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What color is the sky in a world where self-awareness and all sense of irony are totally absent? It’s hard to say with any certainty, but you can probably ask Rabbi Joel Mosbacher who apparently dwells quite happily in just such a place. He and other New York and New Jersey men of the cloth are about to fly to Europe on a mission. As nydailynews.com reports, “The clergy members are seeking meetings with Austria’s Glock, Germany’s SIG Sauer and Italy’s Berretta, which dominate gun sales to police departments and government agencies in the U.S. Glock alone claims 60% of the handgun sales to U.S. police departments.” Shockingly, none of the manufacturers have agreed to talk to them . . .

Why would that be?

They want the European gunmakers, for example, to refuse to allow their weapons to be sold through unlicensed gun dealers. They also want the manufacturers to renounce political meddling in the U.S. through contributions to lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association.

The men of God are fed up with the lack of anti-gun progress in the US Congress. So since they’re getting the cold shoulder from the firearms manufacturers, they’ll instead be meeting with European Union officials who’ve never met a gun control measure they couldn’t enthusiastically get behind.

The outreach, timed just before the one-year anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., massacre, comes after the realization that the lobbying Congress is ineffective and only one option, said Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, of Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, N.J.

“Is the congressional approach the only one that can have an impact, and are we going to put our hopes on one of the most dysfunctional organizations in America?” said Mosbacher, whose work on gun violence also has a personal dimension — his father was shot dead in a 1999 robbery attempt.

Given that the group is likely to be meeting only with those who are sympathetic to their cause, no one Rabbi Joel will be talking to is likely to point out the irony of the leader of a Jewish congregation asking gun makers in former axis countries to help him disarm his flock. You just can’t make this stuff up.

[h/t DrVino]

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105 COMMENTS

    • “Mosbacher, whose work on gun violence also has a personal dimension — his father was shot dead in a 1999 robbery attempt.”

      If his father was beaten to death with a hammer, would he seek to outlaw them? I guess he breathes but he’s brain dead for sure.

  1. The rabbis should talk to the Germans about the best ways to disarm civilians. They seem to be the subject matter experts.

    • Any Jew, and especially any rabbi, that is in favor of civilian disarmament, is totally meshugeh. The good Rabbi’s total lack of self-awareness, non-existent sense of irony and complete disregard of history would be stunning in our day and age were it not so paradoxically common. Oy vey!!! Where do these people come from? Are we even really in the same species?

    • Maybe while they are there, they could get the Germans to help them design communal showers for their rec centers, and perhaps some large ovens for the big community events.

      Actually, the rabbis should go travel to the Warsaw ghetto, Aushschwitz, Buchenwald, etc. and contemplate what prior gun confiscations have led to.

    • Easy, they just won’t sell to the US market at all, including the government, you know fast a furious and all.

      Oooppss there goes 60% of their business. Yeah aint going to happen.

    • I saw that too. What do they mean by “unlicensed dealer”? Do they mean a private sale? How could a manufacturer stop a private sale of their gun once in the market place? They can’t.

      But gun grabbers are noted morons who don’t know a thing about the subject.

      • I believe the idea is akin to car dealerships. Only factory-approved dealers could sell the manufacturer’s wares.

        That should solve the ‘problem’ real quick.

        • Guy. That’s the way ALL new guns in the U.S.A. are sold. No new guns are sold by unlicensed gun dealers unless the gun was stolen from a distributor before it was ever sold, and that is very, very rare indeed.

    • “Unlicensed dealer” means “criminal”, as in gun trafficker. If you’re a private individual selling an occasional firearm from your personal collection and are not in the business of regularly transacting in firearms for profit, that’s fine and legal without a license.

      Once you engage in this buying and reselling with regularity for the primary purpose of profit and livelihood, then you’re a dealer and dealers require a license. Dealing without a license? You’re a criminal.

      I’d be prepared to donate $1,000 to the charity of the rabbi’s choice if someone can come up with proof leading to arrest and conviction of someone whom Glock, Berretta or Sig has been selling to, or has been legally complicit in the sale to, as an “unlicensed dealer.”

