Journalists were startled yesterday when Matt Drudge used photos of Hitler and Stalin on his Drudge Report website to highlight a story about Obama possibly issuing an executive order to tackle the gun issue.

But according to research on Google Trends, web users interest in the history of Hitler and gun control has spiked since Democrats began demanding more restrictions on high capacity magazines and semi-automatic weapons.

In December the keywords “Hitler gun control” spiked to a 100 rating - the rating given to Google’s peak search volume since 2004.

Search volume for the same terms for the month of January so far is at 86 – a statistic based on partial data for the month.

“Hitler” and “Guns” showed a 100 rating and a 99 rating for the month of January.

Both series of search terms are described as “Breakout” by the Google Trends site.

Interest in Stalin’s views on gun control has also spiked in recent months. Google Trends shows that searches for the words “Stalin” and “Guns” rose to a 74 rating in December 2012 and 100 in January.