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I had a quick schmooze with reps for the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership down at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Orlando. A rep (who shall remain nameless) was quick to inform me that he wasn’t Jewish. I found that kind of odd. But hey, you don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish Rye. Or appreciate the beauty that is Bar Rafaeli. Still, anyone who works to convert anti-gun Jews to the gun rights cause is OK with me. Only that wasn’t what he was doing . . .
The campaign du jour was Buster Bullet, a cartoon character created to counter high capacity magazine misegos and anti-hollow point tsuris. Which is funny, in a way, as Barnes Bullets promotes their Buster Bullets as “deep penetrating, bone crushing.” Not exactly the reasonable self-defense image the JPFO is trying to promote with Buster.
Shame. If any group of gun rights advocates shouldn’t have to sugar coat the message that guns save lives, or play coy with their religious affiliation, it’s the JPFO. Let’s face it: Buster’s about as Jewish as Marisa Miller (who modeled for Ralph “Lipschitz” Lauren, ironically enough).
Don’t get me wrong: defending high-capacity magazines is a worthy cause; smacking the proverbial camel’s nose as it pokes under the tent is always a good idea. But high cap mag bans are an insignificant side issue compared to the life-or-death struggle to enable and encourage Americans (in general) and Jews (in specific) to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Not to put too fine a point on it (so to speak), Buster singularly fails to address the main problem that American pro-gun Jews face: anti-gun Jews.
True story. While violent anti-Semitism is still a reality in modern America, firearms prohibition and restrictions are the larger danger behind the danger. A disarmed Jew is a defenseless Jew—no matter who’s trying to attack him or her. Or their family. Or their community.
New York Senator Charles Schumer, California Senator Barbara Boxer, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel—the list of powerful Jewish politicians promoting gun control is almost as long as it is absurd. They’ve attained their power and pursue their anti-gun agendas thanks to the support of millions of anti-gun Jews.
haaretz.com reaffirms the phenomena and gives it their imprimatur:
Americans in general may be divided about gun control, but Jewish Americans are not. They have always been among the most enthusiastic advocates of legislation that will regulate gun ownership in a reasonable way. At the Million Mom March a dozen years ago, the largest gun-control demonstration in American history, Jews attended in droves . . .
American Jews are probably more conservative on economic policy and foreign policy than they were a generation ago, and there is some poll data to support this. But—let’s tell the truth—the NRA supports the right of almost any terrorist suspect, wife-beater and crook to buy almost any weapon at almost any time, no questions asked. And to Jews this just makes no sense.
Who better than the JPFO to counter this deeply dangerous misinformation masquerading as “the truth”? If pro-gun control Jews are going to listen to anybody—a leap of faith that would challenge Abraham—they’re going to listen to fellow Jews.
What is the JPFO if not an NRA for Jews?
Unfortunately, the JPFO has given up trying to convert misguided Jews to the gun rights perspective. They consider it a lost cause. A waste of resources. Their organization is Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for all Americans. Not just or especially Jews.
I get that. Why beat your head against a wall? I also understand how American Jews act against their own self-interest: they can’t grasp the banality of evil.
Anti-gun Jews believe killers are “others”. They’re irrational/poorly educated/economically disadvantaged people “out there” (i.e. not Jews). Society must disarm, arrest and quarantine these outlier bad guys. The anti-gun Jews simply doesn’t see the pervasive potential evil—from government, criminals, anti-Semites, friends, even their own family—that’s all around them. And always will be.
Along those lines, you may recall I recently wondered if any 1930’s or 40’s-era German or European Jew died defending their right to keep and bear arms. Or, anyway, their guns. Why would they hand over their firearms?
“I can understand it,” the rabbi (David Kenik) told me. “Who would have thought the Germans were going to exterminate all Jews? Jewish gun owners probably figured they could hand over their guns to this overwhelming force and survive. Think about 9/11 . . .
“Before 9/11, everyone thought the best way to stay alive was to go along with hijackers. After 9/11, they know better. They know that real evil exists. They know they have no choice: they have to fight for their lives to survive . . .
“If a passenger on a hijacked plane had a gun, do you think they would hand it to the hijackers?”
Of course, passengers can’t have a gun, thanks (in no small part) to the success of pro-gun control Jews. Which raises an important question: what part of the Holocaust don’t American Jews understand?
I doubt european jews pre ww2 had many guns to fight over or with. Gun laws were already in place in most of europe that would have made gun ownership difficult if not impossible for the average person. Let alone a member of a distrusted and even hated minority such as the jews. Remember that the Germans had a lot of help with the “jewish problem”. Jews were rounded up and hunted down by french, polish, czech police and others.
