After the shooting in the church in Charleston, South Carolina, I wanted to post an article about gun control, but I was too angry to write coherently until several days passed. Then when I was finally able to use my anger wisely, I wrote advocating that sensible gun laws could reduce the carnage in America. But by then, interest in the mass shooting had waned. Nevertheless, I expressed my outraged that someone could walk into a black church and commit mass murder with easily available weapons of mass destruction—guns designed to kill several people in just a few seconds.
Idealistically, we should care just as much when someone is shot and killed in Chicago as in our own home town. But that’s not the way we’re wired. The closer a mass shooting comes to home, the more it will affect you. The more familiar you are with the victim, the more it will affect you. The more you can identify with the victim, the more it will affect you.
If there is a mass shooting of mostly gay people, such as the one at the Orlando night club, no matter how compassionate or liberal you might be, it won’t bother you as much as if you aren’t gay. If a black man is unjustifiably shot and killed by a white policeman, the news will have a greater impact if you are black, rather than white.
So when the mass shooting took place in Pittsburgh, it didn’t matter that Pittsburgh was over five hundred miles away. The mass shooting took place in a Jewish Temple and I am Jewish. It could have been me.
Years ago Woody Allen argued in one of his movies that Jewish people should be just as upset about injustice to someone else, as to someone who is Jewish. The other character objected, saying no one would else but Jews would really care about other Jews.
Maybe so, but the fact is, most American Jews do care about injustice to other people, particularly persecuted minorities. It is a matter of both believing what we were taught, and self-preservation. It is a forgone conclusion among Jewish people, that anyone who hates other American minorities will also hate the Jews. If you are anti-black, you are anti-Jewish. If you are anti-gay, you are anti-Jewish. If you are anti-Muslim, you are anti-Jewish. If you are anti-intellectual, you are anti-Jewish. If you are anti-immigrant, you are anti-Jewish. No wonder Trump wasn’t welcomed in Pittsburgh.
Yes, I blame Trump. Trump is a demagogue who provided all the ingredients for the recipe for this horrific mass shooting:
Add three cups of HATE to three cups of FEAR and heat until the boiling point. Then combine these volatile ingredients with an abundance of deadly GUNS. When done, eleven innocent people are dead; killed while praying in a Jewish Temple.
Trump spewed the hate. Trump spread the fear. And Trump did nothing to curtail the deadly weapons of mass destruction so easily available. Sarah Huckabee Slanders says Trump is totally innocent because he didn’t pull the trigger. Neither did Al Capone (another famous mobster.)
Trump’s pathetic attempt to pretend empathy smacks of the same insincere refrain all Jews hate to hear: “Some of my best friends are Jewish.” Only Trump’s words were closer to, “Some of my best family members are Jewish.”
Judaism teaches love and tolerance. Trump spreads hate and intolerance. The Tree of Life Synagogue was dedicated to helping new immigrants settle in America. That is why this particular house of worship was targeted. The attack was more than murderous anti-Semitism; it was also murderous anti-immigrant.
When I wrote about the Charleston massacre, I complained that the focus was on remedying racial bigotry. Only after the massacre in Charleston did then Governor Nikki Haley remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds—as though removing a flag could do anything to save lives when a racist bigot can acquire all the deadly guns he needs to commit mass murder in a church.
Anti-Semitism has been around for thousands of years. Jews would move away from countries where Jews were persecuted to countries where Jews were allowed to enter, i.e. had open immigration policies. So Jews moved to Spain when the Moors welcomed the Jews, only to be slaughtered later during the Spanish Inquisition. Jews moved to Germany when Germany was a modern progressive country, only to be massacred by the millions when a fascist dictator took over using the politics of hate to achieve power. Jews moved to America to escape the pogroms (organized massacres of helpless people) of Russian and Eastern Europe. At least they did, until right-wing conservative American Firsters and eugenicists claimed such people were of inferior intelligence. The result were laws restricting immigration from Eastern and Southern European countries, such as Poland and Italy.
In 1939 almost a thousand Jews escaping Nazi Germany sailed to Cuba on the ship the St. Louis. Cuba wouldn’t let them in. So this ship of Jews sailed to America. America wouldn’t let this “caravan of illegal immigrants” seeking asylum in either. They were forced to return to Europe. Several European countries finally took them in, only for them to later die in concentration camps after the Nazis conquered those countries. No wonder the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was dedicated to helping immigrants settle in America. Been there, done that.
And yet—and yet, this horrific mass shooting in Pennsylvania, isn’t really just about anti-Semitism. It isn’t really just about anti-immigration. It isn’t even really just about how our uncaring amoral excuse for a President has fanned the flames of fear and hatred by spreading false and malicious lies about “the other.”
