Only nine months after the slaughter in the synagogue at Har Nof, and in the face of a remarkable number of knifings, shootings, fire-bombings, rock attacks, and “automobile accidents”, the bureaucracy in Israel is slightly loosening their hold on civilian firearms carry. And people are responding with vigor. Maybe they should emulate Puerto Rico and move to dump the whole scheme?
Here’s the story of a heroic former CNN employee who will NOT make it into the Anderson Cooper CNN Heroes extravaganza. She and her husband may be survivors—CNN loves the survivor schtick—but “former Headline News anchor and CNN correspondent Lynne Russell” is lucky to have made it into the headlines (no matter; she’s alive):
Chuck de Caro and his wife, … Lynne Russell, were on a road trip and spending the night at an Albuquerque motel when de Caro killed the man during what Russell called an attempted robbery.
Police identified the dead man as 27-year-old Tomorio Walton from Memphis, Tennessee. He was in violation of his parole, police said, and it was not clear how long he had been in the Albuquerque area.
Albuquerque police said they have yet to question de Caro, who had surgery for his wounds.
Officer Fred Duran said no charges were expected to be filed against de Caro. Russell said her husband fired in self-defense.
“I am really proud of him,” Russell said. “I thank him over and over for saving my life. He really is my hero.”
Russell said the gunman came into their Motel 6 room through an open door after she had just returned from getting something out of the car. He pushed her into the room.
De Caro, who worked at CNN in the mid-1980s as special assignments correspondent, was coming out of the bathroom after taking a shower and saw Russell being held at gunpoint.
“He tried to change the guy’s mind,” Russell said.
The gunman wanted money and other valuables, she said.
She told him she would look in her purse to see what they had. She reached down and put into the purse one of two handguns the couple had in a side table. She gave the handbag to her husband.
Russell said the guns were legal, something police are still investigating.
The man’s behavior was increasingly erratic, Russell said. He told them to get a briefcase he saw.
The couple explained there was nothing of value in the bag, Russell said, but the man lunged at them and “went around the bed and then opened fire on Chuck. There was a firefight inside the room.”
De Caro was shot once in the leg and twice in the abdomen.
He fired all the rounds in the first handgun, then picked up the other and shot the man, whom police identified in a statement as the “offender in the altercation.” He was found in the parking lot and later died at a hospital, CNN affiliate KOAT-TV in Albuquerque reported.
Until recently the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico had some of the most restrictive body of victim disarmament laws of any place under the jurisdiction of the United States.
The process for obtaining permission from the government to obtain, carry or operate firearms was onerous in the extreme, complicated, expensive, and designed to dissuade.
Last year there was a news report of a fellow discovering to his horror that, he was a criminal, due to recent false document filings made by an attorney that he, and some five thousand other licensees, had used to navigate the process, years before.
Accordingly, their target, carry, and ammunition permits had been summarily revoked. He had done no wrong. But he was now under threat of criminal prosecution and his firearms and ammunition were subject to government seizure anyway.
The Commonwealth government is constantly trying to expand their abuse. These actions of the Puerto Rican government, under their licensure scheme substantially impairing a fundamental human right, were and are outrageous and intolerable.
To their great credit, using the one field where they seem to have both competence and zeal in advancing the cause of human liberty, various organs under the Alan Gottlieb umbrella were recently instrumental in legally challenging some of Puerto Rico’s victim disarmament statutes as violative of the U.S. Constitution.
Although subject to appeal, several of the provisions of Puerto Rico’s victim disarmament laws have now been ruled to be unconstitutional in their courts.
The claimed result is Puerto Rico now has so called “Constitutional Carry”, like an increasing number of States in the U.S.
If so, congratulations are in order on this noteworthy win. Good job!
The attack in South Carolina was the latest in a series of horrors that have occurred in Gun Free Zones. And the roaches have been scurrying out of the woodwork. To no one’s great surprise Hillary said she still hates law abiding citizens and can’t wait to see them dead. Well, sort of, she might have phrased it more like a politician, but that’s the essence of it. Barry of course has been saying that for years. His name IS still barry this week, right?