    • I can see the response. “You wish us to stop selling to unlicensed dealers? But Rabbi, we have never sold to unlicensed dealers in the US. That is a violation of US federal law. All of our sales are either to police departments or licensed dealers. This is a very simple request to grant.

      “Of course, once one of our guns has been sold to a private citizen by one of our licensed dealers, what that private citizen does with his private property is his business and beyond our control.

      “As for contributions to the NRA, we make none. Of course, we advertize in their publications, but the money we pay for those advertizements is used to fund the publication of those magazines. My understanding is that the money the NRA uses for legislative activities is contributed directly by their 5 million members.

      “So, you see, Rabbi, we are in complete agreement.”

  2. What “unlicensed gun dealers” are selling factory-direct firearms, exactly? And how are they doing so? I think the rabbi is confusing personal prejudice and flights of fancy for factual information on how firearms sales actually work.

    • Yes. But it is a great boondoggle? Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. All free because all you have to do is try to get a meeting with people. You don’t actually have to have it. Wasn’t there some scene in War of the Worlds where a priest or minister approached the aliens and tried to pray them away (I am NOT knocking anyone’s religion here)?

      • Exxxxxxxaaactly! What a great boondoggle, paid for by someone else. A nice European shopping vacation on a completely worthless premise, all paid for by someone else. Gotta hand it to the guy, he can do all that and not let his conscious bother him at all. In fact, he’s probably pretty self righteous about the trip and doesn’t even think about stomping on the mass graves at Auschwitz as ironic in anyway.

  3. Can the learned rabbi kindly explain what it means when we say “Never Again” on Holocaust Remembrance Day? To me it means anyone who would harm or disarm my family will find themselves at the business end of one of these very tools.

    • Oh well see he would tell you that the Nazi party was an ultra right-wing regime, and that “Never Again” means that Jews (and anyone else, for that matter) can just, you know, TALK and play left-wing politics to avoid another holocaust.

      Sort of like how Jewish leaders of the 1930s thought they could talk and play politics with the Nazis, all the way up to the trains to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, etc.

      Guys like this don’t understand that “Never Again” means retaining the means to shoot fascists in the face when it becomes necessary.

    • So this Jewish Rabbi says I need to speak to Adolph…..I think he is just misunderstood.

      The Armenians were Disarmed, The German Population was disarmed Do the left not see the trend?

      Maybe the deer just need a good talking to to gut themselves, duck calls we don’t need no stinkin’ ducks calls…they will just fly to my freezer.

      NAZI…National Socialism….far left… okay not as far left as the left in America…it seems there was a point even the Facists would not stoop to.

  4. Lobbying congress is ineffective unless the evil nra is doing it, so you guys should lobby congress to get them to not listen to other people will are lobbying them… get it? Got it… good…

  5. What major manufacturer is selling through unlicensed dealers? All non-criminal dealers in the US are licensed with the ATF. Only guns sold privately or black market qualify as not going through a licensed dealer, and those guns aren’t coming right from the factory. I have no clue how the gunmaker could stop those sales. I love how gun control people have no clue what they are talking about.

    • Maybe it’s all those guns for sale on the Internet that the MSM keeps yacking about? I swear if we tossed an MSM reporter, a lobbyist for the Bradys, and someone like Watts in a well by themselves, they’d wind each other up until all of their heads simultaneously exploded. Sooner or later this spinning and spinning has got to reach some kind of critical mass, at least when these people have to pause for breath.

    • He read all about it in the NY Daily News and New York Times, and then watched the special report by Pierced Organ.

      Idiots. Such a waste of money by their congregations.

      • No, I think he meant that a Jew should know better, based on the experience of the 20th century in both Europe and Israel, not to mention the experience of most prior centuries, or, indeed, the lessons of Scripture, which are not in favor of disarmament.

        And he’s right.

        (I say this as a Jew myself.)

  6. Wonder how much that missions is costing and if they faithful who end up having paid for it agree with not being able to defend themselves.

