Je Suis Humain
By David Codrea, January 16th 2015
JPFO writer contributor, © 2014.
“Je suis Charlie.”
“I am Charlie.”
That was the slogan adopted after the Charlie Hebdo massacre by Islamic terrorists in Paris as an expression of solidarity against brutal repression of free expression (not that the French government doesn’t already do that on its own without freelance competition).
“Je ne suis pas Charlie (I am not Charlie),” I argued, noting draconian French “gun control” laws that gave the killers all the advantage they needed. “Je suis armé (I am armed).”
The role of citizen disarmament in assuring the killers would succeed was expanded on by Kurt Hofmann in his latest JPFO Alert. And the vulnerability that imposes on the European Jewish community has not gone unnoticed by its leaders.
The only woman killed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre was a Jew, The Algemeiner, a Jewish newspaper reported. And “Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a policewoman and the four Jewish shoppers in separate incidents over the following two days, was a self-proclaimed member of the Islamic Jihad group and said he had specifically targeted Jews,” The Times of Israel revealed, in a bizarre epilog reporting some Islamists were blaming the attacks on “shape-shifting Jews.”
Does that sound absolutely nuts? Hey, it’s not as crazy as slaughtering defenseless people. What’s really inexcusably irrational is that the victims were forbidden by “law” from having the means to protect themselves. And what’s stark, raving bonkers is for doctrinaire monopoly of violence cultists in the “free press” to spread the lie that possessing the means to do so would only make things worse.
Clearly, anti-Semitism is once more on the rise, and not just in France. It’s reminiscent of an earlier time, a prelude to genocide, with cartoons -- that jihadists would kill over if they applied to their religion -- repeating blood libel and resurrecting the portrayal of Jews as subhuman and evil.
That’s prompted Rabbi Menachem Margolin, General Director, of the European Jewish Association to write a letter asking “that gun licensing laws are reviewed with immediate effect to allow designated people in the Jewish communities and institutions to own weapons for the essential protection of their communities, as well as receiving the necessary training to protect their members from potential terror attacks.
Alfred Flatow
“Let there be no doubt, we are asking that all weapons will be issued for self-protection only, and to designated personnel that will undergo thorough investigation and training by local authorities,” Margolin continued, essentially revealing he never learned the lesson of Alfred Flatow on the dangers of letting “authorities” determine who they will allow to have guns – and who they will not.
While Margolin is on the right track, he’s on the wrong understanding of what a right is. Certainly European Jews have a right to keep and bear arms, and not just sanctioned designees – it’s a human right, one that’s recognized in the Second Amendment, but not dependent on the Constitution, and not limited to Americans. Likewise, it is not limited to European Jews, and any who presume to withhold or dispense it, that is, to “grant” it, assume the roles of usurpers and tyrants, the very people we’re supposed to have guns to guard against and repel.
Still, a prominent European Jewish leader coming to the recognition that arms in private hands can protect individuals and communities from
those who would eliminate them should be seen as a welcome and significant change in outlook, and one that domestic Kapos for Kristallnacht would do well to recognize. That will becomes increasingly apparent as decentralized sleeper cells in the U.S. begin to awaken, particularly when they make a special point of targeting American Jews.
That’s not to say that special acknowledgement should not be made to recognize there are Muslim individuals who also put themselves at risk to show human solidarity, and to proclaim “Je suis Juif (I am Jewish),” itself an act the fanatical would condemn as apostasy, which is punishable by death. That’s brave and that’s moving, but there’s a modification I would make:
And in a truly free culture, the “armé” part, with the ability to protect life, liberty and property, would go without saying.
David Codrea is a field editor at GUNS Magazine, penning their monthly "Rights Watch" column. He provides regular reporting and commentary at Gun Rights Examiner and blogs at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. David Codrea's Archive page.
