By Luis Valdes - - Monday, November 20, 2023
Last month, American Jews awoke on a Saturday morning to the horrific news that Hamas terrorists had waged a barbaric attack on several communities across southern Israel.
Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, and even babies were slaughtered in ways that are too sickening to publish in these pages. Over 1,200 were killed on the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and all too often, the victims were left defenseless because of gun control enacted by their own elected leaders.
While many are rightfully outraged at Hamas, this war has also led to an alarming spike in antisemitic views and assaults directed toward the Jewish diaspora and those who stand with Israel.
Between this spike and the horrors of the Hamas attack itself, Jewish Americans are right to be concerned, and many are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights in response to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their homes, businesses and houses of worship.
These individuals are holding fast to the words of those who survived the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka: “Never again.”
In South Florida, home to a large segment of the Sunshine State’s Jewish community, people are flocking to gun shops to arm themselves and protect against those who wish them harm. The same is happening across America; Jews in Texas, California, New Jersey, Georgia and elsewhere are buying guns and getting arms training.
In other nations that lack a right for the people to keep and bear arms, Jews are defenseless in the wake of rising antisemitism.
While the European Commission issues statements condemning violence against Jews and claiming to stand in solidarity with them, and while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledges the rise in antisemitism in his country, where are the calls to loosen gun control and empower their citizens to protect themselves in the face of this grave danger?
If world leaders truly cared about protecting their citizens and ensuring their safety, they would be demanding a rollback of the very same policies the Nazi regime used to disarm Jews in the 1930s.
Thankfully for Americans, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms, both inside and outside of one’s home. In addition, this inalienable right belongs to all Americans, no matter their race, gender, faith or nationality of origin. Predating even our Constitution, this right is the ultimate guard that keeps a free people free.
Yet despite the rulings from the nation’s high court, some American politicians are fighting to disarm the people and leave them defenseless.
President Biden wants to enact a ban on certain guns and magazines, and he’s already waging an all-out war to harass gun dealers and those who own pistol-braced firearms. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been aggressively promoting state restrictions on certain firearms and policies to disincentive gun ownership.
New Jersey’s own two Democratic senators, Corey Booker and Bob Menendez, plus Rep. Andy Kim, just introduced legislation to discourage gun ownership. One must wonder how their large Jewish constituency feels about this proposal in light of the documented rise in antisemitism in their home state.
To these politicians, it seems the words “never again” are falling on deaf ears, to put it mildly. Their goal is to make it harder for all Americans to be able to protect themselves.
America’s Jewish communities understand what “never again” actually means, and increasingly, they are associating it with “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Hamas attack and spikes in antisemitism globally are reaffirming why having the Second Amendment is so critical. To ensure that “never again” is more than a slogan, one must be armed and ready.
Luis Valdes is a national spokesman for and the Florida state director of Gun Owners of America, a no-compromise, grassroots lobbying organization with over 2.5 million members.
