Jews against guns

[10 Ring Tao]

American Jews are weak jews. I'll have to have my girlfriend type up the story of the old jewish guy who came into her work, and proceded to talk about the Strong Jews after finding out my girlfriend was both jewish and carried daily.

 

[RS2]

American Jews are weak jews. I'll have to have my girlfriend type up the story of the old jewish guy who came into her work, and proceded to talk about the Strong Jews after finding out my girlfriend was both jewish and carried daily.

Some are. Some, like your girlfriend and I, are not.


Where does she work?

 

[Henry Bowman]

For the benefit of this new page:

Keep this thread on topic and civil.


This thread has lasted far longer than most which focus on religion. This has not gone unnoticed by the management.

 

[Michael Zeleny]

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.

Eastern European Jews involved themselves in agriculture only as its arendars, i.e. managers employed on behalf of wealthy landowners. See on this Hillel Levine, Economic Origins of Antisemitism: Poland and Its Jews in the Early Modern Period. Within the Russian Empire, Jews of the Pale of Settlement were predominantly engaged as petty merchants and tradesmen, making their way into elite urban professions as legal disabilities were lifted between 1905 and 1917. Subsequent Soviet policies that aimed at motivating Jews to work the land met with abject failure.

It is also misleading to claim that "Christians utterly dominated banking". Modern securities trade is largely descended from the house of Rothschild. Niall Ferguson's study of their business remains definitive, and the best thing he wrote. Ron Chernow's history of the Warburgs documents another notable example of patterns that ensured Jewish over-representation in Western financial industries. Needless to say, pointing out this over-representation in no way supports the canard of Jewish financial dominance in the West.

 

[19-3Ben]

Weak eh? Like I said before, I went to a univeristy in the Boston area that was about 70% Jewish. Doesn't get more liberal than that. In fact, the school is known for being one of the centers of liberalism.
Anybody who has ever heard of Brandeis Univeristy knows what I mean.

I started a trap/skeet/target shooting club there, and within one semester became the fastest growing club at the school. We had the highest percentage of bodget money granted to us out fo the amount requested. I went out on trips ~once every week an a half during the semester, and limited group sizes to ten people. I had a waiting list for every trip because they filled up so quickly. I'd guess that more than half the kids in the club were Jewish.
As has been mentioned before, I think that Jews being anti-gun is just a fact tht Jews tend to live in large cities, and because of it, they fall prey to the large city politics. A NYC Jew is no more likely to be an anti-gun liberal than any other NYC resident.

Another thing that may have an effect is the fact that Jews tend to be very outspoken. We're only something like 1% of the US population. But meanwhile, look at disproportionate representation in politics, media, and entertainment industry. Those also tend to be lberal arenas, which goes back to our argument about living in liberal cities.

And as for being outspoken, lets look at JPFO. 1% of the U.S. population, and only a small fraction of that 1% are gun owners. Yet there is group that is known as one of the most rabidly pro-gun lobbying groups in America, and appeals to Gentiles, as much as Jews for their uncompromosing stance on fighting gun control.

By the way, anybody who wants to see the antithesis of the stereotype, need look no further than Rabbi Reuven Mermelstein. The "Ask a Rabbi" guy from the Gun Owner's Alliance. I love it!!
http://www.gunownersalliance.com/Rabbi_Mermelstein.htm

Oh, Michael Zeleny- you may be correct about your comment on the commandment to survive thing. I really don't know. But there IS a requirement for self-defense. If you look at the rules regarding a rodef (someone who intends to do you harm), you will see what I mean.
and I quote, from Talmud, Sanhedrin,

What is reason for the law of breaking in? Because it is certain that no man is inactive where his property is concerned; therefore this one
[the thief] must have reasoned, “If I go there, he [the owner] will
oppose me and prevent me; but if he does, I will kill him.” Hence the
Torah decreed “If he come to slay thee, forestall by slaying him.”

Just as Malcolm Reynolds once said "If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back!" The Talmud also says it. Self-defense is a requirement.

 

[Axman]

I feel that the Lord helps those that help themselves. The carrying of a gun is helping one's self. You can rely of God but God simply isn't everywhere all by himself, which is why he employs people to do His work. In some cases you have to rely on yourself when God can't be there fast enough. That is why you need certain emergency equipment: A fire extinguisher, a spare tire, a cell phone (to call the auto club, not the cops), a GUN!!!

 

[tellner]

Belief in the coming of Moshiach is a fundamental tenet of Jewish belief. Maimonedes' Thirteen Principles of Faith includes the following beautiful passage: "I believe with a full heart in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may tarry, I will wait for him on any day that he may come." I won't get into the theology. It's only really interesting to Jews. Suffice it to say that calling Christians of Jewish extraction "Messianic Jews" does not make sense from the perspective of Judaism as it has been practiced for the last couple thousand years.