But to the subject at hand. It has come out that the alleged killer (Lt. Col. Grossman says we do not use mass murders names, the name can fade to oblivion) chose the church because it was a gun free zone and didn’t have security. Like other mass killers, some of them elected politicians, they wants disarmed victims.
But the reporting on the incident is interesting. Actually reporting, chuckle, chuckle, is interesting. When the police HQ in Dallas were attacked a CNN anchor called it “brave”. Why yes, that is the same CNN that has been caught using footage of fully automatic weapons being fired while reporting on a story about semi-automatic weapons. More than once.
Then we have a guest on MSNBC who stated that had anyone there been able to defend themselves it would have been amazing if even three people had been left alive. Seriously. Disarmed, defenseless (now dead) people are safer. I’m sure MSNBC’s 11 viewers nodded along sagely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv5d2WyhIqk
So MSNBC and CNN both favor disarmed victims, and CNN thinks that an attack on Police is brave. Well, she is in great company. Hamas recently declared the death and wounding of a disarmed hiker and a friend as a “Heroic Operation”. Apparently Danny Gonen and a friend had been hiking were heading back when a peaceful Arab waved them down asking for help. They stopped and he asked for water. Then shot them.
So where did you hear that? If it was on CNN, or MSNBC (in case of it’s 11 viewers stumbled onto our site) you might mull over the view point with which it’s being reported. CNN thinks it’s brave to attack police and MSNBC thinks if you can defend yourself and have a chance to fight to live you are less safe. Which is probably why I’ve heard talk show host Mark Levin call them MSLSD. At least hamass is more honest in this case. They hate Israel and are happy to see innocent defenseless people slaughtered. What does that say about the mainstream news media. Seriously, if they can’t even report a news story that has already happened, why would you trust them with a weather forecast?
As a side note, the South Carolina shooter had a view on Jews as well.
Unlike many White nationalists, I am of the opinion that the majority of American and European Jews are White. In my opinion the issue with the Jews is not their blood, but their identity. I think that if we somehow could destroy the Jewish identity, then they wouldnt [sic] cause much of a problem. The problem is that Jews look White, and in many cases are White, yet they see themselves as minorities. Just like niggers [sic], most jews [sic] are always thinking about the fact they are jewish [sic]. The other issue is that they network. If we could somehow turn every jew [sic] blue for 24 hours, I think there would be a mass awakening, because people would be able to see plainly what is going on.
I do not pretend to understand why jews [sic] do what they do. They are enigma [sic].
Yes indeedy. That pesky Jewish identity…..must erase that pesky Jewish identity. Got news you piece of pond scum fish excrement, others have tried, others will try, others are trying now. Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League is not the answer. The old sticks and stones thing. Armed Synagogues, armed Churches now we are talking answers. There is one higher and greater that I believe will have something to say about erasing the Jewish identity.
Thank you Y.B. Love this one!
(Source)
Even in this instant-news age, it’s always a few days before full accurate details emerge. Some initial reports claimed that the Islamist thugs who set out to censor free speech in Texas disabled an unarmed guard then were themseves shot by rapidly arriving police. But not so.
Here’s CNN’s take on how one armed, aware, and prepared person prevented a massacre.
On one side, you had two men in body armor, toting assault rifles and showing every willingness to open fire now and count their victims later. On the other, you had a security officer — a traffic officer by day — with a pistol.
Somehow, the officer won.
Authorities have not released the name of the overmatched Garland, Texas, police officer who stopped a pair of gunmen Sunday night outside that city’s Curtis Culwell Center, where people had gathered at an event featuring controversial cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. But they have described what he did, actions that could be characterized as equal parts skillful, heroic and miraculous.
