Safe Gun Ownership Does Make Jews Safer

Recently in these pages, Rebecca Fischer argues that “guns don’t make Jews safer.” The fundamental flaw in Fischer’s piece is her conflation of gun ownership and loose gun regulation.

Let’s accept the premise for the sake of the argument that:

Strong gun laws save lives — from keeping firearms away from people with records of violence, to requiring safe storage at home, to prohibiting guns in sensitive places like college campuses and protests.

Owning a gun is not equivalent to a vow to oppose gun control any more than having a drink is a vow to oppose drunken driving laws. I will stipulate that reckless and untrained gun use doesn’t make one safer.

But in my community, we have organized a group to train together to understand existing gun laws and foster safe use and training. Perhaps in New York, police response times are good enough, but out in rural areas, by the time the sheriff arrives, the incident is likely to be over.

Jews multiple have seen home invasions in California. In such an instance, there is no chance for the police to arrive. As thankful as we all can be for the funding from government agencies to increase security at our communal buildings and spaces, outside of major metros like New York, most synagogues do not have routine police presence or the budget for full-time armed security.

I and others have personally volunteered to serve as armed security on other occasions at a local synagogue and during public events in a local town’s main square. None of this has anything to do with my feelings about gun laws, gun manufacturers, or the sheer quantity of guns in existence in the US.

Furthermore, the reality of the situation is that the Supreme Court’s post-Heller jurisprudence has made tight gun regulation something that is unlikely in the near to medium term. Wishing away a problem will not make it go away, and lobbying intensely for laws the courts will strike down won’t either.

Finally, I will just point to the numerous examples of the safe and trained use of guns in Israel to either prevent or mitigate terrorist attack after terrorist attack. Israel serves as an example of a highly visibly armed public, but due to military service requirements, a highly trained one.

My views on gun control are probably a bit different than Ms. Fischer’s. But whatever the current regime is, safe and legal use is an entirely different question. Because we have an enormous target on our back lately, it is rational for Jews to seek out forms of self defense whether it’s krav maga training or firearms. Gun control laws aren’t going to help us right now.

I encourage willing and able Jews to consider training themselves for safe firearm usage in a manner they are comfortable with.