 

[Keith Wheeler]

It seems to me that other than some of the folks here, most American Jews who own firearms are rather quiet about that ownership. I'm constantly surprised by members of our congregation who shoot. They don't talk about it (like I do), they're not "gun nuts" (like I am). They own a pistol for self/family defense, and leave it at that. While 19-3Ben may be right about Jews being outspoken (I mean come on, there's only some 14 million of us on the planet and we're always stirring up a fuss!) I think most American Jewish gun owners are quiet about that aspect of their lives, and perhaps that adds to the perception of Jews being anti-gun.

Add on top of that the "official" positions of many of the religious institutions (which again, could be said for many Christian institutions).

 

[Michael Zeleny]

Oh, Michael Zeleny- you may be correct about your comment on the commandment to survive thing. I really don't know. But there IS a requirement for self-defense.

I do not doubt the individual requirements. But when you look at the social trends, diaspora Jews remain as under-represented in occupations and mindsets that involve legitimate use of physical force, as they are over-represented in most elite professions. Note also the antithetical standing of Jewish propensities for building walls around laws, to the Jeffersonian principles of watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, which comprise the ideological basis of the Second Amendment.

 

[10 Ring Tao]

Some are. Some, like your girlfriend and I, are not.


Where does she work?

The most notable, or recent anyway, example of a weak jew is that of a brother's friend. She is very typical of SE michigan suburban jews. After trying to explain to her that the holocaust may have been prevented or at least abated by Jews with guns who were willing to stand up and fight, she looked at me with an incredulous look on her face and flattly (almost automatically) denied that armed jewish resistance would have prevented anything.

Another victim of the urban/suburban sheep mentality, forgetting her roots.

Anyway, the girlfriend works in a pharmacy across from beaumont royal oak.

 

[19-3Ben]

10 Ring- Tell her to read Leon Uris' book Mila 18, and then say that again.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

The most notable, or recent anyway, example of a weak jew is that of a brother's friend. She is very typical of SE michigan suburban jews. After trying to explain to her that the holocaust may have been prevented or at least abated by Jews with guns who were willing to stand up and fight, she looked at me with an incredulous look on her face and flattly (almost automatically) denied that armed jewish resistance would have prevented anything.

She should read First Machabees:

If we shall do what our brethren have done, and not fight against the heathens for our lives and our justifications, they will now quickly root us out of the earth. And they determined in that day, saying: Whosoever shall come up against us to fight on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him; and we will not all die as our brethren that were slain in the secret places ... Now, therefore, O my sons, be ye zealous for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of your fathers ... You, therefore, my sons, take courage, and behave manfully in the law: for you shall be glorious ... Then his son Judas, called Machabeus, rose up in his stead. And all his brethren helped him, and all they that had joined themselves to his father, and they fought with cheerfulness the battle of Israel (keep in mind, this was a small force compared to the Greek Empire) ... And Apollonious gathered together the Gentiles, and a numerous and great army from Samaria, to make war against Israel. And Judas ... went forth ... and he overthrew him and killed him ... [And another larger force, under Seron came against Judas] ... and Judas went forth to meet him with a small force ... they said, Judas: How shall we being few, be able to fight against so great a multitude and so strong, and we are ready to faint with fasting today? And Judas said: It is an easy matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and there is no difference in the sight of the God of heaven to deliver with a great multitude, or with a small company. For success in war is not in the multitude of the army, but the strength cometh from heaven ... We fight for our lives and our laws, and the Lord Himself will overthrow them before our face.

Read the rest on your own.

 

[1911 guy]

Little bit of a misconception.

I don't think it's so much of a Jewish anti-gun sentiment as it is an urban anti-gun sentiment. We just tend, as human beings do, to lump people into categories for our own convenience. Another example would be to say that most Afro-Americans vote Democrat. While there are a large number that do, I also know a large number that don't. I also work with a man who is very vocal in his dislike of Jesse Jackson. So much for lumping people together.

The urban outlook is important because it was virtually forced upon the Jews. After the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 by Titus and the sacking of Jerusalem, they were forced out of Israel and into other lands and countries. Being outcasts in the eyes of both Muslims and Christians, they were forced to insulate themselves in self-sufficient communities. This was impossible in rural areas because of the prohibition against owning land by any but nobility in most western countries and no feudal lord or king would take "heretics" under his "divine right" protection. This left urban areas where renting was possible and close proximity allowed both cultural preservation and collective leverage in business dealings. The latter, often cited as a pejorative against Jews, was, in fact, a necessary survival tool used by many persecuted minority groups throughout history. Money talks, even if the mainstream doesn't like the man with the wallet.

In short, I think if you took a poll of urban Jews and urban Gentiles, the pro and anti numbers would be very similar.

 

[eastwood44mag]

This applies to everyone, so don't gripe:

People who ought to know better don't. Victims of abusive regimes never seem to get it together.

-6 million Jews, countless other ethnic "minorities" sent to camps after being disarmed. They hate guns to this day.
-Countless descendants of slaves, who were disarmed. They hate guns to this day.
-Most of Eastern Europe under the iron curtain. Disarmed. They still hate guns.