I think CNN should delete the word “miraculous.” Was there some luck involved? Boy howdy, surely there was. But it’s hardly a miracle that a Texan-American hired to protect attendees at a deliberately provocative art exhibit was prepared to dispatch murderous (but also no-doubt clueless) jihadis.
I suspect that, had the would-be murderers gotten inside the exhibit hall, another five or 10 armed people would have been prepared to remove their worthless carcasses from among the living. In this country, you don’t get away with shooting people because you don’t like their opinions. And that’s not merely because we’re philosophical enough to understand that civilization entails embracing the right to disagree, even to challenge and provoke. It’s because, unlike helpless Europeans, we have the physical means to halt the barbarians at the gates.
As one wag said, “There’s a Paris in Texas, but Texas ain’t Paris.” Amen to that.
As we’ve always said, the Second Amendment protects the First. And, for that matter, all the rest.
Remarkable thing. A politician speaks the truth. Not an American pol, unfortunately. This one’s from Poland. And the media reporting the story call him both a “gun lobbyist” (i.e. eeeeeevil villain) and “far-right” (journalist’s code word for “not to be taken seriously”).
In Europe, far-right is usually also a code word for xenophobic and probably Jew-hating. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who is running for president of Poland but from a tiny minority party, told a TV interviewer that if every Jew had had a gun before World War II the Holocaust would never have happened. (H/T CB for the heads-up)
Well, we know that already, don’t we? But it’s apparently so startling to the Times of Israel that they have to go out of their way to try to prejudice readers against him and his positions twice in one tiny article.
Korwin-Mikke, despite his minority political status, is a fascinating and influential man. And not “far-right” in any sense. He came from the liberationist underground left, worked with Lech Wałęsa and his famous Solidarność movent (which helped bring down communism), and published translations of the work of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayak.
He courts controversy, uses blunt, colorful language, sometimes says the most un-PC things, and at one time wrote the most popular blog in Poland.
The poor, confused Wikipedia article linked above calls him both a “conservative liberal” and a “libertarian conservative.” He has also been accused of being both an anti-Semite and a “hidden Jew” and a Zionist. (I don’t know his religious history, but he was born in Nazi-occupied Warsaw and his mother died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.)
An intriguing man, definitely.
He spoke those words, “If every Jew had a gun before the war, there would be no Holocaust,” on the eve of Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of Hitler’s genocide. He added that “every young guy has to have a gun.”
And that’s where my headline statement comes in. That’s only a partial truth there, Janusz. Sure every young guy — who has enough responsibility and integrity to use one well — should own a gun and be prepared to use it at need. So should every older, wiser, guy. But don’t forget that when it comes to self-defense and defense of family, home, community, and faith, some of the most determined fighters are most definitely non-guys.
Of the 30,000 Jews who escaped the ghettos and camps and joined the guerrilla battle against the Nazis, a good share were women. And though many cooked, tended wounds, and acted as couriers and spies (something that took great courage), quite a few took up arms. One was even the commander of the partisan group in the woods outside Luckow, Poland.
In modern-day America, it’s wonderful to see that both young guys and young women are increasingly interested in firearms and learning to use them. Many of these young people are (so far) only into the sporting aspects of guns — target shooting, competition, and hunting. But should the day ever come for armed defense against enemies of freedom, foreign or domestic, that’ll be millions more who know what to do and have the tools to do it.
So celebrate the brave men who’ve been freedom’s staunchest defenders over the years, but cheers to the women who’ve joined them — and who will join them in times of future need.
—–
If you want to know more:
Women in the Italian Resistance
What Can We Learn from Women Partisans? (Click on the links to individual stories.)
April 19th is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
For those that do not understand what Yom HaShoah and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising has to do with guns, look at all the hands in the photos. When there are hands in the air reaching skyward, you will see guns in the hands of those surrounding them. Guns are the defense against tyranny. For “Never Again” to be more than a slogan you need to be able to ensure that it isn’t by having the means to stop the attack.
