A few days ago, David Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, published a column for Newsweek defending gun ownership and calling President Obama’s weapons control proposals “Marxist”.
The column has a very Jewish title: “Gun laws and the Fools of Chelm”. It also indirectly explains why Israel is also known as “the pistol nation”.
For visitors, it’s the most enduring impression in Israel: guns are omnipresent, tucked inside belts, slung over soldiers’ backs, clutched chest-high at checkpoints. From cafes in Tel Aviv to “settlements” in Judea and Samaria, Jews carry guns. Guns are plentiful in the street, carried by “settlers”, soldiers, and security personnel, including the mandated guards in front of schools, restaurants and malls.
Israel as ‘the pistol nation’ literally obsesses the rest of the world. Where once Jews were mocked for being “cowards” and “parasites,” today they are condemned by the world for being “aggressors.” The very essence of the State of Israel is self-reliance and self-defense. The protection and safety of Jewish life is far more important than any other value that Jews may cherish.
Even Israeli humanistic preachers of “normality” and of being a “nation like all other nations” know that the Jewish oasis in the desert was made possible by the fact that Israel was “armed to the teeth,” as anti-Israel literary critic George Steiner once said. Even liberal Diaspora Jews, from London’s Golders Green to Toronto’s Forest Hill, can enjoy quiet nights because they know that every Israeli fence is guarded by armed Jews.
The first thing Adolf Hitler did, once in power, was to pass a restrictive gun control law which forced most of the people to give up their guns. We know how the story ended …Imagine if Germany or Poland’s Jews had been armed. Would rounding Jews up have been possible?
French Jews will soon commemorate the three children and rabbi slaughtered by a Muslim in Toulouse two years ago. Imagine if armed Jews would have patrolled that school. Would that brutal attack have been possible?
It is very clear that neither the police nor the army can provide adequate protection from sudden attacks perpetrated either by trained terrorists or individuals. Any attempt on the lives of Jews which results in killing or maiming will encourage repetition and will weaken deterrent power. That’s why when terror strikes, Israeli Jews run for pistols.
In 2000, there were just over 4,400 applications for gun licenses in Israel; in 2001, in the middle of the Intifada, there were nearly 7,800. Today in Israel over 10 per cent of Jewish adults have a permit to carry concealed handguns. A gun in one’s belt, especially during hiking trips, helps quell concerns of terrorist attack. Jewish self defense teams became indispensable as Arabs began infiltrating Jewish towns after the Intifada started.
To mobilize public opinion against the “settlements”, the Western press has undertaken to make them odious. It portrays them not only as “political provocations” but as “hotbeds of violence” and “breeders of violence”. It is easier to disarm the Jews, while according with the IDF, about 80,000 illegal weapons are believed to be in the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists.
This is particularly true with Yitzhar, the most hated, headlined and demonized “settlement” in Samaria. It is surrounded by six Arab villages (Burin, Orif, Asira al-Qibliya, Inabus, Madma and Hawara). Violence is always around the corner, with the Palestinian Arabs who are trying to literally burn Yitzhar and lynch its residents and the Israelis who often respond to violence. Yitzhar and the other small communities keep terrorists from taking over the area and serve as buffer zones for the larger Israeli cities. But it seems that Israel’s only worry is to disharm Yitzhar’s Jews.
Barack Obama will soon come to Israel to energize again the abandonment of the Jews to a death trap and put them at the mercy of the Arabs. Obama will return to serve the “settlers” on a silver platter. The first sign of the imminent tragedy may well be the IDF conducting a large scale operation to confiscate weapons from the Jewish residents.
Yitzhak Imes’ weapons permit was rescinded in November 2009. A few weeks later, he was shot to death by terrorists. He was left defenseless when Jihadists struck, like a Jew in Warsaw.
As the need for firearms proves, no Western society lives in greater intimacy with death than Israel. During the Second Intifada, the most effective protection in the cafés and shopping malls, aside from IDF incursions into Palestinian cities, was a kind of spontaneous form of Jewish civil defense, the only thing that worked even when terrorists from Jenin and Nablus showed up at a café in Tel Aviv or a gas station in the settlement of Ariel – or at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva massacre in Jerusalem, where an IDF officer who was a former student, ran across the street and killed the terrorist whle another student shot him from the roof..
That’s also the Jewish revolution which the West and Obama can’t accept, the most admirable Israeli phenomenon: a people still able to defend itself against the forces of evil.
Otherwise, as Elyakim Haetzni wrote a few years ago and David Mamet recently explained, there is a “one way ticket for Chelm”.
Or worse, Chelmno.
Jews, hold on to your guns!
@ the phoenix:
I guess he wa out of beer bottles and had to use bullets
@ Shy Guy:
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ andrew:
I am glad the boys did us proud.
Honey Bee Said:
Fixed it for you.
As for us Israelis, we have no automatic rights to own a gun. In fact, children’s BB guns are banned by law. I kid you not!
One of our sons owns a pistol. He got a permit because of work he occasionally does in Yehuda and Shomron. The rest of us are at the mercy of the myriads of criminals who rob our houses here (the police are a joke) and the Arabs who like to blow us up to pieces when they are given the opportunity.