Which leaves me completely flabbergasted as to why any jew any where in the world would not be armed, let alone push for gun control. With such an awfull history in recent memory to serve as a warning you would think every jew would have an AK on them at all times.
Many American Jews often wrongly associate the gun as a tool with simply being a weapon of oppression and murder used by those who are thugs and those who are evil. The exception is when the guns are in the control of a ‘morally legitimate’ government/army/police force. In Nazi Germany and Czarist and later Soviet Russia, Jews could not hope for influence. In America they can and do have influence. I think that potential for influence is one of several beliefs that motivate American Jews to actively embed themselves within the American legal and political system. However, that trust in the ongoing present stability (social/political/economic) of America is naive. Many American Jews have studied history yet the lessons from it are not being practiced. They are largely ignoring those lessons hoping that this time the long-term safety and quality of their lives in America are and will continue to be different than in the past 2,000 years of the Diaspora. When people are working and earning good money, and enjoy political influence and safety it can be a human trait to incorrectly recognize the scope of the threat on the horizon.
Your history is a little off. Many of the major movers in the Bolshevik [Communist) Party were from Jewish ancestry, the most prominent being Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kaganovich. In one of the ironies of anti-Semitic history two of the three survivors from Stalin’s revolutionary band were Jewish. Lazar Kagonvich died six weeks before the failed Bolshevik counter coup in the Summer of 1991.
Most of America’s Jewish population are descendents from refuges from Tsarist Russia. Their parents and grandparents were at least fellow travelers if not out and out loyal Communists. Jews oppose gun ownership not because they are Jews, most are Jews in Name Only anyway, but because Socialism is the one tradition they have kept from the old country..
The non left 20% are either Orthodox or decendants of German, Dutch or Sephardic populations.
“Most of America’s Jewish population are descendents from refuges from Tsarist Russia.Their parents and grandparents were at least fellow travelers if not out and out loyal Communists”
Most are descendants from Communist supporters? “Socialism is the one tradition they have kept from the old country”? There wasn’t socialism when most Jews fled from Czarist Russia. After the revolution, no one including Russian Jews could legally leave the USSR and the borders were sealed. Only about 3% of the entire Russian population was involved with the revolution. Most people stayed home and tried to escape the fighting. If they so-liked and welcomed socialism, Jews would not have tried to leave before and after the two revolutions.
Keep drinking that Anti-Semitic koolaid.
I posted a reply but it has not published.
Again your history is deficient and you are clearly not particularly well read. Socialist ideas found wide acceptance in Russia long before the 1917 revolution. Jews were attracted to socialist ideas because they were generally poor and were under constant threat from official anti-Semitic violence. The socialists and the Bolsheviks promised an end to the pogroms and poverty. Perhaps you should read Isaac Deutscher’s three volume biography of Leon Trotsky. You will learn that Trotsky spent time in exile in New York City before the First World War and was heralded as a hero in the Jewish community. The Jews were the brains behind both Bolshevick and Menshivik parties. Lenin was the Barak Obama of Communism – not very bright – and if the Revolution was left in his hands it would have failed.
it could be that after its founder, Aaron Zelman (RIP), died, their focus could have shifted somewhat, but I doubt it; they’ve NEVER been shy about where they stand. And, I personally love them for it and support their efforts 100%!
As clearly illustrated in the following article, JPFO have always known that their biggest enemies always were ‘one of their own’: simply and bluntly titled “Why Jews HATE Guns!”
+1 for the article. As a Jew, whose father is a holocaust survivor, a big part of never again includes being able to defend one’s self and one’s family. I don’t understand how other Jews can think otherwise, but I am in the minority. Every chance I get I try to convert my fellows Jews to see the light.
+1
I am the son of a holocaust survivor–my dad, who is anti. Go figure.
My father is not a big gun guy either, but we always had a shotgun or two in the house when I was growing up and he made it his business to teach me to shoot and respect guns. I am thankful for that.
+100
I have deep respect for the Jewish people, particularly their traditions of literacy and scholarship that go back thousands of years. I’m ambivalent about dividing people up by ethnic group on an issue like gun rights, though. Yes, it’s good to have a voice within the Jewish community that supports our position, but we also need as many allies among all groups of decent citizens as we can get. Myeh, it’s not an either/or proposition.