At the memorial service I attended today the final speaker talked about something a holocaust survivor had implored him to do. To act, to scream, to talk to people, but no matter what, not to do nothing. To do nothing, to be frozen in inaction was to allow them (nazis) to succeed.
For the flame of liberty to continue to burn, there must be those willing to speak out against evil. There must be those willing to give their time, talent and treasure and pledge their sacred honor. Yes, that phrase comes from the American Revolution. The Battle at Lexington and Concord also occurred on April 19th. But if we do not show up and suit up in the battle for freedom, the flame of liberty becomes the Shoah, the holocaust, as well as the flames that devoured the Warsaw Ghetto, the other Ghettos throughout Europe and the death camps.
What do Yom HaShoah and the Warsaw Ghetto have to do with guns. Everything! The fearful cost of a disarmed people.
What happened exceeded our boldest dreams. The Germans fled twice from the ghetto. One of our companies held its position for forty minutes, while the other one lasted – upwards of six hours… I cannot describe to you the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a handful will survive. All the rest will succumb, sooner or later. Their fate has been sealed. In almost all of the bunkers in which our friends are hiding one cannot even light a candle at night, for lack of air. Goodbye my friend. Perhaps we will see each other again. The main thing is this: My life’s dream has become a reality. I have seen the Jewish defense of the ghetto in all its strength and glory.
23 [21] April 1943 Mordechai Anielewicz
There is no need to ask “Why does this happen”. Nor is there a need to ask “How can something like this happen.” It’s a pattern, we know how.
One of our readers gave a link to a documentary, it is excellent and this is the longer version of it.
From Yad Vashem’s website, interviews with Fighters who survived the Warsaw Ghetto. What is the end result of Universal Background Checks and other “common sense” gun control? Listen, the survivors will tell you.
But I will leave you with triumph.
Zog nit kein mol- Jewish partisan song
Zog Nit Kein Mol in Hebrew
Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah. It is the Holocaust Remembrance day. In my area the memorial service will be Sunday. I intend to go. I can do nothing but go. It is my personal feeling, just mine, this is only my opinion, that for me to forget what happened, to allow the memory to become comfortably cushioned in the soft cotton of foggy faded distant memory is folly and disrespectful.
Folly because those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it. I’ve learned some pretty painful long term physical lessons working with my horses. Weather changes bring about certain reminders, very clearly. Care to place a wager on me forgetting how I got them and what needs to be done to prevent a repeat performance? I don’t forget.
Disrespectful because the nazis* goal was to erase Judaism from the earth, to blot out all the names of the victims, to resign them to the faded pages of distant memory. As long as I have breath and am able, I will not be part of that. I will be there, I will pay my respects and I will try to keep their memory and their fate plain. The horrible cost of trusting and disarmed people.
No, I do not mean all of them, but too many. hitler* was elected after all. Not all those that died were Jews either. Estimates are six million Jews died, and five million others made up of groups of gypsies, Poles, Political dissenters, mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals and communists. I’m guessing some of those that died and their family members voted for hitler. Someone pointed out to me last year basically, the Holocaust wiped out the population of Israel. Israel’s Jewish population in 2014 was 6,218,000. The total population was 8,296,000.
Last year I was in Israel during Yom HaShoah. I went with my girlfriend that I stayed with to Ben Gurion University for the memorial service. Since she worked at BGU (אבג) getting in was not a problem. The courtyard where the ceremony was held was packed and people were standing in the windows of surrounding buildings to see the ceremony. We got there early and so sat in the chairs in the courtyard. One thing we noticed, of all the Arab and muslim students that attend there, none that we could see attended the services. It was a profoundly moving services. I didn’t understand a lot of it, it was all in Hebrew of course, and I would only catch words from time to time. But somethings go beyond words. They are universal. One was a dance that was performed.
