Jews against guns

[Keith Wheeler]

but we still don't understand the basic question, "why would any group, collectively or individually, with a history of violent persecution forego personal means of defense?"

Because some people, no matter how irrational or not, believe that it is possible to do away with weapons altogether, and as such prevent any future violent persecution.

Now, was that a description of some American Jews, or of some women's rights groups?

 

[Axman]

I've met Baptists who "can't abide them things" and Baptists who are predictably sick the first week of hunting season every year.

I'm a Baptist. I also interpret the "Thou shalt not kill" a little differently. I feel that this is not meant in a defense situation, only in a cold or blood lust situation. As far as hunting, animals are food! Praise the Lord and pass the A-1!


And if you want scriptures...

On Hunting

Gen 27:1 And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau his eldest son, and said unto him, My son: and he said unto him, Behold, here am I. 2 And he said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death: 3 Now therefore take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison; 4 And make me savoury meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat; that my soul may bless thee before I die. 5 And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. 6 And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, 7 Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the LORD before my death.

On the second amendment, yes, the second amendment...

Psa 149:6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands; 7 To give the nations the reward of their sins, and the peoples their punishment; 8 To put their kings in chains, and their rulers in bands of iron; 9 To give them the punishment which is in the holy writings: this honour is given to all his saints. Praise be to the Lord.

 

[mountaindrew]

Leviticus chapter19 Verse 16: Do not be a tale-bearer among your people. You shall not stand idly by [when] the blood (life) of your fellow [is in danger]. I am Ad-noy. (from the Chumash)

This is what many Jews forget. There is a Torah mitvah and a Rabinic ordinance that a person. must intervene to save a life, either thier own or others, assuming they do not have to die to do it.

Torah does not imply or demand people to be sheep, helpless to the slaughter.

Taking nessesary steps to ensure the ability to prevent death (ie responsible firearms ownership) is a part of this commandment.

 

[PILMAN]

This is something else I considered.

I was having a discussion with an Israeli friend of mine who served in the IDF and he was explaining about Israel being very liberal, in support of a Palestinian state to create security (which I think is just a false sense of security). It seems a large ammount of Israel today is very secular many even Atheist. This friend I talked with is actually Agnostic but believes the Jewish people are a race rather than a religion. Granted I can't say i'm recognized by white by Nazis as I am mixed race (mothers a German convert, fathers from Uzbekistan and Jewish) I still fail to see how Jews would be considered a race though many may be tied to the original Israelis.

On the topic of guns anyways, this Israeli friend of mine I talked with I asked him various questions about the IDF and he hated talking about it. Most of the IDF guys I talked with didn't understand why I would even want a gun and feel there is no need for it, I asked him a bit about the gun laws in Israel as well. He basically said there is no need to own a gun in Israel unless you live on a settlement and you need a reason to own one, he stated that he feels safer in Israel than he does in New York and that the only people really carrying guns are those that are police or reservists. I guess some do get guns illegally from the bedouin arabs living in the negev however. He stated that if the Jews were armed, that some of the extremeists would probably try to kill the Arabs and that's possibly why the government doesn't allow it.

Something I found interesting however is someone mentioned conservatives were normally not too welcoming of Jews when they first started coming to America and the liberal movement was protecting them (though there were Jews who served in the confederate military). As a result they felt the liberals were their friends. However I look at most of Europe today, and no offense if we have any British people on the forums but many of the Brits appear to be anti-gun and say "you don't need a gun" rather than question us. It seems like a large chunk of Europe is similar. I do know pro gun Jews, and I know many Jews who are anti gun (yet own guns) or some that wouldn't touch a gun with a 10 foot pole.

I look at it this way, I am a Jew either way and I am paranoid, I really don't trust too many people and have received death threats, some serious, some not very serious at all to some people however I still take threats serious. I choose to be armed for various reasons. I think the most powerful image I saw was on "a-human-right.com"



a holocaust can happen anywhere and I think it's one of the main reasons my father owned so many guns himself.

Another reason is I simply enjoy guns, I don't see a reason why any guns should be restricted or regulated as long as we're law abiding citizens. However when we have politicians who have Jewish background and they are anti-gun, I just want to give them a nice slap in the face because they obviously don't realize that they are creating more anti-semitism and that they are disarming the law abiding citizens. The general stereotype where I live is when someone thinks of a Jew, they think of a hippy peace loving money loving anti gun religious person with a funny beard, big nose and runs porn sites. I don't like to be thought of that way.

 

[Michael Zeleny]

but we still don't understand the basic question, "why would any group, collectively or individually, with a history of violent persecution forego personal means of defense?"

Self-defense goes hand in hand with repudiation of Jewishness in diaspora. The hopeful exception is Jewish thriving in America. Our political culture is unique in endorsing and protecting the individual right to legitimate use of physical force. Elsewhere, acquiescence and accommodation are bargains that Jews are expected to make with their group identity. Their deal is to protect their status within a gentile nation through acceding to official extortion. When its stops working, as it did in Spain in 1492 or in Germany in 1933, the rabbinically sanctioned response is to flee or die.

 

[Keith Wheeler]

I prefer what my rabbi told me: "You know what the 11th commandment is? Survive. Without that the rest are meaningless."

 

[Michael Zeleny]

I prefer what my rabbi told me: "You know what the 11th commandment is? Survive. Without that the rest are meaningless."

This commandment has nothing to do with self-defense. Its sanction is for cowering at the feet of your oppressors. The alternative is knowing and honoring values that trump the instinct for survival. One such value is embodied in the Second Amendment.

 

[Keith Wheeler]

Its sanction is for cowering at the feet of your oppressors.

Wow. I didn't realize you were in rabbi's office too. Next time speak up!

We had been discussing Jewish Resistance in Nazi Occupied Eastern Europe and how the lack of arms dramatically affected the lack of resistance, and therefore survival.

 

[george29]

Gee, I'd like to end this thread; here goes. Jesus was a decendant of David, David was from the "House of Judah" (from where the word Ju or known today as Jew comes from). There were eleven more sons who were "Hebrews" and not "Jews". Today, we call all "Hebrews"; "Jews", because we canot diffrentiate them nor can they differentiate themselves. (Excuse the spelling, I have been hitting the bottle hard as I have an abssessed tooth and the Dentist can only see me tomorrow and I hate aspirin). Moslems are also from the same lineage (Abraham) and I have no idea where Buddhists and others popped-up from. FWIW; Jews, Christians and Moslems are all cousins, and everyone knows that there is no more dangerous scenerio than responding to a "domestic violence" call. Back to GentlemanJack, boss couldn't look at my lopsided face. http://www.twelvetribes.com/whereweare/
http://www.britam.org/proof3.html

 

[Walkalong]

After what Hitler did to the Jewish people I can not understand any Jew not having a gun and beind solidly pro gun/anti big government!
Bogels my mind. :banghead:

 

[AirForceShooter]

Ok:
here I go again. I'm a jew. A jew that was taught to kill by our governemnt, and did so.
My wonderful (dripping sarcasm) are liberal, New Yorkers that viewed me as a total wacko. Until one sunny day we were having some family gettogether and the family was once again on my butt, yes I was armed. And out of thew blue my little grandfather just stood up. We always knew he had numbers on his arm but he NEVER spoke of it, ever. He looked at every one in the room and shut them all up. Then he said somthing that I will remember to the day I die. "If we had had guns in the Warsaw Gehtto a lot of jews would still be alive. Good my grandson knows how to kill". No one ever knew he was part of the uprising.
It was a very quiet family dinner and for the first time I my life I didn't have to put up with "why do you need a gun"? Gramps answered it for me.
When we got ready to leave I put on my dress blues and stood in front of Gramps and snapped to the best attention I ever did and saluted him. Yeah, I cried too.

I wish Gramps had told that story long before that , but I'll take it anyplace.

No, I don't talk to my family at all any more.

AFS

 

[19-3Ben]

Jewish kid, raised in a traditional Orthodox home checking in here.
Dad always had 'em. Carried to synagogue, and I do too now.

My grandparents on my mother's side are Holocaust survivors. My grandfather, while he was alive supported the fact that my fahter owned guns, although he said that it wouldn't make a difference in the end. He said, you might take out one or two soldiers if they come for you, but realistically, they'll have you by the balls. If they take you out, you know they'll rape and torture your wife and children. And if you run, where will you go? They are waiting for you around the next street, and in the next town. I see his logic, but I'd still rather go down fighting. He also never said that it wasn't still the better option. He just pointed out how it's easier said than done. I hope my wife/kids would not be taken alive.

But that's enough of that. I am a member of JPFO, love shooting, and in fact even started up a target shooting club while i was an undergrad at a primarily Jewish university in Boston.

 

[Michael Zeleny]

We had been discussing Jewish Resistance in Nazi Occupied Eastern Europe and how the lack of arms dramatically affected the lack of resistance, and therefore survival.

This is exactly backwards. The will to fight is a necessary and sufficient condition for fighting. Weapons are merely its tools. Imbuing them with causal powers is the principal fallacy that inspires gun banners. We are supposed to know better.

The lack of resistance that characterized the Holocaust both preceded and ensured the lack of arms among its Jewish victims. The Warsaw Ghetto rebellion happened because a small fraction of its inmates decided to fight. The few guns that they were able to procure enabled them to resist for 27 days against overwhelming odds. But Jewish acquiescence in Nazi extermination far exceeded the few instances of resistance. Many more Jews carried arms in the ghettoes to police them on behalf of their Nazi oppressors, than took them up in order to fight them.

 

[GEM]

Read the article I wrote in my sig - Academic shooter to get my take on. I think many of you are missing an important point that the part of the gun culture in the USA has had values antithetical or even hostile to Jews.

This is a dark side of conservative culture that many won't like to look at. If guns were associated with cultural values that were prejudiced, they did not have value.

But read the article for a fuller take.

 

[tellner]

There's a number of reasons.

First, there's hunting. Jews generally lived in places where there wasn't a lot of hunting. Either they were in cities or they were in countries where hunting was a privilege which was forbidden to them. A tradition of hunting makes a lot of difference. For the observant there's another piece. A hunter would either have to catch the prey alive and then slaughter it in accordance with halacha or hunt merely for the pleasure of the chase and kill. The first is very difficult. The second is considered to be cruel and barbaric.

Second, Jews were forbidden the ownership of arms almost everywhere at almost all times. The ghetto, the shtetl and the laws governing dimmis all agreed that Jews would never be armed. Those of you who talk about "cowering in terror at the feet of a tyrant" or "fighting back against the oppressor" or "heading for the hills when SHTF" or any of the rest of those hairy-chested bromides need to re-examine your biases.

Most of you come from a time and place where you and your ancestors were the majority. The government was yours. You are citizens. "Normal" means people more or less like you. You grew up with the idea that you had rights and that it was only some alien and un-natural government that might take them away. One of those rights was the right to have weapons and to kill people when necessary.

For Jews at almost all times and in almost all places that wasn't even close to true. They were a tiny minority, almost never citizens, restricted in their movements, their actions, even the jobs they could have, where they could live and the clothes they could wear. They couldn't own property. They couldn't give testimony in courts. They might be taken away to serve a forced 20 year hitch in the Czar's army, but that isn't exactly the same as having a gun of your own to protect your rights.

Waving your gun around and talking about how you had rights that the Czar or the King or the Emir had to respect was a great way to die and take your entire community with you. The way to survive was to band together, preserve your culture, keep your head down and find a way to earn a living that could be moved with you during the next expulsion. There were uprisings here and there. Sometimes they were behind a Messianic figure. Sometimes they were for the usual reasons. They all ended the same way.

There have been times and places which practiced greater tolerance for Jews and made assimilation without total repudiation of G-d and culture possible. Jews as a people have learned to be happy for such things but never take them for granted. The threat of the pogrom is always there. German, Austrian and French Jews in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often assimilated and thought of themselves as Germans, Austrians or Frenchmen first, Jews second or third if that. Comes the Dreyfuss Affair or 'Dolf and His All Boy Marching Band they found out that they were Jews.

America has certainly been one of the better places for the Jews. For the most part the majority has graciously extended all the benefits of citizenship to us. But old habits die hard. And the days of quotas, "No Jews allowed", closed neighborhoods and "Due to the distance from Catholic houses of worship only Protestants will be considered for this position" are well within living memory.

It is no accident that the extreme Right in this country - the Klan, the Conservative Citizen's Council (formerly the White Citizen's Council), the Christian Patriots Defense League and the rest have as one of their bedrock tenets the removal of Jewish citizenship and civil rights. Scratch Pat Buchanan and you find Father Coughlin. Look at the Louisiana Republican Party and David Duke's smirking countenance looks back at you. The Dominionists, Dispensationalists, Christian Embassy, megachurches and US Air Force Academy just to name a few believe that citizenship only belongs to Christians and evangelical Protestants at that. All of the groups mentioned in the last sentence wield terrific political power under the current government. Even the Christian Zionist groups who just love the Jews want us all to be shipped to Israel so that Arabs can kill us and allow Jesus to come back and end the world.

These are also disproportionally the groups that own guns.

It's not hard to see why guns are something alien to most Jews. It's not hard to see that they are generally considered the tools of the people who hate us. The tools that have helped us survive are reason, community, education, a moral code and a capacity for self renewal and group identity in times of persecution. None of these has much to do with guns. This has, perhaps, been taken too far in America at this time.

I'm a bit of an outlier among my tribesmen. As long as we are still legally citizens I want to take every advantage of that status. And I do not believe there is anywhere left to flee, so self defense by the strongest legal means is a matter of survival. The Deacons for Defense made a very good point. Bullies like victims. They don't do so well when you fight back, particularly if you are willing to do worse to them than they planned on doing to you. Their cowardice is a large part of why they are bullies. Black people made up a much greater portion of the South than Jews ever did, but the point is well taken.

A good friend of mine sometimes asks "Are you an American Jew or a Jew who lives in America?" My answer is always the same. I'm a patriotic American Jew right up until the rest of America decides I'm just a Jew who lives here. When that happens I won't live here any more and it won't be America.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

There's no correlation between religion and the RKBA in my view.


However, Jews as a religion/nation should probably be the most pro-RKBA people in the world, given their history of being oppressed for literally thousands of years.


The world isn't a kind gentle place. You have to fight to get what you need, and you must fight to keep it. No one is going to give you anything for free. Freedom isn't free. Don't we say that in America all the time?


Pacifism is anti-God in my opinion, as it leads to your people being subjugated, and consequently, forced away from your free-will. Free-will is the basis for most religions. If I can say something is somewhat universal about religions, it is that God wants you to obey/pray/follow him. Not some tyrant or master. You can't follow your religion when a master tells you it is banned, illegal or forces you to convert, causing your children to lose their faith through generations. Thus, pacifism leads to the destruction of the religion/nation.


See my signature below.

 

[Michael Zeleny]

Every Jewish community that came to be destroyed between 1939 and 1945, had inherited the benefits of civil rights and political franchise conferred upon them between 1789 and 1918. Most of them wasted no time in taking advantage of the levelled playing field. As Niall Ferguson recounts in The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, by 1893, 31% of the richest families in Germany and 22% of all Prussian millionnaires were Jewish. Although Jews accounted for less than 1% of German population, by the second quarter of the XXth century one in nine German doctors and one in six German lawyers was a Jew. Jews were similarly over-represented in nearly all of Germany's other elite occupational groups such as newspaper editors, journalists, theater directors, and academics. The only exception to their advancement was evidenced in Jewish under-representation in the German army's officer corps. This fatal lack of martial ambitions is reflected in the Jewish response to German persecution. It is no accident that by 1933 its demonstrated aptitude for social and economic progress and excellence in arts and sciences was sustained by a community spirit stunted in military prowess and political ambitions. The gentiles are not to blame for this predicament. As Raul Hilberg points out, it is a natural consequence of the Jewish tradition of trusting God and princes, laws and contracts. So is Jewish support for gun control.

 

[Cosmoline]

It's also worth remembering that prior to WWII, the Jews of Europe and endured and survived countless pogroms and relocations from one end of the continent to the other. In East Europe in particular, periodic attacks on the community were an expected, if unwelcome, cycle. The Czar or Count or Prince would scapegoat the Jews for the latest troubles and send the military through to roust them out and push them around. The local gentiles would join in the fun. While there were most certainly murders and deaths during these cycles, the Jewish community always survived and came through in the end. They learned to weather the blows, and they learned those who stood up to the oppression were the first to die. They also learned that for all the hatred towards them, the gentiles needed them and the professions they'd been restricted to.

So when the Germans started concentrating them in the old ghettos or concentration camps, the conventional wisdom was pretty much "this too shall pass." Remember that the concentration camps didn't become death camps until later on. But the old lessons were the wrong ones to follow this time. Unfortunately most Jews didn't realize this until it was far too late.

It's very easy to look back and wonder why they didn't fight back, but you have to ask yourself how far your own legs would be in the boiling water before you knew you were on the menu. Raising the black flag and killing your own nation's cops and soldiers is no small step even for a seasoned fighter. Plus, the kind of partisan fighting we're talking about here is as nasty as it gets. You have to be willing to torture, maim and kill and you can't afford to be too picky about your targets. There are no rules and no quarter. If you can get useful information from that nice Mrs. Johnson from down the road who gave you cookies, you must be willing to slice the soles off her feet and make her dance. To expect people who come from comfortable, ordinary lives to start down that road is pretty unrealistic.

 

[repo]

Here is my slant on it.. I am talking about liberal Jews not Jews in general.

Quarter of my family are Jewish. It's the quarter I rarely speak to and yes they are 100% liberals. The liberal mindset is basically one of "victimhood". They hate anyone who shows any kind of dominance or strength be that the USA, gun owners, oil companies, hunters or whatever UNLESS they are revolting against an even more "opressive" entity. You'll find in the 60s and 70s they passed this philosophy to the Blacks which spawned the racism industry which has made Sharpton, Jackson etc. rich men. If you look at the names of the most vocal college professors and activists from the era they are mostly Jewish.

As for why they are like that I think it is because they have been kicked around so much through out history and the diaspora never had the ability to form any kind of useful army (until modern Israel) that they had to use non-violent means of defense like politics and subversion which kind of fermented into this liberal philosophy.

 

[PILMAN]

Very interesting guys. Thanks for sharing, I guess I can understand it from a perspective now.

I remember telling my Messianic Jewish (Jews for Yeshka) friend about my first gun purchase and she said "Matti, a gun is a peice of metal, in the end G-d will destroy them". I explained the holocaust scenario to her and she was claiming how they are dangerous and if I decided to get drunk what if I got angry I might accidently shoot someone. I mentioned the car scenario to her. Next she said

"Matti, you can't fight a whole army with just a gun, you might kill 1 or 2 of them but in the end a crazed mob will kill you, we should rely on G-d"

At that point I was frustrated and fed up, during the holocaust the Jews relied on G-d and it led them to the slaughter houses.


I guess I was raised in a somewhat pro gun home, ironically my mother was a Jewish convert (She's German background, originally Catholic) and she was anti gun, hated them. My father on the other hand was Jewish and loved guns, he wanted to get us into them. My family was somewhat confused by my fathers love of guns however he was as pro Israel as you could get. Ironically he was raised in a modern Orthodox family as well. I think the conservative and reform movement of Judaism is very similar to the liberal movement and as a result they are generally against guns and more accepting of other things. I just wish we could change the view of most Jews and start to get them armed. Unfortunately where I live I am the only Jew here, but if I ever meet a Jew I will take them to the shooting range just to try to convince them to arm themselves. I know one kid in Pensacola and he is still questioning my need to have a gun and thinks I'm crazy talking about another holocaust, however he has a false sense of security that Jews are always going to be welcome in America. We don't know the future of America because things can always change.

 

[tellner]

Pilman, FYI all Jews are Messianic Jews. The fraudulent co-option of this term by the founders of J4J is only one of their many sins.

 

[CornCod]

The Jews are largely an urban people. Many people who live in urban environments see firearms as something criminals use because there is no hunting or target-shooting tradition, like in rural areas.

Back in Europe, Jewish people and rural people traditionally have not gotten along very well. In Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, many Jews for complex historical reasons had gravitated to the banking/moneylending industry. A Polish farmer would, for example, have a couple of bad seasons and so would borrow money in the hopes that the weather would be better the next year. If it wasn't, then some Jewish fellow would collect on his collateral, in other words, take possession of his farm. Such is the genesis of tragic ethno/religious antagonisms.

Jewish people have long historical memories and thus tend to conflate ruralism with anti-Semitism.

 

[tellner]

Corn Cod, that's not even close to true. In Eastern Europe most Jews were either in poor urban ghettoes or lived in rural villages, the shtetl, and practiced agriculture. In fact, that's where all of my ancestors came from. Christians utterly dominated banking.

The "Jewish bankers" were mostly Mediterranean Jews. In Italy and certain other places money lending, used clothes selling and medicine were the only professions that Jews were allowed to practice.

 

[PILMAN]

Pilman, FYI all Jews are Messianic Jews. The fraudulent co-option of this term by the founders of J4J is only one of their many sins.

How so? I don't believe Yeshua (or Jesus) is the messiah, so a bit confused how all Jews are Messianic?

 

[Henry Bowman]

Keep this thread on topic and civil.