Fortunately, increasing numbers of American Jews are re-considering their anti-gun beliefs. The Holocaust-era American Jews, often anti-gun or simply gun-avoiders are an aging group. Other Jews, some in the younger generations, do not hold anti- or pro- 2A positions. Some of those in the younger generations appreciate the Israeli attitude about guns plus America’s private citizen ownership view. Many American Jews now see an America that is a very different nation and society than the utopian place they once knew back in the ’60s. Attitudes are changing among conservative and liberal Jews. Sometimes for similar and sometimes for very different reasons.
As David Horowitz has noted too often to mention, many of the European Jews that migrated to America saw Lenin as a George Washington, they fell for Communist Propaganda and slavishly followed it’s edicts. As demonstrated by the International Communists in the Spanish Communist Insurection (Civil War) one of the 1st prioritys of the Communists when they take an area is to disarm the populace, followed by confiscation of food , then clothing then genocide.
This is the primary motive behind American Jews drive for unilateral disarmament by any means; the subjugation of America to International Communism
I suggest you change your handle from “RIGHT!” to “FAR RIGHT!”
And I am the Arch-Elder who authored The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Even the House of Rothschild obeys me. From my computer I control the entire world.
Can you fix me up with a winning lottery ticket?
You must first post your Cornbread Stuffing with Sage Recipe.
I think you forgot the part about our precious bodily fluids.
“Never again” and “never armed” are contradictions. Unfortunately, Jewish anti-gun sentiment is not rational, so it will never be overcome by rational arguments. It’s pure, unadulterated hoplophobia, a severe form of mental illness that seems to be transmissible from generation to generation.
Meir Kahane, a rabbi who led the Jewish Defense League, used “for every Jew, a .22” as his organizational slogan. While we can debate his choice of caliber (he chose “22” because it rhymed), what cannot be debated is that Kahane was ostracised by traditional Jews who see the gun as an object symbolizing murder and repression.
Anyone who wants to transform the Jewish community into card-carrying CCW-ers should save their efforts for something less difficult, like turning lead into gold.
A .22 is a good place to start, though.
Yeah, it certainly beats what most liberal Jews carry.
Everyone should have a .22 as part of their self-defense, prepper and survival gear. Greg Camp is correct in that a .22 is a good place to start. Perhaps Kahane was even wiser than we are giving him credit for with his simplistic and catchy phrase. Perhaps Kahane knew that when it comes to getting many American Jews to become comfortable and appreciative of guns, and to embrace gun ownership they need to start with the .22 caliber.
Of course, in my typically bass-ackward way, I started with a cap-and-ball .44 revolver and then got a .45 1911 and a Mosin Nagant rifle. What ethnic group do those rhyme with?
@jwm,
Minus the Israeli’s who have remembering the horror ingrained in their mind set many American Jews have lost the memory. They have very little to any direct contact with those that survived. The American Jew, for the most part has little relation with Israeli’s. Most American Jews stand up and rah rah rah for the state of Israel, but if they get handed an M-16 and told go fight they would have no clue. I have seen both sides…
San, you’re undoubtably right. I was born and raised in the states and because of my location in my youth I had little to no contact with jews or people of other ethnic or religious background. Lily white hellfire and brimstone baptist hillbilly pretty well somes me up back then.
My first real experience with jewish people came during the 73 yom kippor war. We supplied assistence to the Isrealis and maybe I got the idea from my limited exposure to the IDF that all jews were going to kick ass in their desire to never again be victoms. Judging by what I see in the states I might have been wrong in making such a blanket assesment.
Robert as a fellow member of the tribe and multiple gun owner I also do not understand our fellow Jews views on Gun control. There are a few of us out here other you and the Rabbi. I work to get my friends out shooting and our synagogue even had men’s club outing at a local range.
is anyone really interested in why secular and reform jews in america tend to favor gun control? because most people seem only to ask “why?” rhetorically, and then spout off about the holocaust.
No they’re not because they’ll be labeled anti-semetic or racist or whatever demonization term is in vogue. The obvious answer is, they’re statists who want to control society. Its hard to do that when the average citizen has guns.
My favorite short circuit for any anti self defense rights type, no matter their ethnic/religious heritage is to ask them how they’re going to fight the man, fight the power if the man is the only one with guns. Since we all know “the man” are the only ones capable of safely using guns.
They’ll respond by saying that they will participate in the political process.
I spoke regularly with a Jewish detective at the gym, he’s a constitutionalist and second amendment supporter.
He said himself that almost 90% of most jews are liberal/ progressive, which means they are all pretty much statists.Which means most support gun control. He was constantly butting heads with fellow Jews over the subject of gun ownership and small goverment.
Can’t have a nanny state if the common people can rely on themselves.
