I may have been born into a Roman Catholic family, but growing up around New York City means that a lot of your friends aren’t. So every year for Passover I spent the evening at my friend’s house, listening to the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and enjoying the fine cooking of his grandparents (holocaust survivors with some serious kitchen skills). Because after all, we all came out of Egypt — some of us just decided to worship a guy that looks like Ted Nugent strapped to a piece of wood later on. It was always a fun evening, a true celebration of the end of the Jews’ suffering. But it wasn’t until years later that I realized the true significance of the night . . .

The hardships that the Jews faced during their years of slavery in Egypt were bad. It was an existence so terrible that they’d rather wander in the desert for 40 years than go back and face that same fate again. And the moment they escaped from bondage, the day they finally were freed from slavery, is so treasured that it’s still celebrated every single year.

But the Passover seder isn’t just a celebration — its a warning to future generations.

When the Jews were in captivity in Egypt, they had no means of effecting an escape on their own. They were at the mercy of their Egyptian rulers. And, specifically, their rulers’ army. They, the defenseless Jews, were in bondage because the Egyptian army had a monopoly on the weaponry of the day and would cut them down if the Jews took so much as a step toward the boder. It was only through a series of miracles, the divine intervention of G-d himself and a show of force against the Egyptians that they were finally able to make their exodus.

The lesson to take away from Passover isn’t that G-d is on the side of the Jews and will bail them out whenever they are in trouble, but instead that we should never forget what happened and strive to keep from getting into that same situation. That a situation where the ruling class has all of the power and the workers have no means to protect themselves inevitably leads to abuse and terror. In today’s world, that means defending the right of the common man to own a firearm.

This is a lesson that’s being lost these days. The celebration is still there, but the warning is being drowned out. Even after being reenforced by the events of the middle of last century, we aren’t heeding the warning that history is trying to tell us. Too many would allowing Pharaoh and his men to disarm us, to create that monopoly on power that put the Jews in slavery those many years ago.

And this time, I don’t know if we can count on a pillar of fire — let alone a few billion frogs — to hold of Pharaoh’s men at bay while we cross the sea. Unless, of course, we bring our own 30-round magazines full.

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69 COMMENTS

  1. The lessons of yesteryear should not be lost. Whether it is this, or for that matter any other story of subjection and abuse, the end result is the same, except of course when action is taken to remedy the situation. Molon Labe……..

    • Hardly see the comparison between the Jews in Egypt and the 2nd amend…er the AWB…er…just what were you sayin’ Nick??!!? Happy Easter!

      • “the holocaust (of gang deception vs. truth) never ended .. but the survivors have decided to defend themselves” (from gang deception, chaos & intimidation, & nimrodic destruction) ~ Walid Shoebat

  4. My gf rents out a room in a home of a Jewish couple. They invited us to join in on their seder dinner. I’m not Jewish but I have actually sat in on a seder once before and am well familiar with the story of Moses. I currently reside in northern NJ.

    One thing that came up in conversation was Bloomberg’s soda ban, which the wife of the home is in favor of. I stated my opposition and a few points, but she is convinced that a ban is good and would be effective in improving people’s health. I think she is naive to think that banning something eliminates its use, especially when if you want more you can just refill your cup or buy another. I had to bite my tongue a bit to be polite, as indicated my my gf pinching my leg under the table to signal stfu lol. I’m just glad guns didn’t come up.

  7. Good ole Joe “I’m the village idiot” Biden was running his mouth again today. Proof that an assault weapons ban is just the beginning of what they want and they will not stop until everything is banned.

    “Let me say this as clearly as I can: this is just the beginning.”

    “We believe there’s no rational reason why someone would need a clip that can hold 15, 20, 30, 100 bullets, 100 rounds,”

    “We believe that weapons of war have no place on our streets. If you want to learn how to use a semiautomatic weapon, join the United States Military.”

    Source

    • Are you SURPRISED? I am not….Politicians start off saying “Just a little, Promise it won’t hurt…..Then they slam it all the way…….without lube………..political promises-as permanent as the paper they are not written on…….

    • Wow. So many things wrong with this. And to suggest that prospective service members join the military for the chance to play with a few cool toys? Way to reduce our troops to a bunch of CoD enthusiasts, Joe.

      I hope TTAG plans on dissecting this article. Thanks for sharing, Leo.

      • Yeah-join the military, play with the semiautos……..but when you get home slap a PTSD label on ya, then you can only DREAM of owning any firearm………..because, well you are now dangerous…….

  8. although you gotta admit, there were some dimwitted Jews that wanted to go back to captivity rather than continue to the promised land.

    • Just like there are people who think that we can trust the government to always make the right decision and to protect us from ourselves….

  9. “A guy that looks like Ted Nugent strapped to a piece of wood??????” That’s how you describe our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and the agony he suffered while being crucified????? I am all for learning the lessons that Passover teaches, but I can well do without the disrespect and outright blasphemy of my Lord. There was no call for such bald faced disrespect. An apology is needed.

