By Richard W. Stevens
Special to TGM
You’re standing weak-kneed in the cold morgue, the technician peels back the sheet covering the lifeless body of your loved one. You must identify the body. You see the cut and bloodied face, the missing eye. Your throat tightens. You vomit. You wail No, again and again. Your eyes tightly closed, tears flooding, teeth clenched, you can’t forget how many times you gave the warnings. Clearly, unmistakably, truthfully, you warned. Your loved one disregarded your warnings. And now this.
Heaven forbid.
We who have spent decades speaking out in every medium – books, videos, articles, radio, television, bumper stickers, even comic books – to warn everyone against giving the evil forces power while disarming themselves, weep bitterly for the hundreds of Israelis and others butchered by Hamas attackers on October 7, 2023.
Stunned, sickened, but not surprised, I read what the Hamas attackers did. They photographed and video recorded most everything. The responders and coroners saw and told us more grisly details. The Hamas attackers intentionally sought to torture and kill as many men, women, and children – mainly Jews – as they could.
Since at least 1990, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) has taught one overarching lesson from logic, human experience, and lived history. Everyday decent citizens must prepare to defend themselves against aggressors – you cannot depend upon governments and first responders, nor upon the kindness of strangers.
For JPFO I wrote Dial 911 and Die, showing that no U.S. government entity legally owes any citizen any basic duty to protect them from crime or criminals. JPFO tirelessly urged: Citizens must never give up their right nor shirk their duty to possess and use firearms for self, home, and community defense.
Especially Jews, who were first disarmed and then suffered the Nazi attempts to exterminate them in Europe, should have understood JPFO’s message. JPFO published “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny, reminding the world about the eight 20th century genocides of disarmed people. In 2001, I put together Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament, drawing and expanding upon Gateway. In 2002, JPFO presented the made-for-TV documentary, Innocents Betrayed, graphically explaining the same facts.
JPFO, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Independence Institute, Gun Owners of America, and the NRA, and several other groups and many writers have all warned the world against the concept of “gun free zones.” We all pointed out the bleeding obvious: Preventing the innocent from defending themselves means the aggressors always have the lethal advantage.
Trudge through the Hamas Attack timeline. Against the thousands of Hamas missiles launched initially, private citizens could only seek cover and hope for the military defense. But Hamas attackers mostly came in via boats, trucks and motorcycles, even paragliders. Up-close-and-personal scenes of rape-to-death, torture to death, beheadings of children, and countless shootings of individuals and families, all share one awful truth: the targets, the victims, were entirely unarmed and defenseless.
Maybe a sidearm is useless against an incoming rocket, but a sidearm stops an attacker coming at you on the ground. Even a group of attackers must change plans radically when defenders are shooting back. Jews in the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising proved that in spades.
Israel, surrounded by nations who oppose its existence and want its residents dead, has a history of prohibiting its citizens from owning and possessing firearms. Less than 2% of Israelis have been granted firearms permits.
Israel implemented the “gun control” activists’ dream. That meant every enemy of Israel and of Jews could fairly expect to face practically no resistance from civilians they attacked. The enemies succeeded on October 7 in murdering and severely injuring thousands of people rendered defenseless by their own government.
JPFO has urged for decades that widespread private firearms ownership helps people defend against individual aggressors – and – erects a real deterrent against outside invaders who can expect armed resistance not just from police and military but from everyone, everywhere. Israel took the opposite course, making sure their citizens were defenseless and undefendable targets for hate-filled homicide.
JPFO warned the world for decades. Now you can see the results of “gun control” in full color. “Never Again” – preventing the genocide of defenseless Jews – must be the action item for Israel and all decent peoples of the world. Empower the citizens to defend themselves. Do not surrender your best personal rights and tools of self and family defense. Never.
