Jewish groups push for action on gun control

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- In the wake of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., Jewish groups are looking to build alliances and back legislation to strengthen gun control laws.

Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his group is assembling a coalition that would be ready to act once the right legislation comes along.

“The point now is to create the atmosphere in which there is a demand for action, using our voices, organizing the parents in our pews,” Saperstein told JTA in an interview. “When the parents across America start crying out for effective action, if there's religious leadership, it will galvanize the community to create the moral demand that moves toward sensible legislation.”

Staff at the RAC, the locus in the Jewish community for gun control initiatives in past decades, spent Monday reaching out to other Jewish leaders, as well as to leaders of other faith communities.

“The best way is to rally the faith community and come together around shared policy,” said RAC spokeswoman Rachel Laser.

A number of Jewish groups have indicated that they will back a gun control bill proposed Monday by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the first since the Newtown shooting. It would ban more than 100 assault weapons and ammunition clips that contain more than 10 rounds.

The Newtown killer, Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle registered in the name of his mother, whom he killed before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where he murdered 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police have said he used multiple clips, although their capacity has not been publicly reported.

Jared Loughner, the gunman in the January 2011 attack in Tucson, Ariz., that grievously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six others, had a 33-round magazine.

The legislation, Feinstein said in a statement Monday, “will be carefully focused on the most dangerous guns that have killed so many people over the years while protecting the rights of gun owners by exempting hundreds of weapons that fall outside the bill’s scope.”

Feinstein helped draft the last iteration of an assault weapons ban, in 1994. It lapsed in 2004, after the National Rifle Association fought against its renewal.

B'nai B'rith International on Monday demanded the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.

"Assault weapons enable a shooter to fire multiple rounds without stopping to reload as they automatically expel and load ammunition with each trigger-pull," B'nai B'rith said in a statement. "There is no sane, acceptable, reasonable need in a civilian setting to fire off large rounds of ammunition."

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs circulated a petition through its constituent Jewish community relations councils that calls for "meaningful legislation to limit access to assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines, aggressive enforcement of firearm regulations, robust efforts to ensure that every person in need has access to quality mental health care, and a serious national conversation about violence in media and games."

Officials of Jewish groups planning on action said the likeliest vehicle would be Feinstein’s legislation, which she plans to introduce as soon as Congress reconvenes, in January.

“We have been in touch with Sen. Feinstein,” said Susan Turnbull, who chairs Jewish Women International, a group that has as a principal focus combating domestic violence. “We support her bill.”

The National Council of Jewish Women, which has also taken a leading role in the Jewish community on gun control initiatives in the past, announced its support Tuesday for the Feinstein legislation and for legislation proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would tighten background checks. The NCJW has in the past mobilized a grassroots network of activists to push for gun control legislation. Hadassah also called on Congress to introduce reforms.

The United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly on Monday called not only for a ban on assault weapons, but for longer purchase times, deeper background checks, coding ammunition for identification and banning online sales of ammunition.

President Obama, attending a prayer vigil in Newtown on Sunday, said that he was ready to back action that would address such violence.

“Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?” he said. “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

Although he was short on specifics, a number of observers said that Obama’s strong language suggested he was ready to do what he had avoided in his first term: Advance assault weapons restrictions.

In addition to Feinstein and Schumer, a number of other Jewish lawmakers have also weighed in. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who in the next Congress will be the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that “expressions of sympathy must be matched by concrete actions.”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who is retiring, expressed support for an assault weapons ban and proposed a national commission on mass shootings.

In addition to banning assault weapons, Jewish groups are also seeking broader initiatives to address violence.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who directs American Friends of Lubavitch, said he would bring to the attention of lawmakers a study that links mandatory moments of silence to drops in juvenile violence.

Turnbull of Jewish Women International said that any legislation should deal also with identifying and treating individuals whose mental health should preclude access to weapons.

“We will back any legislation that bans assault weapons and the ammunition as well as giving families what they need to treat individuals with a proclivity toward violence,” said Turnbull, a former vice-chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “I think this will be the ‘big idea,’ that the president is not going to limit the conversation to just guns."

An interesting statement. Not sure what to make of it. I read your profile. Are there many politically conservative Jews in NYC? Virtually everything I read about American Jews in politics has to do with NYC, FL, or southern CA ... and they all are far left on the political spectrum.