The common denominator is all of these horrific mass shootings is the easy availability of guns. After Orlando, we said we all must be more tolerant of gay people. Of course. After Charleston, we said we all must be more tolerant and end racism. Of course. After numerous mass shootings, we said we must do more to help the mentally ill before they go out and shoot a dozen or more people. Of course. But for every mass shooting, indeed for every fatal shooting, everything is blamed except the one over-riding common denominator—guns!
I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t so. But racism and anti-Semitism has been around since our country began. Crazy people filled with hate and fear have been around since our country began. The worst incident of anti-Semitism in American history occurred less than a week ago, not because a lunatic obtained weapons of mass destruction; or because a deranged Trump supporter got weapons of mass destruction; or because someone filled with hate, fear, bigotry and prejudice got a weapon of mass destruction; but because—the NRA, Republicans in their pocket, and brain-dead worshippers of the 2nd Amendment—allow anyone in America to get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction.
Tuesday I attended three critical political events. I wanted to make a sign for the Tuesday noon anti-Trump, pro-Democratic rally downtown. I wanted to put onto a sign all the anger and information I knew about the Pittsburgh shooting. I was at a loss for words. So I did a remake of two of my old signs. One side simply said, “Save Democracy; Vote Democratic.” The other side said, “More Guns; More Death.”
“More Guns; More Death,” isn’t a political opinion, but a scientific fact. The more guns per-capita in a country, the more murders, suicides, and mass shootings take place. America has far more guns than any other civilized country. Consequently we have far more death from guns. It’s the guns, stupid.
And by stupid, I mean the Republicans. We had fifty people at our rally. That evening I attended a vigil for the Jewish victims of Pittsburgh. Hundreds attended. One Rabbi asked the question, “What can we do?” From the crowd, someone yelled out, “Vote!”
Right after the vigil, about ten of us rushed over to the Tea Party event where William Timmons, darling of the Conservative Republicans, hoped to parlay his money into buying, Trey Gowdy’s Congressional seat. Timmons bragged he donated $62,000 to about 42 freshman Republicans running for Congress. It isn’t hard to make political allies when you can buy them. He said he was running for office because as a businessman who owns six lucrative businesses, including a yoga fitness center, he knew how hard it was for the average American to deal with so much government regulation.
Most of time I was either infuriated that these Tea Party advocates were so looney-tunes that they attacked Timmons for not being conservative enough; or else I was bored out of my gourd as Timmons rambled on how wonderful he was. I woke up when one of our progressive Democratic plants asked him about gun control in the wake of the Pittsburgh shootings. Timmons lied and denied that guns had anything to do with the killings. He falsely claimed that having more guns doesn’t contribute to more killings. When his questioner objected saying that in every country in the world, the fewer the number of guns, the fewer the number of deaths, Timmons said he was only concerned about America. How convenient. You can ignore scientific findings if they include other countries. (Makes it easy to deny global warming. Antarctica may be melting, but Antarctica isn’t in America.)
Timmons said the Second Amendment was sacred because that means the American people can take up arms against the Federal Government. The last time that happened (The Whiskey Rebellion) George Washington was in the White House. Three hundred farmers, incensed they had to pay the feds a tax on whiskey, took up arms against the Federal government. Washington responded with 3000 militia. Hopelessly outnumbered, the incident ended without a shot.
In his townhall William
Timmons just said our 2nd
amendment rights are about
protecting ourselves from
Govt tyranny 😳😡
So it is nothing but a fantasy to believe owning a gun can protect you from the government, unless you also own tanks, jet fighters, and more military power than the US armed forces.
Yet it isn’t paranoid fantasy to fear that someday a tyrant like Trump will encourage gun-owners to take up arms against enemies of the government, in other words, enemies of Trump.
It has already happed. Fortunately, for some reason, the Second Amendment doesn’t provide Americans their God-given right to easily buy ready-made bombs suitable for mailing, so one doesn’t have to contrive a dozen or more hand-made pipe bombs. Of course, if bombs were considered arms we had a right to bear, many would argue only certain Americans, such as those with a history of mental instability, should be prevented from buying all the bombs they want.
Yet for some reason (or lack of it) having automatic weapons of mass destruction is acceptable in the mind of far too many. Living in South Carolina I am aware that many Democratic candidates are putting on TV ads talking about health care while toting a rifle.
In the book, Everything Trump Touches Dies, Rick Wilson, a Republican who can’t stand Trump, argues Democrats stubbornly support pro-choice and gun control, even when it isn’t in their best political interests. To this I respond, “What’s the point of voting for a Democrat if he is going to do nothing to eliminate the most deadly guns, but is willing to make abortion illegal?” You might disagree. It’s just my Jewish perspective. Jewish Americans are less likely to own guns than any other religious group in America, more likely to support gun control, and more likely to vote Democratic. The person at the vigil who yelled out was right—the only way to end mass shootings of innocent people is to vote—vote to end weapons of mass destruction in America.