    • I agree, that was very disrespectful and the admins of this site should be embarrassed. I think an apology should be issued.

        • Sound’s like Nick is just another progressive who likes his guns. Don’t expect him to show any religion any respect. Especially Christianity. The easiest targets in America. Its sad I can’t even go to my favorite gun news website without seeing some sort of religious intolerence. Guess being an American gun owner isn’t enough to be on the “in” crowd…(sigh)
          An apology means nothing. You meant what you said. Just admit on this site your a bigot and look down upon non-athiests because after that article we all know where you stand.
          Glad you aren’t the only one with a gun.

      • Not his fault that people’s modern depictions of Christ look like Nugent from the cover of Cat Scratch Fever.

        There’s a reason my church is only allowed to use officially sanctioned icons, and they’re drawn in a specific style.

      • Guys,guys,calm down. I’m sure Nick(nor any other writer on this website,nor their heirs and assigns) meant any disrespect to our Lord or His sacrifice. The Nugent reference was humor. After all, the stereotypical representation of Jesus since the high middle ages has set Him in our minds as resembling a 60’s hippie. As one who grew up in the 60’s, I can’t tell you how many inter-generational arguments about long hair featured the comeback, “But Dad, Jesus had long hair!”
        Jesus had a sense of humor. Let’s not take ourselves so seriously either. Let’s not look for insult where none was intended,and when one IS, let’s turn the other cheek. Rom. 12:14&18

      • You have a belief, thats a belief. If that belief cannot be proven why should I not ridicule it. If thats how you want to live your life, don’t howel at the gun grabbers lack of reason and logic and please don’t disrespect them and apologize for any thing disparaging you might have said.
        Oh, I get it, you pick and choose which irrational beliefs are diserving of respect. Is Islam included in the list?

    • Don’t you know its hip and cool to shit on religion? Especially Christianity, cuz you guys are supposed to turn the other cheek right? (Sarcasm). Sound’s like Nick is just another progressive who likes his guns.
      A few of TTAG authors are atheists. Don’t expect them to show you any respect.
      But “G-d” forbid you talk down about G-ns.

      • “Sound’s like Nick is just another progressive who likes his guns.”

        Come on, brother, you’re coming across like one of the angry brothers in Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. (Luke 15:29-30)

        Who cares if he’s a progressive who “squandered your property with prostitutes” if—if he loves the Second Amendment?

        Can we quit the belly-aching, kill the fatted calf, and celebrate instead? (Just no shooting in the air, please. 😉 LOL!)

        “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” ~Jesus, verse 60, chapter 9, The Jefferson Bible

    • I take it as self-deprecating Catholic humor, not intended to offend anybody, but to be inclusive of other religions.

      “…the ability to laugh at one’s faith is a sign of growth and theological maturity… humor is a way of explaining religion — to its adherents and to others.” ~Elton Trueblood. (1964) The Humor of Christ. Harper & Row. p. 9.

      • Bill Maher laughs at faith too. I’m not offended. I’m not even the slightest bit a devout Christian. But cut the shit. I don’t eanna read Nick’s opinion on religion. Guns. The Truth About G̶o̶d̶ Guns.

        • This!

          I agree, I am not Catholic but this is not the place for jokes about religion. We all should respect each other’s beliefs. Would Nick find it funny if we started making jokes about the Holocaust because that can be done? It’s all in fun right?

        • Nick is addressing the sociopolitics of the Second Amendment. He’s using a globally famous narrative to illustrate what the 2A is all about: Egalitarian Power Sharing.

          When everybody has access to the ferrous weapons usually reserved by State Society (agricultural civilization) to hierarchy with which rulers enforce a “monopoly of violence,” as anthropologists and social scientists (and Nick) put it, an excess concentration of power to pyramidal hierarchy is significantly checked.

          In roughly 8000 years of agricultural civilization, the United States is singular in having such a Power Sharing arrangement.

          The wannabe-Pharaohs aren’t much happy about it.

          And the wannabe-Pharaohs are using these Biblical accounts to change people’s minds to letting those at the top of pyramidal hierarchy gain a total “monopoly of violence.” Look at the Very Reverend Canon of the National Cathedral standing with Senator Feinstein, claiming the Lobby-of-the-Cross can defeat the Gun Lobby.

          I wrote him and Feinstein (so I guess I’m on a list now! LOL), asking how they ended up on the Philistine side of the Biblical story of disarming the Jews.

          It’s time claim possession of the Biblical stories, of science and evolution and anthropology, and bring them to bear the Second Amendment, because the pen’s power of mythology and changing minds is truly mightier than the sword—and the gun.

    • I’m a baptised Christian and I didn’t find his reference to be disrespectful or in poor taste. I have been attacked on this site for expressing my belief in the Christ by other posters, with great ferocity, but I never asked for an apology, I just did my best to show the posters bigotry, intolerance and hatred. I found Nick’s reference to be none of these things, more humorous in a friendly kind of way.

    • That’s not political correctness. That is a tradition of Judaism, based on the Biblical teaching that they were not to say the name of god, or some such thing.