The dancers were dressed in either white or black, and it was very very clear what the dance was about as the dancers dressed in black appeared to flog, beat and kill the dancers dressed in white. At one point during the dance one of the dancers dressed in white quietly slipped off the stage and disappeared behind a column. When she came back out in a bit it appeared she was being comforted by a staff member. She was unable to finish the dance. The dance finished with the dancers gathered around a pile of their shoes they had all taken off and placed in a corner as they came onto the elevated dance stage. Yeah, like that.
It was very emotional. I can speculate on what those around me felt. I know what I felt, and I suspect it might be different than the majority of those around me.
Following that was the portion where Holocaust survivors or family members came up and read something. I apologize, but my Hebrew just wasn’t/isn’t good enough to recount the stories. But at the end each of the six people went over and lit a candle. Each candle represented a million people. As they read their speeches you could hear something in the background. At first I thought it was suppose to be the sound of muted rifle fire. But then with each person it seemed to be a bit louder and more clear. Not rifle fire. Trains. The sound of trains on the tracks. Damn.
I was already angry from my visit to Yad Vashem just a few days before when I had been livid about the miniscule display of “Resistance during the Holocaust”. It was a miniscule display for more than one reason, but what was going through my mind was that the elected nazi government used all branches of government to target a group of people. And then they used already on the books common sense gun laws like universal background checks to more easily eliminate them.
An article recently appeared that brought to light that among those who tried to help rescue the Jews, were other Jews. They feel that the concept of Jews saving themselves has been muted or lost. The article stated
Part of the mission of the Jewish Rescuers Citation is to re-instill the idea that Jews are not only capable, but prone to be hardened heroes.
The article raises some very interesting ideas. Even if you don’t read the linked article, you might want to check Yad Vashem for a short list and photos of nine people who served in the Resistance, many of them at the greatest cost to save lives. Their names and their lives deserve to be remembered. Their price was large, perhaps you can spare a couple minutes to meet them?
For people to live in freedom, freedom from slavery, from poverty, from annihilation, the first thing we need to do is to quit committing suicide.
By that I mean there is ONE JEWISH state, in all of the world, there is ONE. Look at your elected officials attitudes towards that one state and you will have an idea of their attitudes towards your group.
Look at remarks made towards your group, are they accurate and fair? I’m thinking of the last two years worth of comments at the annual prayer breakfast here.
Are branches of the government targeting certain groups of political dissenters?
Do you put money into the pockets of people that urge you to become disarmed and vulnerable to any of the above? Harry Weinstein, Babs Streisand, Tim McGraw or any of the many other anti-gun entertainers that will then use their bully pulpit to disarm you?
Saddle pads and skirts folks. Check your patterns
There is a stone in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, it is to ALL, not Jewish, or non-Jewish, but ALL.
Please G-d, may we need no more of them. The cost is far too dear.
* Some things and some people do not deserve capital letters. Not a typo.
When it comes to the subject of Jews in today’s Europe, I am pretty jaded. Yes, I forward articles and commentary to family and friends. The news so percolates with these stories I know I am a Johnny-One-Note. Still, the Atlantic article Claire blogged about made me very sad, because, despite all the possibilities, they seem so… doomed. And, sooner rather than later.
There is no small amount of pride involved in their staying. As the article mentions, most French Jews are from North Africa. They kind of skip quickly over it, but while the world “knows” all about the displaced Muslim Arabs in the wake of the 1948 war, remarkably few know of the Jews who lived in Muslim lands. They had lived the degrading sting of being the “Dhimmi” all of their lives.
When the Jews of Israel were NOT driven into the sea by victorious Muslim armies in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc. Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand Jews of the Muslim countries, some of whom had resided there for nearly two thousand years, were unceremoniously stripped of their citizenship, homes, businesses and possessions and driven out. From Morocco to Iran. Running for their lives.
No wonder they are hardened to being driven out, especially by Muslim thugs, or their Jew-Hating native European soul-mates. It is insulting in the extreme. A very raw nerve.