“Almost 90% of Jews” are NOT liberal/progressive. That is an absurd number. Most Jews are still Democrat (some liberal and some conservative) yet that number is dropping with increasing numbers of Jews going independent or Republican. The modern Orthodox and Hasidic are disgusted with the modern liberal ethical and social values in America.
The latest polls do not support your assertion. Obama is only down about 8 points from 2008. He will still get 70%+ of the Jewish vote. No other group besides African-Americans is so loyal to the Democrats.
Most Jews lean and support the Democrat Party. That does not mean they are progressives or far-left liberals. Most Jews do want some level of greater social welfare support for society than they see the Republicans wanting to invest. Jews usually want to see good solid support for schools, the environment, the poor, and other social programs. Jews often find the Republicans going too far and not supporting those issues. Many Jews probably also believe the wealthy and especially the super-rich should pay more taxes than the Republicans do. Again, it doesn’t make them progressives as it does simply choosing Democrats. America only offers really ballot choices and one lousy government filled with fascists of the left and right.
That is wishful thinking. Jews vote Democratic because they are Progressive. The ones who are not Progressive generally vote Republican. I don’t know what world you live in but there isn’t a leftwing cause that does not get a significant amount of support from the Jewish community. Charles and David Koch are the only prominant Jews that are associated with with Conservative causes.
I live in the real world which appears different than yours. Some Jews are progressive and some are conservative. Most Jews are democrats though increasing numbers are Republican and non-affiliated independent. You speak of Jewish support for Left wing causes as if there is a monolithic nationwide Jewish movement. Believe what you will as I will do so. We are wasting time with each other.
I think you are missing the mark, because you collectivize American Jews. Take a more granular look, and you will find very differing views based on which branch of Judaism the Jew in question follows.
You will find the problem is Reform Judaism.
I wrote about this more extensively:
http://jewishmarksmanship.blogspot.com/2011/08/understanding-jewish-opposition-to-gun.html
Keep in mind, many politically conservative Jews observe only Reform customs and traditions, and were maybe raised Reform, and maybe identify with Reform, but a long conversation with that person will often reveal that their religious views are more in line with Conservative teachings.
Also, one thing I have learned from my running my blog the past few years is that there are great many Jews involved in 2nd amendment causes, competing at the highest level of shooting sports, and working in the firearms industry, but they just have a low profile. I am constantly researching as a hobby, and I would say that 10-20% of the Jews I contact who are mid- to high profile in the firearms community decline to be profiled on the blog, for whatever reason, and I respect their privacy. To think that Jews are not a very significant *positive* force in the firearms culture is a very incorrect…it just may not seem that way.
Good comment.
As to the quote in the haaretz.com, “Americans in general may be divided about gun control, but Jewish Americans are not.”, I must most strongly disagree. Several times before, I have written here about my gun toting Jewish family, including a DGU by one of my daughters with her Ruger SR40C.
The article in haaretz.com implies that the Jewish population is a monolithic block n regards to opposing firearms freedoms, but I must disagree. I will stipulate that most of my fellow Jews, including all of my extended family, are vehemently anti-gun, but in actuality there are many other Jewish patriots who strongly support and respect 2nd Amendment rights.
In deference to my relatives in NY, NJ, MA, MD, and IL, I can proudly state that here in the great State of Texas, there are quite a few landsmen who proudly partake in the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. I regularly go to the gun club with several other Jewish men and women (including my wife); if the uber-liberal Rabbi of our local schul knew that several of his Temple members has CHLs, shot regularly, and supported political candidates favorable to 2nd Amendment rights, he would have a proverbial beheime.
“if the uber-liberal Rabbi of our local schul knew that several of his Temple members has CHLs, shot regularly, and supported political candidates favorable to 2nd Amendment rights, he would have a proverbial beheime.”
Sounds good. We could send him an email with the news.
To keep this comment shorter than a page I must leave much unsaid and open to misinterpretation. I am Episcopalian (second generation), after eight previous generations of Quakers, all ten living in the Delaware Valley. As it happens I live in a neighborhood west of Philadelphia labelled, by the former (Jewish) publisher of Philadelphia Magazine as “the Gilded Ghetto.” I have had close ties most of my life both to the old-line Protestants and to many Jewish people. When I applied for my PA permit to carry a firearm I required the signatures of two neighbors endorsing my good conduct. As it happens the two people I asked, and who agreed, were both Jewish wive of Jewish men, and both, astoundingly, were part of the “Million Mom March” against guns. Such are the quirks of life.