      • It is a Jewish way to refer to God – the reverence was so great back in the day that God was often referred to in an indirect manner. I wish he would have made the reference to Jesus with the same level of respect, but I appreciate the article and its meaning nonetheless.

  11. We “all” came out of Egypt? “All” of us? Man, you really went out of your way to strike a nerve for just about everyone with this post!

    • Yeah, my ancestors who spent the last ice age freezing their asses off around the Baltic might have something to say about that!

    • I think he meant theologically, as in Christianity started out as a sect of Judaism.

      That said, he does presuppose a lot; f’rinstance, while I am religious, mine is not a desert monotheism.

      I suspect you’ll find some real variety, ’round here. Even real Liberals, as differentiated from Statists…

    • “We all came out of Egypt” refers to both the Jewish religion’s Exodus and the Christian religion’s flight into Egypt narrative.

      “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” MT 2:15

      And I think the US is an EXCEPTIONAL Promised Land of 2A Power Sharing, to which people have fled from the many power-monopolizing Egyptian Pharaohs around the globe.

  12. Amen Nick!
    This is also why Jews say never again. Unfortunately most Jews in America have been lulled into some delusional sense of security. I hate to say this but sometimes you need a switch kick in the crotch to wake you up!

  13. Get over it. You live in a free country that does not guarantee you the right to not be offended by what you might read on the internet. Demanding apologies is something liberals do.

  14. Wow…just wow…There is so much wrong in this post. I expect revisionist history from the anti’s, but not here.
    Ask yourself, why were the Jews in Egypt? Then, why did God send a man with a speech impediment to speak to pharoh on their behalf?
    I can buy the nazi disarmament position, but this is way off base.

    • This is a perfect example of why good people should be armed. There are monsters (they come in all colors), and they walk among us.

  16. I got to hand it to the Jews they were light years ahead of everyone else in how they depicted their own history. The TANAK (Old Testament) is not very flattering to them. They messed up at almost every turn and when they were about to enter the promised land God tells Moses that they will go against His Law.

    If the Bible and history tell me anything about armanent & fighting its that the weapons are secondary to the will to fight. Saul’s army was a real army but would not take out an almost assuredly numerically inferior yet technologically superior opponent. Then a shepherd boy shows up w/ a sling and shames an army of grown men including the king himself.

    “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel”

    Rather a broke open shotgun w/ some chutzpah than state full of AR’s without it.

  18. I insist on the right to be offended so that I can display my right to act like an adult
    by not calling the WaaaWagon like some Lefty would

  20. “a guy that looks like Ted Nugent strapped to a piece of wood ”

    And Hitler was the most misunderstood person in the history of the world. He was merely a Barbeque aficionado. He was preparing for a Rib Cook off competition. Ironically he choose to enter pork ribs instead of beef. He may have won if he had went with mesquite as a fuel, but as we all know he used Jew.

  21. Nick, please leave the religious crap out of this blog. If I wanted a sermon, I’d go to church. This is where I go to find out “the truth about guns” or something like that. By standing in a pulpit and preaching, you are diminishing the credibility this site has. Please stop it.

  22. I am a Christian. Not just in background, but in belief.

    I wasn’t offended by Nick’s article, and I think that people who were need to get over it. If you’re upset about the reference, maybe take it up with the people who present Jesus that way?

    I find this an interesting take on the whole Exodus story, and one that is well thought out. We do indeed need to do whatever we can to help ourselves before we can expect God to come through for us in miracles. That is my philosophy and belief on the matter: God helps those who help themselves. If you’re just sitting there waiting for God’s deliverance, when you have something you can do about it right now, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

  23. To anyone offended by this article: relax, take a deep breath, and please tell the nurse your Thorazine is wearing off.

  24. The lesson to take away from Passover isn’t that G-d is on the side of the Jews and will bail them out whenever they are in trouble..
    Did he “bail out” the ones who worshiped the golden calf?
    Did he “bail out” the murmurers? Do you understand why they were in the wilderness 40 years? He(Yaweh)”bails out” believers and the sinners that ask for forgiveness by giving grace(receiving something you don’t deserve)eternal life through faith(belief in things not yet seen)through the sacrifice(giving HIS all)of HIS son..Yeshua. (no “J” in Hebrew). All HE wants is for us to return to HIM, unfortunately our country and our elected? officials have other plans.
    Today, the world “system” is Egypt, and we/I’m not part of this “system”. Though I have to spend time here this is not my home. Whenever I do get home it will at HIS calling…change is happening.

    Now, where’s all the 9mm ammo?

  25. Frankly, I liked the metaphore. A disarmed population has very limited options when ruled by powerful tyrants, whether they be Pharaoh’s men or the newly armed army from the Dept. of Homeland Security. As a Catholic, I took no offense at the Ted Nugent reference…… I often visualize GOD as George Burns portrayed him in the movies. HE has to have a sense of humor, after all, he made us, right?

  26. Curse this blog.

    You people people mock God and worship petty swords.

    You really think your precious guns are going to save you?

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