Don't Pray Unarmed
Townhall,
by
Marina Medvin
Original Article
Posted By: drive,
12/31/2019 7:39:42 AM
So many hate attacks have taken place in American houses of worship. Religiously-dressed Jews have been senselessly attacked on the streets. The pious are an easy target because they love their neighbors and many pray unarmed.
The Pittsburgh synagogue massacre stole the lives of 11 Jews and wounded six others, including four police officers. The Charleston church shooting claimed the lives of nine Christians and injured one other. The Wisconsin Sikh temple ambush claimed the lives of five Indian Americans and one responding police officer, hospitalizing a second officer. The New Jersey Jewish neighborhood shootout
Reply 1 - Posted by:
franq 12/31/2019 8:28:39 AM (No. 275135)
Our church has armed members. I know of others that do, too. Fight fire with fire.
8 people like this.
Here in Tennessee we are allowed to pack in church. And I do.
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Reply 3 - Posted by:
hershey 12/31/2019 8:52:30 AM (No. 275165)
Never go anywhere without being armed...just ask what your life is worth...
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
texaspast 12/31/2019 10:12:21 AM (No. 275248)
The end of this story quotes Luke 22:36 without any explanation. This is actually the last instructions Jesus gave to the disciples as a group - basically as he was going out the door to pray in the olive garden. Basically he told them, things are going to get rough for you. I will be counted as a rebel (as another translation said it) and they will be coming after you. Be prepared to fight back. A sword was the 'assault weapon' of the day. The whole passage read:
35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out without purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered.
36 “Now, however,” He told them, “the one with a purse should take it, and likewise a bag; and the one without a sword should sell his cloak and buy one.
37 For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about Me is reaching its fulfillment.”
38 So they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.”
“That is enough,” He answered.
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Reply 5 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 12/31/2019 10:30:20 AM (No. 275291)
Good advice. And don't assume that this applies only to those of the Jewish faith.
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Reply 6 - Posted by:
ussjimmycarter 12/31/2019 10:37:18 AM (No. 275301)
Our church has NO posted no weapons signs. Could be because half of the congregation is armed...including a couple of the pastors! Place is full of cops! Biggest Lutheran Church in the world and the safest! I'm never without "protection for my wife"!
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Reply 7 - Posted by:
texaspast 12/31/2019 11:41:42 AM (No. 275358)
I went to a funeral at a bog church in Oklahoma. On the door was a sign that said 'No open carry, please . Concealed carry is welcome.' I thought that's a good sign for a church door - let's a potential mass murderer know he won't be shooting sitting ducks.
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Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 12/31/2019 3:14:55 PM (No. 275518)
Never go ANYWHERE unarmed, if it is legally possible to be armed.
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Reply 9 - Posted by:
my2sense 1/1/2020 5:39:04 AM (No. 275764)
Being unarmed in the synagogue is more of an American thing or a European/ thing(although more and more of those synagogues have metal detectors, stout doors and armed guards as the local laws make being unarmed oneself impractical. Unfortunately the climate and the neighbors in Europe have made it nessecary for synagogues, schools and other Jewish institutions to literally be fortresses against an attacking mob. I am very much afraid the US is going to follow them).A few people may start arming but PC climate in NY/NJ and other places, given what has been going on. I am expecting there's going to be a nasty trial when somebody shoots their attacker , a la the Bernie Goetz trial,, to put a strong chill for awhile on Jews owning arms in the US to protect themselves in the mistaken notion that its an attack on other minorities.
We Jews don't stand high enough in the intersectionality hierarchy. Being Jewish erases minority status(a fact that has shocked various black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian co-coreligionists) . And PC constructs decide who is who. Muslims Arabs, like Linda "the Cockroach" Sarsour who magically turns from " just another white girl" to a person of color by putting on hijab but any Jewish woman who is equally Middle-Eastern,some of us appearing more or less "white" wearing our traditional head-coverings are NEVER "people of color" (except when being discriminated against for NOT being" white" or Christian or otherwise lending in). Unfortunately a certain amount of that comes from Jews who hope they can "pass" and get the blessing of the Left as being the good kind of Jews.
Conversely,somehow,when people see people carrying out domestic terrorism and hate crimes who are black or other minority groups, their ethnic identity trumps their actual status as a Yahoo.(we're quite aware that although almost all the attacks of late have been black people, even if its not considered "nice" to mention it. Its incidental. Most black or whatever neighbors are not" them". Black, white , far-left, far-right,t Nazis , white supremacists, Islamist, Black Israelite;the terrorists "them" are Yahoos. and should be primarily recognized as such, whatever else they might be. What we carry arms to defend against is the Yahoos(go google the Gulliver's travel reference). Its important not to confuse the two or it will be impossible to create any sort of sane self-defense policy because we're all too scared of PC to be able to talk honestly about what is happening.