  7. “Shockingly, none of the manufacturers have agreed to talk to them . . .”

    Maybe because the Rabbis can’t spell Beretta properly.

  8. From a goyish perspective:

    Luke 22:36
    Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

    And that’s straight from the top.

    • Yes that is straight from the top, and before anybody wants to remind us (not people of the gun) that Jesus also said “Live by the sword, die by the sword.” one should stop and consider who Christ is and what he was saying in context, i.e. if violence is your only answer (to conflict resolution) then violence will take you.

      Matthew 26:52 – 54, “Put your Sword back in it’s place,” (Jesus said to him) “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53Do you think I can not call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way? (Christ’s arrest, trial and crucifixion). NIV Ryrie.

      • Ross, I have done a bit of research in this area since I am a commited Christian and a believer in having the tools and training for self defense. I completly disagree with your assumptions. It is true that those who use violence to take what doesn’t belong to them or to force others to do what they don’t want to do are committing a sin and will come to a bad end (potentially at the hand of thier “victim”). You would take away the ability of the just to defend themselves against the unjust. You apparently think that the biblical model is one of pacifism. Untrue. The reason that Jesus stops Peter from using the sword was that it was God’s plan for him to be crucified. Note that it was Ok with Jesus that his followers be armed. There are also some that believe that “the sword” may also mean scripture since the word of God is the “sword of the spirit”. In other words those that use scripture to get what they want (like the Pharisees were) will perish without the gift of eternal life (unless they repent of coarse). Pope John Paul also addressed self defense in an Encyclical letter (the Fifth I believe) discussing how self defense is the preservation of live. Interesting reading if you would like.

        • It was JESUS’ plan to be crucified, not God’s. Jesus was savvy enough to know that there was a danger the religion which he founded would die out after him, without the aid of a galvanizing event; that galvanizing event was his crucifiction… er, crucifixion.

          Jesus, you will recall, called Judas Iscariot his “most beloved”. That’s why he knew he could count on Judas to betray him, and Jesus made this terrifying request ONLY of Judas.

          Judas did as Jesus asked him, and has been unjustly, horribly reviled by Christians for two millennia. One day everyone who wants to know this truth will know it. Some will never accept it. Pity.

    • Not being helpless is in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Talmud, as well. It is written in the Talmud (Berakoth 58):

      “The Torah has said: If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first.

      That’s very clear. The Torah portion being referenced is Exodus 22.1-2, which declares it legitimate and acceptable to use lethal force against a home invader (burglar) who presents the risk of mortal danger. The principle of self-defense.

      The current Dalai Lama said, specifically when asked a question about school shootings, that “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” Of course, I don’t know how much of a gun guy he is as he suggested “shooting to wound”, which is bad advice. But I think it’s fair to say that he believes in the principle of self-defense. He’s not a vegetarian, either.

      • The reason Tibetan Buddhists violate the precepts by eating meat (Yak, more often than not, or Dzo, a Yak/Cattle cross), is that the growing season is so short on the Tibetan Plateau – which averages nearly 12,000 feet in elevation – can grow only barley, peas and short-season chiles. Oh, and nettles.

        It’s a kind of special dispensation, if you will. If Tibetans couldn’t eat meat, they would soon die from lack of protein.

  9. I’m not sure this fool would even qualify as one of the prohibition industry’s useful idiots. Idiot, definitely, but useless even to his own side. Someone should ask him what it’s like living on the floating isle of Laputa.

  10. “no one Rabbi Joel will be talking to is likely to point out the irony of the leader of a Jewish congregation asking gun makers in former axis countries to help him disarm his flock”

    ROFL!!

  11. It’s not too surprising. There were a few Jews who collaborated with the Nazis.

    Violent oppression by a fascist minority isn’t as bad, when you’re part of the oppressor class. Sure it’s still evil as Hell (literally and figuratively), but it’s a pretty comfortable life.

    • Jason, what does that have to do with anything? You find people of all creeds turning against their own in order to survive. Some Jews doing so in WWII is not news.

