Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
From: [d--m--y] at [NeoSoft.com] (David Ramsey)
Subject: Re: Jews and gun control.
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 04:38:33 GMT

    This is just a minor point but I've found that many Jews *are* in
favor of gun control when they were born and raised in the United States.
Let me relate a small case from several years ago...

    At that time I was working in the WAshington, DC area and was 
employed by a firm owned by an Orthodox Jew. This gentleman frequently
hired other Orthodox Jews. After working at this company for several
months, I received a new office mate who was young, a recent college
graduate, and who was an Orthodox Jew. He, a close friend of mine, and
I all frequently talked about the right to keep and bear arms. And all
this young man would say was "I'm not very sure about all this." Well,
our discussions went on for several months and eventually he told us
that he was going to discuss this whole topic with his rabbi. So he left
work that Friday and promised to tell us what his *rabbi* said on Monday.

    Monday arrived and my friend, my Jewish office-mate, and I all found
a few minutes to discuss the verdict from the rabbi. My Jewish 
acquaintance said that he told his rabbi all that we had told him and
then asked the rabbi what was correct in this situation. His rabbi, an
elderly gentleman who had survived the concentration camps just 
looked at him and said, "Irwin, you live in America and you don't own
a gun?" Irwin told us that he had completely changed his mind about 
guns and gun control because of this.

    I relay this to everyone simply as an anecdote but Irwin's opinions
about gun control seemed very common in other young Orthodox Jews. 
However, I think that there may be some different opinions amongst their 
elders. Perhaps that wisdom will be passed along before those that learned
this lesson the hard way pass away.