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.