Israel actually has fairly tough gun laws. Not everyone who wants one can easily get a permit--as a 60 year-old woman in a central Israeli town, not considered by the government to be a security risk, despite having had terrorist attacks--who lives alone but came home to Israel post army-service and not working in any of the approved professions,I would never be allowed to own gun. Period. I have to depend on my neighbors who can get gun permits, to deal with any emergency. The approval as well as the weapons are expensive and not easy to complete and subject to regular review(not a bad idea, actually, except that its the government), unfortunately sometimes politically- driven. When a gun permit is removed because the government doesn't like someone's political beliefs, not just because they are actually unstable and unfit to be armed, these people, being law abiding, lose their right to be armed, give up their arms and sometimes get attacked and injured or murdered along with their families, because they can't defend themselves from the local Yahoos. Don't EVER let the government take your 2nd amendment rights, Americans!
That being said, most terrorists know that a synagogue is not a promising target because some percentage of worshipers are going to be armed. Something like the Har Nof massacre, a few years ago, was possible because the terrorists worked in the neighborhood, and chose a soft target by taking advantage of the coffee and cake left out in the various neighborhoods for congregants most mornings and didn't object to them coming in and helping themselves, because the mindset is not nessecarily that the threat is non-Jews; the threat is terrorists. Unfortunately its hard to tell until someone shows up swinging a machete or in the case of Har Nof, axes. Therefore, they knew which synagogue was frequented by Anglo immigrants least likely to be able to have a gun license, as opposed to any of the other neighborhood synagogues on either side of the attacked synagogue, with a more diverse congregation,where they'd have been taken out in moments, because they'd have some number of armed congregants present instead of waiting for a local security guard,( a young, Drue father,also tragically murdered trying to take out the terrorists) or the police/ army. While most Israelis aren't armed,any average congregation on any day (not just Shabbat) will have policemen, soldiers and any number of people who for various reasons related to their place of residence, travels or professions to have gun permits and carry anything thing from a pistol to a Tavor rifle(no problems with concealed carry. If you are allowed to have one you are encouraged if anything to wear it where it can be seen, which is probably why foreigners think every Israeli is armed to the teeth.. Reality is that when things get "tense" because the Yahoos get (more) active, most of the rest of us are reduced to defending ourselves from Yahoos armed with knives, axes, cars, construction vehicles or guns using rolling pins, pizza trays, umbrellas, selfie sticks and the like until someone with a gun can arrive to remove the threat, But having a certain percentage of people who regularly carry guns does cut down on the wait for police and the fatalities (except for the terrorists) We had a terror attack in my town about 2 years ago. Fortunately an Arab bus driver had the sense to recognize what was happening, and presence of mind to protect the school children on his bus (their initial target) by literally kicking the the terrorists firmly off the bus and driving away as fast as he could, --Its not any particular group. Its all of us vs the Yahoos The to terrorists actually hung around, unstopped so long, because the locals, instead of automatically assuming that a couple of Arab males wandering through a religious, Jewish neighborhood were just from the nearby local construction site confused about the buses and not automatically a threat--and it fell to an armed person in the synagogue nearby( fallback target when the attempt to kidnap a busload of small children fell apart) killed them before they could kill the people inside the synagogue. Because it took the police an hour plus to show up despite repeated calls from people on the street that a terrorist attack was in progress.There's just no substitute for a trained and armed citizenry.Terrorists tend to pick places where the people they attack are less likely to be armed so that they'll have a chance to create fatalities before someone who is armed arrives to neutralize them (most of our local Yahoos handle their career or family problems by staging an attack, which is a more socially acceptable way of committing suicide--Islam is also against that-- but if you dress it up as jihad, in some circles you're a hero with money from PA "pay for slay" and social prestige for you or your family instead of being a loser or a sinner).
The point is, that while everyone in any given society needs to be armed, there needs to be a percentage always present. You CANNOT rely on the police or the government to protect you, even when they have good intentions (which cannot always be assumed) but that you have to be vigilant to make sure they don't make it easy for themselves by taking away the right to self-defense for political or PC reasons. And you can't let fear of not being PC prevent real discussion of the problem. Its ridiculous that Al Sharpton was the only one able to talk about the fact that the string of attacks NY/NJ were by black people, not Trump supporters or white supremacists without making excuses .
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