Many settled in France and became instant assets. A huge population of Persian Jews lives in Los Angeles, bringing traditions of hard work, deep-rooted ethics, and firm loyalty to their new homes. This is the way of the Jews in the Diaspora. And many of these Jews settled in Israel and became instant assets there too.
And, to blow that “Note” (a blowing a shofar, if you will) again… A story closer to home:
My son and his family also live here in the USA, in a modern, economically stable metropolis. They live in the “nice” part of town. This is not a town known for Jews. A local rabbi in the neighborhood runs a very small orthodox congregation out of his house.
A few years ago a neighbor alleged that having those Jews there, all in one place, for a couple of hours every Saturday, and on their weird holidays, was driving down the property values. He sued. It cost the congregation monies they did not have to spare, and shoved off plans for a more permanent home for the congregation. The neighbor lost (but, not really, right?).
Then the Homeowner’s Association alleged much the same thing and also sued. More money picked from a little shul too small and too poor to even rent a building to pray in. The building fund depleted with legal fees, the plans pushed off again. The HOA lost (but, not really, right?).
Recently, the City itself decided to joint the party and sued the little shul, too.
The other day a SWASTIKA was found painted on a car near the little shul-in-a-house.
How soon until people start getting beaten up walking to synagogue? How soon until a mason jar of jellied gasoline crashes through a front window during the Passover Seder? Opening the door and calling for the Prophet Elijah in one breath and screaming as your family burns alive in the next?
In the end, there is only ONE place where a Jew belongs. If enough landsmen “Make Aliyah” (literally, To Ascend) to their own home, they may face enemies near and far, but they will have more security to live their lives and fulfill their destiny than anywhere else on earth. http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/706162/jewish/Translation.htm
So I will sound that one “Note” again.
Jew. Shma! Have you packed your bags?
This topic is more Y.B.’s beat than mine. Perhaps he’ll have more to say. But this Atlantic article on the current predicament of Jews in Europe disturbed me as much as anything I’ve read about the fatal squeeze being put on Europe’s Jewish remnant.
Muslims (who outnumber Jews in Europe now by an order of magnitude) may provide the “muscle” these days when it comes to harming Jews. But the traditional prejudice of Christian and secular Europeans makes it easy for long-time Europeans to turn a blind eye, mutter in secret agreement, or otherwise support the barbarity.
The bottom line lesson is one we all know: Self defense can’t be delegated. Europe’s Jews will ultimately have to protect themselves. But how? Without an honored right to bear arms, they’re caught between being bankrupted by hiring security or fleeing to Israel — a nation that will welcome them right into the most dangerous region of the world.
Europe’s governments may promise to protect them and may even make token efforts in that direction. But seriously? You think “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is going to work magic for the safety of Europe’s Jews?
An excerpt from the article:
France’s 475,000 Jews represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population. Yet last year, according to the French Interior Ministry, 51 percent of all racist attacks targeted Jews. The statistics in other countries, including Great Britain, are similarly dismal. In 2014, Jews in Europe were murdered, raped, beaten, stalked, chased, harassed, spat on, and insulted for being Jewish. Sale Juif—“dirty Jew”—rang in the streets, as did “Death to the Jews,” and “Jews to the gas.”
The epithet dirty Jew, Zola wrote in “J’Accuse …!,” was the “scourge of our time.” “J’Accuse …!” was published in 1898.
The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is not — or should not be — a surprise. One of the least surprising phenomena in the history of civilization, in fact, is the persistence of anti-Semitism in Europe, which has been the wellspring of Judeophobia for 1,000 years. The Church itself functioned as the centrifuge of anti-Semitism from the time it rebelled against its mother religion until the middle of the 20th century. As Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, has observed, Europe has added to the global lexicon of bigotry such terms as Inquisition, blood libel, auto‑da‑fé, ghetto, pogrom, and Holocaust. Europe has blamed the Jews for an encyclopedia of sins. The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity. In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease. Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood the Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection.
Shades of Adolf Hitler. New century, different uniforms. Same deadly peril.