While You Still Can

by Rabbi Dovid Bendory, Rabbinic Director,
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
Copyright 2011 JPFO

How can any American -- much less any American Jew -- view the mob lunacy that recently ravaged London and other cities and not contemplate the possibility of similar chaos on our own shores? Armed with the knowledge that Londoners would be universally disarmed by England’s "enlightened" "gun control" laws, rioters plundered and pillaged orgiastically while timid citizens cowered in hiding. This was the same nation that faced Adolph Hitler and the Nazi German war machine with heartrending courage? The video footage of this "new Britain" is horrifying, appalling, and shameful.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Anglo/European style "gun control" is the model that our social engineers, nanny state politicians, liberal elites, and authoritarian high-brows wish upon us. It is their not-so-hidden agenda. Some may try to dissuade us from spotting this agenda by throwing around comforting banalities like "reasonable", "responsible" and "common sense", but more and more Americans are learning to ignore their words and watch their actions. Obama even warned us to watch for such duplicity: "Under the radar" as he described it.

While the grass-roots so-called "gun lobby" applies counter pressure with whatever direction and force we can morally and financially muster, the authoritarian collectivists and cultural Marxists are funded by at least two BILLIONAIRES, George Soros and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

So, with an understanding that America is likely headed towards more, not less, troubled times, and the parallel understanding that a controlling faction of our political and bureaucratic upper crust wants us disarmed, what is the average American citizen to do?

It cannot be more obvious: Buy more guns and more ammunition WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

No law-abiding American home should be without reliable defensive firearms, whether a pump-action shotgun, handgun, or both. A rifle of some sort is of course a desirable addition to these basics. Learn how to use these firearms and to use them well. Jewish Law requires us to take defensive measures against threats we can expect or anticipate; these are the tools of defense against such threats.

If you are an urban dweller, it isn’t difficult to imagine a "flash mob" of "youths" raging down the street towards your home or business, leaving smashed cars, looted buildings, and bleeding victims in its wake. The "castle doctrine" and "stand your ground" laws of your state – and possibly of your city – will dictate when and how you are legally justified in using deadly force to protect yourself and others. Know these laws in advance as part of your preparatory training. Jewish Law may allow you to use deadly force to defend any innocent bystander from violence, but Nanny States like New Jersey do not. You will have to make split-second moral decisions if you see rioters physically attacking your neighbors or fellow business owners.

While the primary objective of armed self defense is to STOP THE ATTACKER, turning back a mob may very well involve more forceful measures. Ask yourself now, before you are in the situation, if you are prepared to take measures against multiple assailants. Can you live with yourself knowing that you left a dozen wounded lying on the pavement? Can you live with yourself knowing that you chose not to do so and instead allowed the mob to attack your neighbor?

In addition to your firearms, remember to keep an adequate supply of ammunition for each of your firearms. A couple hundred rounds of other common calibers, even if you don’t own a matching gun, is not a bad idea. You don’t want your neighbor, your brother in arms, running out of ammo, do you? The Brady Bunch may call that "hoarding" or "stockpiling", but in Texas it’s just called "a few extra rounds" -- "supplies for a rainy day."

Why are you hearing this from a rabbi? I’m a man of peace. I relish life and respect the traditional American "live and let live" philosophy. This moral shelter has protected the Jewish people since our first arrival in America centuries ago. But the realization that it is the Second Amendment that protects the First has turned me into a gun owner, a certified firearms instructor, and then a co-leader of America’s most aggressive civil rights organization, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the Jewish People have lived by the pen and died by the sword for millennia. We now live in a country that recognizes the G-d-given right of self-defense; to fail to exercise that right when threatened is to hold G-d’s gift of life in contempt.

I remember the anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights, just twenty years ago. Could such a rampant outburst happen again? Can anyone deny the possibility?

Jewish community centers, synagogues, and even the Holocaust Museum have been attacked by gun fire; innocents have been killed, injured, and traumatized by violent acts of Jew hatred. I watch these events and understand them both as a Jew and as an American.

Far too many Jews have been on the wrong side of the issue of self-defense, helping to con our nation into "gun control" rather than fighting against it. There are far too many Bloombergs, Schumers, Soros’s, Feinsteins, Foxmans, and others, misguided or ignorant of Jewish history and Jewish Law, and they have been too loud on this issue for too long. I will not be silent in the face of their distortions and lies.

And so I recommend as a first step: Get a gun. While you still can. Exercise your Second Amendment rights. Rejoice in the freedom of America.

With blessings of Shalom,


Rabbi Dovid Bendory
Rabbinic Director
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
(http://jpfo.org)

Rabbi Bendory is an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor.

The Rabbi's Archive page. 

(NOTE: now available – The Rabbi spoke on 9/23/11 with Alex Jones - you can download the sound file, (21 minutes), or listen in the player below.)