Alaska congressman Don Young suggested that more Jewish people may have survived the Holocaust if they had been armed with guns.

The response came during Young's appearance before the Alaska Municipal League, and fielded a question about gun violence in school.

Young first responded to the question posed by an Anchorage father, who asked, "what can the municipality or the federal government do to stop the massacre of children in our schools?"

In response, Young first identified violence in videogames as being "the worst I've ever seen," said that he "supports guns on teachers," and identified a slippery slope argument, asking that if the AR-15 is banned, what will be banned next, eventually pointing to "sling shots, bows and arrows."

Near the end of his response, came a less-cited and controversial claim.

"How many millions of people were shot and killed because they were unarmed? Fifty million in Russia because their citizens weren't armed," Young asked. "How many Jews were put into the ovens because they were unarmed?"

Murphy McCollough, Young's press secretary, told KTUU that the comment was "taken entirely out of context," and that Young was "referencing the fact that when Hitler confiscated firearms from Jewish Germans, those communities were less able to defend themselves."

After the response, a man challenged Young, asking him, "What are you doing?" That man, identified as Dimitri Shein, a Democtratic candidate for Congress and opponent of Don Young, uploaded the video online.

In the video, Young responded to Shein, saying, "If you don't like it, vote against me." To this, Shein replied, "I will."

The video containing these responses as well as Young's comment on gun control in Nazi Germany can be viewed below: