We live in a moment when Jewish life in America feels more vulnerable than it has in decades. The threats are real, and we cannot outsource all responsibility for our safety. With that in mind, I want to offer a modest proposal:
First, we should drop the sneering rhetoric about guns. Too often, Jewish discourse is laced with derision for those who own guns or advocate for them. A little empathy, even if we disagree, is a Jewish value too.
Second, Jews should learn to shoot. Every Jew should go to the gun range at least once. You may never own a firearm, let alone carry one—but you should at least know what it feels like to handle one safely, to understand its power as well as its risks.
Third, Jewish organizations should consider providing training. On a voluntary basis, synagogues, schools, and Jewish nonprofits should give their staff and boards the opportunity to experience basic firearms safety at a gun range.
Fourth, we should be honest about the politics of gun control. For decades, many mainstream Jewish organizations have poured energy into advocating for gun control measures that have no realistic chance of passing.
Finally, circumstances should guide personal decisions. Whether to carry a firearm is not a question with a one-size-fits-all answer. Each of us must weigh our own risks, responsibilities, and comfort level. As for me, I’d like more training. Whether I’ll actually acquire a firearm, I haven’t decided. For now, the only thing I’m certain of is that pretending the question doesn’t matter is no longer an option.
— David Bernstein in Jews and Guns: Time for a Reckoning?
Taken from the article.
“Most American Jews I know have a visceral aversion to guns.”
And I would say most american jews are as anti-civil rights as the Ku Klux Klan and that is not an exaggeration as far as I’m concerned. Just as the Klan supports gun confiscation so do the white jews.
When you read the history of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, you will learn this. But I seriously doubt you will learn this by reading about the black panther party for self-defense. Which many left-wing jews supported.
And the white Jewish volunteers who went into the South to register blacks to vote. Actively pushed for blacks to disarm. Because these very naive white folks from their nice neighborhoods, in the Northeast and elsewhere. Believed you didn’t need to have guns.
But listening to Aaron Zelman on a local Virginia independent republican libertarian radio station. And having him use the research of Clayton Cramer, discussing the racist roots of gun control. This was the first time I’d ever heard of a Jewish person. Say that not only the second amendment was a good thing, but he said that black people should have guns to protect themselves against the government.
And the only other white person I heard say that before were members of the Log Cabin Republicans in California. They also said , black people should have guns to defend themselves against the government. And those g@,y republicans had rocks and glass bottles thrown at them at g@.y pr!de p@.r@,des.
As I’ve said before, I joined the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
Back in 1994. It wasn’t the NRA that I joined first.
It’s really unfortunate that it takes a large number of Jewish people. Or a large number of black people to be murdered, before the blacks and the jews. Finally wake up to the fact that it’s a good idea to support the second amendment and to have guns.
Amen on the Deacons for Defense! There’s a fantastic eye-opener of a book on them. There’s also a movie with Forrest Whittaker, which is decent and doesn’t stray too far from reality, but it necessarily has to cram so much in that it’s not as good as a story.
“Murder Inc.” had no aversion to guns. All criminals. Their demise was the start of the Mob’s demise.
The dems fought a war to keep slavery. They founded the kkk and fought tooth and nail against the civil rights movement.
Yet blacks and jews vote for them. It boggles the mind.
There’s the flip side — what are the Republicans doing so badly that blacks and Jews don’t vote for them?
Remnants of the Country Club image of Republicans.
This article seems a bit tone deaf to me.
The Jews seem like they have zero problems with firearms as long as they are pointed at Muslims.
Muslims earned that though. “The religion of peace” isn’t.
Agreed. I just hope Isreal doesnt go too far “defending” itself.
“Do unto others before they do unto you.”
Hamas is lucky I wasn’t running the Israeli response to 10/7
There would have been a least 100,000 heads on pikes around Gaza now as a warning not to do it again
And they would have been starved into surrender in 3 months
Jews and Muslims both agree that s0.ci@l!.sm “works.” And both support gun control.
Not in Israel.
wheres my post from yesterday that went to moderation?
Read the original article and he still advocates for “modest” gun control? As a Noahide with more guns than I need but not as many as I want, I can see why the Lord got so angry so many times with these people. The threat is real but leftist Jews still equivocate… Oi vey!
The jews are s0ci@.list pr0gres.sive in their political orientation. Never trust them when it comes to supporting civil rights.
And yes there are some. Very few. Who really do support civil rights. But none of them hold elected office.
I would add learning at least basic unarmed combatives – Krav Maga, for example. Learn to take a hit, learn to fall without harm, learn to endure.
Less than lethal weapons (Pepper Spray) might also be a good option.
And basic first aid (Stop the Bleed, not just CPR).
Nobody needs a gun until he needs one real bad.
Mr Bernstein says: “While your father or grandfather may have walked to school through the boroughs of New York City,” I am 75 and grew up in NYC and when my father and grandfather walked to school in NYC most if not all of the schools and colleges in NYC had ranges in the basements and smallbore target teams and they participated in competitions. Until 1968 you did not need a Firearms ID in NYC and while a teenager in Queens I would get on the subway with my cased rifle to meet up with friends to go hunting in upstate NY on a Police Department sponsored trip. This was the 1960s and many people had fought in WWII and Korea so familiarity with firearms was more common than now. Starting in the 60’s the city made a decided push against firearms – many college programs were shutdown, any existing HS programs soon disappeared also. In NJ the same thing was happening. Democratic and liberal administrations decided that guns were a problem rather than deal with the root of the problem – people. It was easier to say they were doing something about the problem even if they really weren’t. It was all about the look.
We, the people, are the only ones that are actually responsible for our own safety. The courts have said that the police (government) has no responsibility for protecting you. To look to the government is a delusion, to think that just by passing a law you will be protecting is also a delusion.
I read a memoir by a guy who had been a Jewish partisan in WW2 somewhere out in the woods of Lithuania. Figured out that the Germans intended to kill them all so bugged out of the ghetto. But for the first year they had more casualties from what we would call NDs than from SS actions. So some clue about the 4 Rules would be useful.
I have a client who’s business is adjacent to a Jewish elementary school in a large metro. Whenever the kids are present there is a man present watching over them. The man is about 50 years old and is a ginger, with the map of Dublin printed on his face. Even on hot days he wears a sport coat, indicating to me he is carrying a gun. He is smart, he recognizes patterns. The first few times he saw me he watched me carefully. After he saw me walking with my client, who wears a kippah and has the map of Jerusalem ingrained on his face, he stopped giving me a second look.
In short the school had hired a retired Irish ex-cop to protect their kids from any variety of violent nuts, but principally muslims. So they are not adverse to paying people to protect their kids. But given the open antisemitism of the day and the intensity of those residing in an internet bubble, they really need to arm up themselves. Every manner of nut hates them. And moslems don’t care if you are a liberal Jew or a Trump Jew.
Great comments. But, what Bernstein fails to mention here, “For decades, many mainstream Jewish organizations have poured energy into advocating for gun control measures that have no realistic chance of passing”, is a much MORE important reason for Jews to arm themselves. As the Holocaust recedes in to forgotten history for recent generations, a most critical lesson is lost; every occsion, without fail, where civilians have been disarmed, has served as a precursor for autocratic rule. The examples of this would be a litany too vast for this comment, but the most obvious recent example is where anyone in GB who expresses outrage at the mass invasion of their country by anti-Semitic savages is prosecuted. Anyone who would disarm us is actively plotting our demise.