We have close friends whose son was equipped with a pistol and was in his car with wife and infant child when an Arab started shooting up a bus years ago. He left his family in the car, cocked his weapon and slowly and meticulously fired one bullet after another into the terrorist while advancing on him, until he was morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.
And in the meantime, even IDF soldiers are scared out of their wits to pull a trigger, for fear of the prosecution that will follow because of Prof. Asshole Kasher’s “Purity” ROE philosophy adopted by the government decades ago.
We are all Shai Dromi!
@ Honey Bee:
Dammit. I’m away from home for work. I dont know how to post clips from my phone. I wanted to post one of my ex wife’s favourite songs – lylle lovett, you’re not from Texas.
The two Texan kids that my son invited over for Christmas lunch were so nice and respectful
@ catarin:
Your not a TEXAN so sorry for you,but you didn’t have to tell me that,Sweety. Bees never sit, they sting. What kind of bottle do you use for defence, white wine from France?
I’m not Texan, that’s for sure. Take care not to sit on your brains.
@ the phoenix:
Don’t mess with best. I can say that without moving my upper lip. C’boy wants to go shooting with the IDF. I’ll give you pass to the head of the line while C’boy and Yamit play cowboys and IDF.
@ Honey Bee:
Did I say I love you honey bee in the past?
Yes I know, I have a LONG line ahead of me (sigh…), but such is life.
@ Honey Bee:
p.s I have been told I have a great “backside” especially when I twist it. Thats my messssage.
@ catarin:
I don’t where you live or whom you speak with,but thery are not the folks I know. As for USA Governent,it belongs to the people and I don’t a hoot what poles say.
Sweetie, you can play John Wayne,in a barroom with a broken beer bottle, if you want,but for me and mine,shoot first amd bury your mistakes,especially Arab terrorist.
The U.S. government and most of its citizens want war weapons taken off the streets of America, including automatics with multiple bullets in a magazine. This also includes the banning of grenade launchers, Tommy guns, drones, bazookas and nuclear weapons. No one is trying to prevent Americans from having guns. The Constitution guarantees this right.
People who deliberately try to twist this message are sick. I don’t think some people are advancing intellectually as much as they are advancing assward.
Don’t forget that a bottle of liquor is a weapon to use against Islamic extremists too. Those bottles hurt when cracked over the head.
@ the phoenix:
That cause his brains don’t work to good.
@ Honey Bee:
Did you ever see jimmmah cuhttahh. talk?
This subhuman pos antisemite definitely does not move his upper lip….
I think I’ll stop here.
@ yamit82:
C’boy bought me a 45,I coudn’t left it. He said I was p**y,we had words. He is 6ft1/2in and 270+, Iam smaller,but with a better vocabuary. He loved the video,had heard abought the circular ammo. The white haired fellow is from Noth Texas, his upper lip does not move when he talks.
@ Yoel Ben-Avraham:
Ammo is difficult to in the USA due supply and demand and [need I sa it] Jewish liberal politicians
Honey Bee Said:
This is my weapon of choice
In actuality, a 9 mm to the torso or abdomen will definitely slow an attacker, and make it easier to put the next couple of rounds in appropriate places. The problem with the 45 is the kickback. Very few people can adequately control a 45, especially if they don’t train constantly. Finally, hollow point can improve the effectiveness of a 9 mm but it is not available through licensed fire arms dealers in Israel.
@ yamit82:
What rymes with 30-06,shotgun double barreled or over-under. For every Jew alive,a 45
Chanan Rambaum Said:
Said .22 because it rhymes with Jew. Any caliber is applicable to the principle.
@ Bill Levinson:
Hmm. So, how about: ‘For every Jew alive a .45’
@ Bill Levinson:
Actually any of the above smaller caliber hollow-point bullets will do the job at close range. Don’t know if these are available in Israel, but so far, still available in the USA.
@ yamit82:
I agree with everything you wrote, except the .22!
@ Bill Levinson:
You are correct, Jews are some of the worst anti second amendment haters!
Good reading: http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/GCA_68.htm
@ Bill Levinson:
Yes, well written. I prefer 9mm for a personal defense handgun, together with a 12ga pump shotgun, an AK-47 and good training and I’m good to go. With modern loads, the 9mm is more than adequate.
Actually it was last year.
Well said, Yamit
I believe “for every Jew a .22” is the soundest advice we Jews can follow to prevent another Holocaust.
We cannot be afraid of guns, we cannot avoid guns. Every Jew should have a gun, know how to use it, and keep it ready. You would think that we had all learned our lesson about how not to be a victim.
Too many Jews are running around thinking that the “authorities” will help them if they need assistance, but too often the authorities can’t make it in time.
We need to stop depending on others for our protection and start depending upon ourselves. Jews in the diaspora need to arrange for your own security, make sure that those who attend synagogue and Jewish schools know how to protect themselves from attacks, understand how to protect your communities, and you need to donate to your shomrim. (guards and security personnel)
You Jews in the diaspora need to understand that guns are an extremely valuable asset to us, and instead of being afraid of guns, you need to understand them, train with them, teach your children about them, and respect them. You need to know how to store them and use them safely, and you need to know that when you do use them, you can shoot straight, sure, and swiftly.
you need to understand that Hitler’s first action was taking our guns. You need to make sure that we never give them up again.
My idea of gun control is using both hands