Just goes to show you can't fix stupid.

 

[KosherNRA]

Brother..i didnt have to read the whole thread to give my opinion

Jews against guns are on the same level to me as Jews for Jesus (Mesianic)...it doesnt make sense

if Jews were allowed to be armed in the WWii ages then there is a chance the halocaust would have never happened

I own MANY guns, and Austrian manufacture is where my interest mainly lies (being of Austrian decent, circa 1922)

most of the jews i know have the same theory: that guns are bad

now...some would consider me liberal, others conservative as far as politics goes..and that may be where my difference is

 

[LightningJoe]

Gun ownership has partly to do with the outdoors and rural existence. Jews avoided or were cut off from these settings for many centuries. Other than that, guns are associated with sovereignty and citizen power. As a group, Jews didn't have a country for 2000 years. Now they do. And they've got their own guns.

As citizens of a hundred countries during those 2000 years, they generally weren't going to get anywhere by force (not including some gangsters, etc.). They essentially lived by their wits for a couple of millennia. The whole Nazi extermination thing was something they had no idea how to deal with. Their ways of dealing with the world didn't work in that environment. Regardless of how the playing field was tilted against them, they had always figured out a way to succeed. But when they just take you away and kill you, you can't get around that.

Are Jews smart enough to figure out what went wrong in Nazi-controlled Europe? Too soon to tell. Their most recent responses have been to get behind somebody big and whom they trust (America) and to start their own country (Israel). We have yet to see how it will all play out.

 

[willbrink]

"I mean I figure after the holocaust and stuff every Jew would want to be armed."

Well you know what they say about those who ignore history? Some in the Jewish community have not forgotten and feel as you do. See:

JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION
OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP

http://www.jpfo.org/

Some interesting articles there, and any Jew who does not support fire arms ownership after reading them, spits on the graves of those who died before them at the hands of tyrants....

BTW, I am not Jewish.

 

[freedomwanted]

I was at a gun show a few years back 3 jewish men came in an bought a 50 cal. on a tripod,a mg42 an all the ammo in the show to fit these guns. They know something is going to happen soon!

 

[Michael Zeleny]

Here are some Jews in favor of guns. My first exhibit is Judge Alex Kozinski dissenting in Silveira v. Lockyer:

The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

The next item is the opinion for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, filed by Senior Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman in an appeal from the lower court ruling in Shelly Parker, et al., appellants v. District of Columbia and Adrian M. Fenty, Mayor of the District of Columbia, appellees, Case No. 04-7041:

Appellants contest the district court’s dismissal of their complaint alleging that the District of Columbia’s gun control laws violate their Second Amendment rights. The court held that the Second Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”) does not bestow any rights on individuals except, perhaps, when an individual serves in an organized militia such as today’s National Guard. We reverse. […]
To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

More gun-toting Jews can be found at The Volokh Conspiracy.

 

[Reddbecca]

Anti-gun Jews, anti-gun blacks. Good Lord it's like the KKK and Hitler are being supported by those they wanted to exterminate!

 

[Prince Yamato]

Here's what I say to anti-gun people, especially those in a minority (Jews, gays, etc.):

There's 100 Million some Muslim radicals who want to wipe Americans off the face of the earth, if they get over here, I can guarantee you will be the first ones lined up against the wall and shot. Still feel safe without a gun?

 

[Reddbecca]

Yeah!

Enough with the nambie pambie, peaceful disputes with idiots and historically ignorant people. Time to get down and mean.

 

[[email protected]]

I thought Jews were pro-gun. At least in Israel they seem to be very pro-gun and I know there are many Jews in the U.S. that are pro-gun.

I don't think that is a religious matter if you are pro or anti-gun, I think it has more to do with your political leanings. If you are a liberal, you are more likely to be anit-gun. Because most Jews live in urban areas, that that tend to be liberal, they tend to be liberal and tend to be anti-gun.

What about blacks? Are they anti-gun? Seriously? I don't know of many outspoken blacks that are anti-gun. Or at least, that doesn't seem to be the main issue they raise.

White upper middle class women between 35-55 seem to be our biggest enemy. They are bored housewives that have enough time and money to spend crusading after what they think is right. They are the ones that did the "Million Mom March". They are the ones that need to be stopped. They are the ones that take up all these freaking crusades, MADD, ect.

 

[pdowg881]

To bad there are no million gun owner marches. If there was a demonstration of that size maybe the average person would realize that there really are millions of law abiding gun owners.

 

[Dan from MI]

In my experience, the most anti-gun individuals I come across are rich white snobbish leftists in either the Northeast (haven't been to Pacific Coast), college towns, or near areas with "those people" (And we all know who "those people" are). It's a status symbol of being "cool" there, much like the Toyota Prius. I'm not saying that all Prius drivers are gun grabbers, but those who use it as a status symbol tend to be gun grabbers. It's the culture.