  12. This Rabbi has a mental condition , due to the fact of his father being killed by a criminal which he cannot disassociate from legal gunowners who mostly do not commit crimes such as the one his father was killed in ! I am from Mississippi and for the life of me I still cannot understand how folks in the Northeast , or other states with tough gun control laws , want these laws that take away individual liberty and also causes some folks to be considered as outcasts or nutcase s if they proclaim that they are pro gun , As for the Northeastern states where the 1st Revolution was fought and gun heritage was passed down generation to generation , and where up until lately was the cradle of gun manufacturing , shame on ya’ll thar preach gun control , can’t ya’ll see that where strong gun control laws are instilled that that is where ya’ll have the most crime ? But instead of using your heads to figure out your problems ya’ll use your asses and then ya’ll suffer the consequences by a minority of the population , and then ya’ll blame an inanimate object for your problems.My ancestors have always told me that Yankees are a strange group of folks , I guess that my ancestors are right , because we don’t have the crime down here like they do up north.Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.

  13. I hope this is another example of Bloomberg wasting his money.
    It almost makes me ashamed of being born jewish. But thankful I don’t practice any religion.
    In my best Yiddish.
    What a bunch of Schmucks.

    • Neither does Joel Mosbacher. He doesn’t follow Jewish law. He’s a member of the Reform movement, which is predicated upon a fundamental rejection of Jewish law. Every time you see a story like this, you can bet it’s about people who are Jewish by birth but liberal by religion. Although some orthodox rabbis are Democrats, you won’t find them engaging in this kind of nonsense.

      • CONVERTED Jewish-by-birth. We are wholly or substantially talking about the ruling Azkenazis, who have no line of descent from Moses, Abraham, or David. They are descended from Asian Kazars who converted to Judaism nearly a millennium ago…

  14. Hahahaha yeah…im sure telling Glock, whos civvy US market is monstrous, Sig, whos been pumping out items for the US market that bypass the NFA (brace anyone?) And Beretta, who pretty much specifically brought out a civilian version of their “assault rifle” not even 6 months after Newtown that they should bow to anti gun pressure would have gone over reaaaaaal well

    • I don’t think he cares or believes it could ever happen again, this fool has sold his soul to the empty words of “never again” with no concept of how to back it up with action that would give pause to those that would enslave/persecute him.

  15. http://triblive.com/opinion/qanda/5187172-74/gun-control-germany#axzz2myybIOSH

    The day the Holocaust began

    When (the Nazis) took power in 1933, they immediately used the (gun registration) records to disarm political enemies.

    Q: When did the effort to disarm Jewish people begin?

    A: In October 1938, police agencies in Germany announced that all Jews had to turn in their guns (and) the authorities knew which Jews had guns because they were registered. Having disarmed the Jews, they were able to attack them.

  16. What is wrong with Jews? Was not WWII enough of a knock on the head for them to wakeup? Never again? Yeah right, can’t stop it when the majority of them are selling each other out.

    • Its not all Jews, which as you must very well know, is a gross generalization at best.

      As a thought experiment, just pick any Christian pastor, who has made abominable mistakes, and tell me if its fair to tar all Christians with the same brush.

      – who’s the nutjob who leads his flock to picket veterans funerals claiming god hates f@gs, for example?

      FWIW- before you respond- I’m not interested in nor responding to replies dealing with the politics of religion-

      just pointing it out hoping you will remember to do your part to keep this a “clean, well-lit place” as Robert has quoted Hemingway, for the motto of TTAG.

      • I realize it is not all Jews and never stated it was.

        I still will never understand how so many of them are so publicly anti-gun. This rabbi, Feinstein, Bloomberg, Schumer…There seems to be a disporportunate number of anti gun Jews compared to the rest of the population. How can this be with the history of the Jewish people?

        • You’re right- I jumped the gun there. And apologize.
          And share your frustration that people of good heart can be so wrong in the head sometimes. My Jewish friends tear their hair out on this too. Its a real conundrum.

