Taking A Stand Against Gun Violence (not gun control)
January 31, 2013 
2 Comments
The bus ride from Suburban Philadelphia to Harrisburg, PA – the state capital – is only an hour and a half. The shift in landscape leaving densely populated Montgomery County and the rural farmland passing into Dauphin County is symbolic of the political and cultural gap in Pennsylvania politics between the predominately liberal hubs around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the primarily conservative base of the rest of the state.
This ideological divide was none the more apparent than on Wednesday morning, Jan. 23rd for those waiting in line with me in the frigid weather to enter the State Capitol Building. I had just arrived on one of several busses filled with other members of the Philadelphia Jewish community for a rally co-sponsored by CeaseFirePA and the Jewish Community Relations Council demanding that 2013 be a year of action to fight gun violence in Pennsylvania. We were told in advance that there would be a counter demonstration by pro-gun groups.
While we were waiting on the left side of two lines outside the entrance, a police officer came out and made the following announcement, “Those who are checking guns stand on the right and those without guns stand on the left.” Instantly participants on both sides of this debate were identifiable as those of us who had come on the buses to advocate for stricter guns moved over the right, while others who came to show their support for fewer gun restrictions crossed our path and made their way to the left side. What could have been a very tense moment was relieved by the humor and irony of the whole incident. There was civility between people of radically different beliefs, rather than the anger and hostility that is being portrayed in the media. This, I believe, will be one key to the process of developing and hopefully passing of common sense gun laws – gun owners and anti-gun activists will have to work together to achieve the common goal of reducing the amount of gun violence that plagues our nation each day.
The rally against gun violence held in the middle of the state capitol building was a powerful and emotionally moving statement in support of passing common sense gun laws. The first five speakers shared stories of losing loved ones – parents, children, and babies – people who were innocently caught in the line of fire of people wielding illegal hand guns and assault weapons. This was followed by mayors of Pennsylvania towns and cities who are part of a national group called, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” who shared how, as leaders of their municipalities, they have committed to address measures that will reduce gun violence. These local politicians were followed by members of Pennsylvania’s Senate and House of Representatives who have formed a bi-partisan, bi-cameral coalition called PASafe whose sole mission is to introduce and pass legislation to reduce gun violence in the state.
Finally, four Middle School students, including Kenesth Israel’s Jessie Pritchard, read the four points of CeaseFirePA’s own legislative agenda. This was one of the most important elements of the rally for me. Most politicians spoke about the pressing need for gun law reform in the wake of the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Jessie is taking her activism one step further. Her Bat Mitzvah project is anti-gun violence advocacy. She came to Harrisburg with her mother and her father and her rabbi to represent her peers and to express her most heartfelt desire that they need not become victims themselves. Not her, not the students in her school, not the children of Greater Philadelphia, this country or this world – to save a life, she said according to Jewish tradition, is paramount to saving the whole world. So much of this conversation centers on protecting the lives of children and teenagers. I am proud that our congregation and our movement empower and enable our students to develop their own beliefs from grounding in Jewish values and ethics and then teach them how to put it into action.
I left Harrisburg last week with very mixed emotions. On one hand, I felt the power of the urgency of the situation to act fast to put legislative measures in place that will take illegal weapons off the street, make it harder for acquire legal guns, and restrict the types of semi-automatic and automatic guns and ammunition that can be sold in PA. On the other hand, even if the best laws were passed tomorrow we will still be a state and a nation where it is too easy to get a gun on the street. I am hopeful however, that just as gun owners became real people, not just an opponent, to me at the beginning of the day, the two sides of this issue can identify goals that are mutually beneficial and work together to pass common sense measures that will save lives. Perhaps I am naïve, but I pray that compassion will win out over passion and that partnership will triumph over politics – and that ultimately we will all feel safer.
Participate in our interfaith call-in day to prevent gun violence on Monday February 4th by visiting www.faithscalling.org! Worried you’ll forget? Text “FaithsCalling” to 877877!
Rabbi Kevin M. Kleinman is the Associate Rabbi Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Elkins Park, PA.
