After becoming an instant darling of John McCain and Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election, Ohio’s “Joe the Plumber” (aka Sam Wurzelbacher) is trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame as long as possible, winning the Republication nomination in his Congressional district in March and now releasing a controversial video that alleges that Jews were victimized by the Holocaust because Hitler took away their guns.
Wurzelbacher’s point in the video is that Americans should fight any efforts at gun control, lest they become victims of genocide like the Jews because they won’t be armed to protect themselves. His views have been roundly attacked by Jewish groups since the video was released on Monday.
“In 1939, Germany established gun control. From 1939 to 1945, six million Jews and seven million others unable to defend themselves were exterminated,” Wurzelbacher said in the video, which features him loading up a rifle and blasting away at defenseless pieces of fruit and vegetables. In the same video, he also stated that the establishment of gun control by Turkey in 1911 prevented Armenians from defending themselves against the Armenian Genocide.
Wurzelbacher became famous when he challenged candidate Obama on his tax policy during a campaign swing through Ohio. He became popularly known as Joe the Plumber (Joe is his middle name) and was used frequently by McCain and Palin as a handy stand-in for the typical middle class American. After stints as a television commentator and motivational speaker, Wurzelbacher announced his candidacy for Congress and beat his Republican challengers in the primary. His general election opponent is Democratic incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur.