  17. Whatever happened to “For every Jew a .22?” Why do jew like this one want to disarm and allow themselves to be persecuted again?

  18. This was in Mahwah? I think Teaneck has a larger Jewish community. Can’t we find even a single gun-loving Rabbi there? A real pro 2A mensch?

  19. The Rabbi Dovid Bendory wrote an interesting article about why some Jewish people don’t like guns.
    It’s on the JPFO web site.

    • Yes, I’ve seen the “No Guns for Jews” video on You Tube. Rabbi Bendory takes anti-2A Jews to task, and also explains why they favor disarming gentiles – Jews love to play the victim.

      • “Jews love to play the victim.”

        Boy, do they ever. It’s culturally ingrained, I think. Victims get their way really often.

  20. I absolutely have nothing against the Jewish race at all but it is odd that they continue to wear a “Kick Me” sign on their back.

    This rabbi is the perfect example of a group of people that learned nothing from WWII nor any other period in time throughout history.

    • Israel is not a great example of robust gun ownership:
      * The number of licensed gun owners is reported to be 296,208
      * The number of registered guns is reported to be 403,000
      * The estimated total number of guns (both licit and illicit) held by civilians is 500,000
      * In a comparison of the number of privately owned guns in 178 countries, Israel ranked at No. 81
      * In a comparison of the rate of private gun ownership in 178 countries, Israel ranked at No. 79

      Nor is it a great example of minimal regulation:
      * Only licensed gun owners may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition
      * Applicants for a gun owner’s licence are required to prove genuine reason to possess a firearm, for example, self-defence, hunting and sport
      * The minimum age for gun ownership in Israel is 27 years and 21 years if served in the military
      * An applicant for a firearm licence in Israel must pass background checks which consider health, mental and criminal records
      * Gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm licence every 3 years
      * Authorities maintain a record of individual civilians licensed to acquire, possess, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition
      * Licensed firearm owners are permitted to possess a limited quantity of ammunition (e.g. a maximum of 50 bullets for a handgun)

      http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/israel

    • On a sidebar, some 75% of the Jewish vote went to Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Not since FDR and Lyndon Johnson, has big government seen such heady days, as with the Obama regime. Government is the panacea and salve for whatever ails the citizen, according to Obama.

  21. I sincerely feel for Rabbi’s Mosbacher’s loss of his father.
    Grief is a powerful emotion and one can lose one’s bearings for a long time.

    Sometimes the most idealistic and most intelligent person can be the most susceptible, in times like those, and converted to ends much less holy than they realize, by those who would capitalize on their status as a religious person.

    History is filled with examples of religious figures who have claimed special wisdom in matters more properly considered secular in nature, and whether well-meaning fools or charlatans- the result is dimunition of the role of the spiritual leader, to the detriment of all.

    Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan come to mind, for example, when I think of Chicago or New York.

    I don’t know the rabbi, but I sense he is making a huge mistake.
    This quote, from the NYT link below, is telling:

    “While the rabbi had done a bit of tentative speaking on gun control as early as 2000, his commitment accelerated after 2006, when he first learned about the Industrial Areas Foundation. As a legacy of the renowned community organizer Saul Alinsky, the foundation largely mobilizes religious congregations. Its style, far from being earnest, is proudly combative.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/rabbi-pursues-gun-control-as-his-moral-cause.html?_r=0

  22. It’s an eternal source of awe to me that so many Jews are so keen on disarmament. The only way this makes sense to me is that they feel assured they’re gonna get to be the Nazis, this time.

    • You make a great point except for the fact that they were the Nazis and behind the Bolshevik’s and they are still going it. The only reason Jews were killing Jews in Nazi land was to eradicate the real Jews these are now the fake ones that Jesus told us about and to watch for, 2000 years ago…

  23. Will his disarmament entreaties include a stop at whatever Hungarian hovel George Soros crawled out of to demand that he quit meddling in American politics with his donations?

    • I’m quite sure he would consider all those dead Jews to be quite irrelevant. They’re only around to be trotted out when it suits his purposes!

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