Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (800) 869-1884
Fax (425) 451-3959
This Letter is an example of JPFO's aggressive defense of YOUR Second Amendment rights. JPFO IS the ONLY pro-gun organization with the guts & brains to take on the American Jewish Congress. JPFO is America's Most Aggressive Defender of Firearms Ownership. If you don't support JPFO, then WHY support ANYONE?
Be sure to show your outrage to the American Jewish Congress by e-mailing them at baum@ajcongress.org. Jack Rosen is President, Phil Baum is Executive Director, & Belle Faber is Asst. Executive Director.
To the American Jewish Congress:
I have read with intense interest of your new campaign in the Jewish community to mobilize public support for effective gun control legislation.
We do agree on one major point regarding school shootings: We cannot tolerate this. These tragedies cannot go on.
However, I must take extreme exception to this latest crusade of yours for several reasons. Primarily, your stance on gun control casts serious question upon your credibility and demonstrates the deficient quality of your social activism in this instance with its attending contradictions to your Mission Statement, as will be amply pointed out in the course of this letter.
First of all, please inform me who elected or otherwise appointed the American Jewish Congress as the "legal voice of the Jewish community"? If it was by majority consensus of American Jews, I, for one, never received a ballot. Nor am acquainted with any Jew who has.
The American Jewish Congress was founded by, among others, "Rabbi" Stephen S. Wise, whom biographical texts note as being a crusader for Reform Judaism. This did not make him a spokesman for mainstream Jews even in his own time. If you speak in the name of Stephen Wise's teachings and philosophies, you do not represent me, no, I forbid you to assert that you are my representatives or the representatives of Orthodox Jews in this country or any other. Perhaps it is a bit presumptuous to posture yourselves as the voice of American Jews; Jews who cherish our heritage, laws and traditions, and have gone to their deaths to preserve them.
The American Jewish Congress' claim in its Mission Statement to be pledged to the preservation of the American Bill of Rights is a bold and audacious declaration, indeed. You state, "Specious constitutional arguments predicated on a distorted reading of the Second Amendment, do not represent the feelings of the vast majority of the American People." Many eminent constitutional scholars of high academic repute would beg to differ. The overwhelming majority of law review articles have concluded that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms. The US Supreme Court has already ruled in a recent case that the phrase "The People" as used in the Bill of Rights always refers to the collection of individuals that make up our citizenry. Thus, the language of the Second Amendment, recognizing a right of "the People" to keep and bear arms, protects an individual right. This would seem to weaken your statement regarding "specious constitutional arguments". In California, in 1982, a ballot referendum to ban future sales, transfers, and manufacture of handguns was defeated by the electorate by a stunning two to one margin. A similar proposal last year to enact draconian legislation against handgun owners met an identical and much deserved fate at the polls in the state of Washington. So, I pose to the American Jewish Congress, who is this majority of the American people? Where were they the day the electorate cast their ballots? The "majority" for whom you presume to speak seems to keep an unusually low profile!
The American Jewish Congress pledges in its Mission Statement to safeguard Jewish interests. To which interests of Jews do you refer? Are our lives and the lives of our loved ones an "interest"? If so, why do you brashly undertake to strip those who choose to lawfully possess firearms of their right to do so? Put aside, once and forever, the "sporting use" litmus test applied by misinformed politicians. I, and a great many Jews whom you claim to speak for, keep firearms not only for the immediate, unforeseen necessity of self defense, but for the very reason the Second Amendment was drafted: For protection against a government gone sour. Your knowledge of Jewish history is exceedingly wanting. Jews are guests in the United States, naturalization and citizenship notwithstanding. Does the American Jewish Congress also make the claim that the treatment Jews received from every single country where we've settled in the last two millennia could not be inflicted here? The entire world, which includes many Americans, views Jews as different. If such were not the case, who would need the American Jewish Congress to be the "voice of Jewish interests"?
What of your Mission Statement to combat bigotry? Your license and hostility in branding firearms owners as "anti-gun control militants" would appear to reveal a serious flaw in the fabric of the Jewish American Congress. Would you stand still for an organization which called the American Jewish Congress "militants"? I strongly urge that you temper your words with a dash of forethought prior to attaching such incendiary labels on Americans, many of whom fought and died to preserve the First Amendment liberties which you enjoy and abuse.
Moreover, your poor understanding of history, and acting upon it, completely negates the fact that gun control laws, volumes of which are already law in America, have been for Jews and other ethnic groups the means by which 56 million people have been murdered in this century, alone, by their own governments.
Finally, I leave you with this thought: Have you, claiming to be the mouthpiece for the Jewish people , considered the possibility that by this most recent act of misdirected "social activism" you will incite further hatred, or intolerance at the least, from Gentile Americans toward Jews? Have you any concept or conscience of and for the repercussions of your unsolicited endeavor? It is quite probable that Gentile firearms owners will, indeed, equate your stance with that of all American Jews. I fear for a new wave of anti-Semitic sentiment directed at the many Jews whom, in no unclear terms, vehemently disagree with you. This issue is supercharged with strong emotions. To many, your anti-gun position is outright un-American. Those with whom you have chosen to fight are educated and respected members of American society. Is the American Jewish Congress informed of what Jewish law considers a Jew who imperils the lives and welfare of other Jews? Moreover, should harm befall, G-d forbid, one single Jew who was denied the means to protect his or her self through your misguided activities, your hands will be indelibly stained with their blood. I would not wish the consequences for such an action on you.
Every rational human being deplores violence, Jews included. There is a distinct line between an inanimate object's role in senseless killing and the preservation of life. The media, throughout its entire spectrum from news reporting to Hollywood and the entertainment industry, portrays the firearm as a tool of wanton violence, even glorifies violence and murder in general. This is an area where you should rightfully exercise your social activism. In life away from the television and the silver screen firearms have saved lives and prevented crime in far more numerous instances than they have been used for senseless violence.
I implore you to reconsider your anti-gun campaign. Failing that, at least be faithful to your Mission Statement and honestly specific regarding whom you represent.
Sincerely, Rabbi R. Mermelstein
Editors note: Rabbi R. Mermelstein is JPFO's Editorial Board Director, and regularly contributes to JPFO's Firearms Sentinel Magazine, and JPFO's regular website feature, "Ask the Rabbi".
This Letter is an example of JPFO's aggressive defense of YOUR Second Amendment rights. JPFO IS the ONLY pro-gun organization with the guts & brains to take on the American Jewish Congress. JPFO is America's Most Aggressive Defender of Firearms Ownership. If you don't support JPFO, then WHY support ANYONE?
To become a JPFO member, go to: http://www.jpfo.org/member.htm There you will see a printable member application, along with info on membership. If you wish, you can become a member using our on-line application as well. Membership IS open to ALL Law abiding citizens.
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