This is a serious generalization but here goes. The Jews whose ancestors came to America from 1880 to 1923 tend to be liberal. (Of course, even then the modern fusion conservatism was created by Buckley, Chodorov and Meyers, two Jews and Catholic.) Jews who came after 1945 tend to be more conservative. This includes Russian and Syrian Jews, as well as Orthodox Jews of all backgrounds. (That is not to say that many poor Orthodox Jews cannot be bought with welfare). The most Jewish congressional district in NYC elected a conservative to replace Weiner. The most Jewish State Senate district in NYC elected arguably the most conservative state Senator in the northeast David Storobin, a Russian Jew. (Sadly, Storobin lost re-election because the state Conservative party is corrupt and imploded allowing a fake moderate Democrat to win the line in a primary and thus the general election in re-drawn district. The Democrats in the state are hysterical destroyed both district to punish those Jews for leaving the Shtetl.

In 2010, 4 conservative Jews ran for Congress and lost in NY. This year, Ohio Secretary of State Josh Mandel lost his run for Senate.

Jews in the South used to be conservative. The KKK destroyed that.

Thank you for that overview. I do remember Weiner's seat being won by a Jewish conservative. I also recently read an article elsewhere by a Jewish immigrant which essentially agreed with your statement regarding Jewish-American political trends since 1945. Your observation about the KKK and its effect on Jewish thought in the South seems spot on.

A while back I read a book on the history of the Christian religion. The author made an interesting statement (see below).

The Divine Commission: a Sketch of Church History by Frank E. Wilson, © 1928 (multiple later printings) published by The National Council Protestant Episcopal Church
In this very well written history of Christianity, Bishop Wilson (from a diocese in Wisconsin) stated that a large immigration wave of Jews from eastern European nations came to the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were largely responsible for introducing Marxism into the U.S.

Would you agree with this statement? If this was so, can you comment about the political nature of their descendents in current times, i.e., have they remained far left?

Bob Turner is Catholic (I think Irish).

Marx (not a Jew) came to the US in the 1860's and covered the Civil War for a while as a journalist. There were plenty of WASP progressives some of whom became socialists, but Socialism and Marxism were largely imports.

Would you agree with this statement? If this was so, can you comment about the political nature of their descendents in current times, i.e., have they remained far left?
False grievance, alienation from Christians Americans, a confusion of Justice/charity with socialism, and the fact that they assimilated into urban liberalism. Sadly, Asians are following the same pathology

Correct. Jew-ISH, NOT Jews who practice orthodoxy or follow the Torah per the traditional interpretations.

These are the self-hating Jews, who use their JewISHness whenever it suits them culturally. But who do not hold to Judaism.

For this group here is something for them to read,from a REAL group of practicing Jews who know their history- The Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership:

“Startling evidence suggests that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was lifted, almost in its entirety, from Nazi legislation.” Link to page: http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/GCA_68.htm

Jews = stupid smart people.

A hopelessly stupid group of people who would have gone extinct multiple times over the centuries except for the intervention of God. Shows God has infinite patience with the hopelessly stupid.

Jews voting for Fascist candidates (ala Dem Party) and disarming potential victims of tyranny shows they learned nothing from history (Nazi Germany, etc).

Of course I’m not singling out Jews. The USA citizenry or at least the “low information voters” (Dem Party voters) are no better.

Sigh....too often, it feels like conservatives are the only folks around with any common sense.

There are a good many Jews that do not believe this gun control codswallop. Unfortunately, a huge number do and from reading the posts as I go down, which I usually don’t to as not to prejudice my thoughts, a lot of them are form the liberal reform wing. I’m part Russian Jew myself, my ancestors suffered under the pogroms and I believe in being armed. I;m only have a .22LR rifle but as the saying goes, “for every Jew, a .22.” B-)

I think when it was happening most people didn’t know what was going on; Western journalists that wanted to play “Hanoi Jane” literally disappeared (the Khmer Rouge viewed anything “Western”, including glasses and literacy, as evil that polluted their pure farmers’ utopia - they didn’t need some Western Benedict Arnold to sit on an AA gun for them). I wasn’t even in grammar school when it happened, but they kept a tight lid on their madness.

how about laws to stop the Assault Media?

should their be piers morgan caps?

should MSNBC have a special license to broadcast kooks like kramer, madow, mathews, or scaburow.

should mika only be allowed to tight angora sweaters? and not talk.

The Assault Media has proven themselves incompetent when it comes to covering these stories. They should not be allowed near a schoold for their on the ground photoops. The police should internet stream their press statements and by pass the reporters entirely.

Perhaps tabloid cue card readers like oreily should be banned altogether.

(little bit of sarcasm off)

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