The anti-gun sentiment among many Jews is complex. I have known and dated (long ago) daughters of Jewish gangsters and also daughters of Jewish professors. While Jewish people cultivate the idea of their “otherness” (and thus ours), there is a deep split about where this “otherness” leads. It is without doubt the deepest source of non-Jew resentment, as in “you’re ‘other’? OK, then you think you are better than us, that we are not worthy to eat off your plates or marry your sons or daughters. Then why are you here?” Take that as you will. But that otherness carrries with it a burden: Does that mean we must depend on Government to protect us, or does it mean we must be prepared to defend against oppression? I think the general conclusion is that being outnumbered, in some sense, about 33 to 1, the government reliance is the only hope: If that fails, all fails.
On the other had there are those who saw in the rise of Jewish organized crime (1890 to ca. 1960 and again in recent years via the collapse of communist Eastern Europe, the Brighton Beach mobs, and so forth) an image of a Jew no longer willing to cower in a pacifism necessitated by E. European conditions. It must be remembered that this thread of organized crime grew at first by victimizing Jews themselves in the slums of immigrant Judaism in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Newark and other cities (ca. 1890-1938). The history is much like that of previous groups arriving poor and kept isolated by those already well-settled in the US.
What you are left with is a split among Jews. Some, many, are eager to fight off any past stigma which grew out of the identification with some infamous gangsters and the ghettos. These same people identify with the reliance on government as the only rational protector of their freedoms: To these the notion of the 2nd Amendment as in part a freedom to oppose a government-turned-enemy is an alien and dead-end idea. I would call these the “it can’t happen again…and if it does we really can’t stop it with guns” crowd, which is a large one. There is another group, much smaller, which relishes the idea of being armed when needed, free to be assertive without fear in the urban reality of conflicting ethnic groups and businesses which need protection and confidence. Another small group has assimilated the traditional view that the 2nd Amendment is a great good, for a variety of reasons including protection against crime but also against “it could happen again.”
So you have the predominant group, those who believe that if brains, money, and political involvement can’t prevent another holocaust, nothing can…and in the meantime “lets take other people’s guns.” Next to these you have the much smaller groups who either conclude “firearms let us prevent rival groups and hoodlums from pushing us around” or “we may be ‘other’ but not when it comes to defending against crime or a government turned unbounded master we are not other, we are Americans.”
Nothing is simple, least of all the threads of political faith among particular Jewish people. Such, RF, is my perception of the matter. Shalom.
Victimhood narratives are irrefutable because any refutation serves as proof of victimhood to the narrator.
“Victimhood narratives are irrefutable because any refutation serves as proof of victimhood to the narrator.”
And religious groups (of all flavors) have perfected this feedback loop…
Yes they have. Which is disappointing for a gun blog.
What about Jews who promote and buy guns from anti-Semitic countries, even though there are plenty of good alternatives?
+1.
I don’t know of a country that I consider anti-Semitic that is not also anti-American.
I am Jewish descent but non-practicing and decidedly not liberal.My parents were liberals but my father disagreed with other liberals on gun control-he thought it was ridiculous to expect criminals to obey gun laws and that such laws just limited law abiding people.He was a WW2 veteran.
I am a Vietnam veteran and spent 25 years in law enforcement so I have always been armed even after retiring.Everyone in my family owns firearms(my wife is not of Jewish descent and my son and daughter were raised Protestant)-my daughter is in academia for a living yet doesn’t share their normally asinine view of firearms.
I am totally disgusted by the prevalence of Jews in the anti gun movement-few people realize a recent President of the NRA was Sandra Froman,a Jewish lawyer and graduate of Harvard.
Most of my family are the lefty-lib Jews that wouldn’t go to the range if they were giving away free bagels and lox…except for my house, our little branch we are all military (me retired from military) and all own, carry, practice.
We are also the only right-wingers in the extended family, & at this point were more country redneck anyways, most of the rest of the family thinks we are nuts. I truly believe that comes from an elitist-type of attitude that many left wing Jews in the bigger cities tend to have, I wake up everyday thankful to be in Oklahoma…well, except during ice storms, those are a PITA>
“But high cap mag bans are an insignificant side issue compared to the life-or-death struggle to enable and encourage Americans (in general) and Jews (in specific) to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.”
Come on Robert, when it comes to freedom, there are NO insignificant side issues. It’s all the same argument. It’s not a matter of picking and choosing our freedoms. It’s all or nothing. It’s either freedom or it’s not. I understand that you believe the right to keep and bear arms for everyone is a priority; however, let’s not lose sight of the fact that if you even slightly acknowledge that high-capacity mags are not just as important as the right to keep and bear arms, then you are basically arguing the antis’ point for them. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Give them nothing. Do not compromise our freedoms.
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