The recently minted gun-control phrase, so-called “gun violence,” is just another slogan in the seemingly endless effort to demonize and propagandize for more ever more restrictive laws against firearm ownership; just another Gun Banner false flag operation. Gun Control advocates, who attempt to disguise their true goal of banning all citizen ownership of guns, have never been able to prove that restrictions on law abiding citizens have ever reduced crime anywhere in the United States. Where is the proof that anti-gun laws reduce crime? A dozen independent real-world studies have all concluded that so-called “sensible gun legislation” have only increased violent crime by shifting the balance of power in favor of violent criminals while it disarms helpless victims.
Social Action should always conform to Jewish Law and values. In the book of Genesis, Abraham “arms his 318 servants” to rescue his nephew Lot and others kidnapped by Mesopotamians. In Exodus 2:12, Moses slays the cruel Egyptian slave master who was about to murder an innocent Jew. It is written in Joel 4:10, “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say: ‘I am strong’.” In the biblical verse, “Neither shall you stand by the blood of your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16), Rabbis teach us that the law of pikuach nefesh (saving innocent lives) takes precedence over all other laws. Modern “Good Samaritan Laws” derive from this Levitical precept. Furthermore, Rabbis recognize the obligation to defend our own lives (Exodus 22:1). The Talmud states, “[I]f someone comes to kill you, get up early in the morning to kill him first” (Sanhedrin 72a). Additionally, the Talmud compels bystanders to kill if necessary to prevent murder or other horrendous crimes (Sanhedrin 73a). The story of Hanukkah is not about candles and Sufganiyot, but one about a desperate armed struggle defending Jews and rescuing Judaism. These Judaic Principles are thoroughly embedded within the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
Every U.S. State and Territory has “Sovereign Immunity” Statutes or stare decisis Decrees that grant near-universal immunity from prosecution when government fails to provide personal Police protection. You are on your own; ask Reginald Denny, the Trucker who had his head beat in with cinder blocks and kicking at the beginning of the Los Angeles Riots in 1993, and was televised live. Ask Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords how long it took the Police to arrive; –seven agonizing minutes–; the Para Medics took even longer! In most situations we are the first responders. Remember, when seconds count…police are minutes away.
Some say, “Gun control is worth it if it saves one life.” But, what if it costs one life…or the 250 killed in Chicago? What do you say to those 250 families? A dozen national studies of crime have all shown gun control laws don’t work and result in more crime deaths. The Jewish Philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, 2,000 years ago, thought it foolish to blame arms rather than criminals for crime. What’s changed? Tikkun olam, a Kabbalistic construct, embraces improvement or repair. “Sensible gun legislation” isn’t sensible because it is the antithesis of Tikkun olam. Prohibition against alcohol; how well did that work? War on drugs; how’s that going? Anti-gun laws have only resulted in higher crime rates and increasing victimization of the innocent. The war on guns has only filled cemeteries with the bodies of more crime victims. I challenge the gun-grabbers to provide one legitimate study proving that anti-gun laws actual reduce crime in America.
Thank you for your comment. We use the term gun violence prevention because we believe that gun violence leads to too many deaths in our country. We are not interested in controlling the activity of law abiding citizens, but rather want to ensure that only law abiding citizens have access to weapons that can easily be turned into tools of destruction. Regulations such as mandatory background checks in no way minimize the rights of law abiding Americans, but protect the god-given right to life weapons in the hands of a criminal might otherwise strip.
In response to your questions on whether gun violence prevention laws work, there is ample evidence to suggest they do.
Here are a few studies and papers that demonstrate the effectiveness of state-level gun laws in preventing violence:
smartgunlaws.org
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11209172
http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/on_target.pdf
While it is true that some laws have not been as effective as we may have hoped, Professor Daniel Webster aptly explains that shortcomings are in large part due to our inability to pass strong enough laws, the intentional weakening of laws by oppositional politicians, and gaping loopholes which threaten the integrity of the laws themselves. His research out of Hopkins can be accessed at this url (http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-gun-policy-and-research/index.html).