Rocker Ted Nugent has drawn fire from the Anti-Defamation League with an online post insinuating gun control is the product of a vast Jewish conspiracy.
The 67-year-old “Cat Scratch Fever” singer shared an image Monday on Facebook that shows the faces of several U.S. politicians next to Israeli flags and beneath the caption: “So who is really behind gun control?”
“Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil, they would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP & BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax paid hired ARMED security! Know them well,” wrote Mr. Nugent, referring to the likes of Michael Bloomberg — titled as the former mayor of “Jew York City” — and Sen. Dianne Feinstein — the California Democrat and “globalist political agent” in the image.
“Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!” the post added.
ADL — the country’s largest group advocating against anti-Semitism — said that the image had been designed by someone other than the outspoken musician and had been made its rounds on the Internet before, but condemned Mr. Nugent nevertheless for sharing it with his fans.
“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,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the organization’s CEO. “Regardless of one’s views on gun control, this kind of scapegoating of an entire religious group is completely unacceptable and completely divorced from reality.
“It should go without saying that anti-Semitism has no place in the gun control debate,” added Mr. Greenblatt, who said Mr. Nugent should “be ashamed for promoting anti-Semitic content” and urged him to remove it from his Facebook account.
As criticism mounted, Mr. Nugent fired back several hours later, claiming in a subsequent post that “Jews for guncontrol are nazis in disguise.”
“Plummet on punks. Plummet on. Meanwhile I adjust my yamika at my barmitzva playing my kosher guitar,” he wrote. “My dad killed nazis & saved Jews in WWII.”
Mr. Nugent’s first post — which also blamed prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel for being behind gun control efforts — has been shared more than 2,700 times since being published Monday.
Earlier this year, Mr. Nugent called President Obama a “psychopathic, America-hating liar” when the commander in chief teared up while giving a speech on gun control.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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