Well, I suppose it would be hypocritical for left-leaning Jews to oppose armed citizen patrols when it’s gentiles who do it, but not to oppose it when it’s other Jews.
What’s troubling about your post is that you seem to be attacking such hypocrisy without really knowing if it exists or not.
Truth be told, I would imagine that most anti-gun Jews would oppose these sorts of patrols.
Actually, that is the group’s main complaint:
According to the same article,
Ye gods! This is more of Kahane’s followers acting loco. I think that there is indeed a need for a larger police presence in the neighborhoods - to arrest these psychos as soon as they start their “patrol”.
And (ain’t it yummy), the basis for the arrests would be New York City’s notoriously strict gun laws. 
Sua
The NY Times article I read about this patrol said that the patrol would not operate on Shabbos (Sabbath/Saturday) or on Jewish holidays.
I don’t really understand this. If the threat is “real” enough, they should be allowed to violate the Sabbath to protect themselves just as neighborhood patrols in the West Bank carry guns and even operate vehicles on Shabbos.
If the threat is not “real” enough to break Shabbos, perhaps the armed patrol is an unnecessary risk; carrying guns always has some risk of accident and should only be done when the benefit outweights the risk.
With the current solution (patrol only on weekdays), any intelligent terrorist will just do their ugly deed on Shabbos or a holiday, when there is no patrol, and when large numbers of Jews congregated in synagogues form an easy target.
Hatred on both sides, bro.
I think it’s a bad idea to have unsupervised people who are armed, roaming the streets, whatever their religious affiliation. Like Zev said, it’s an accident waiting to happen. Funny, you could say that about most cops - but we’re treading on real thin ice there.
Damn right. It’s Goldberg, not Goldborg.
And anyways, the hive mind is more of a WASPy thing.
Maybe the parents feel the general level of education is better in the yeshiva. Here in Chicago, lots of non-Catholics send their kids to Catholic school becasue the public school system is so awful (something I’m sure you can identify with, as a New Yorker).
My 13-year-old brother (we’re Jewish, BTW) lives in Queens, and my dad and stepmom send him to a nonsectarian private school, although I’m sure they could send him to a yeshiva if they wanted, because they think it’s the best school available.
Maybe the parents feel the general level of education is better in the yeshiva. Here in Chicago, lots of non-Catholics send their kids to Catholic school because the public school system is so awful (something I’m sure you can identify with, as a New Yorker).
My 13-year-old brother (we’re Jewish, BTW) lives in Queens, and my dad and stepmom send him to a nonsectarian private school, although I’m sure they could send him to a yeshiva if they wanted, because they think it’s the best school available.
**
Absolutely. However, (as I am unfamiliar with Catholic schools), I don’t know the extent to which religious subjects are taught in class. If the religion is indoctronated in the schools, I can’t see non-Catholics (or at least non-Christians) wanting to send their children there. If the religion is not emphasized as much, then I can see it as a public-school alternative.
In most yeshivas, relgious studies take up at least half the day and are rather intense. In addition, for most yeshivas, children must be able to read and write Hebrew by the first grade. This would preclude someone from taking their non-Jewish twelve year old and dropping them in a yeshiva. Furthermore, I can’t see a Muslim sending their child to a yeshiva where they will be, literally, as out of place as a fish out of water. It just does not make sense to me.
Zev Steinhardt
My 13-year-old brother (we’re Jewish, BTW) lives in Queens, and my dad and stepmom send him to a nonsectarian private school, although I’m sure they could send him to a yeshiva if they wanted, because they think it’s the best school available. **
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, this part of the quote should have been cut off. This is not part of my post.
Zev Steinhardt
Had this very discussion with my anti-guncontrol wife last night.
First I live in the south Mississippi to be exact the “home” of 50’s and 60’s civil rights atrocities.
Quote: Citizens armed with shotguns will patrol the streets of the heavily Jewish Brooklyn [New York] neighborhoods because of possible terrorists targeting them, a Rabbi said.
The street patrols would include 50 to 200 people, mainly Jews, carrying shotguns, along with people carriying other types of firearms.
Now lets change this up just a little.
Blacks armed with shotguns will patrol the streets of the heavily black Jackson Mississippi neighborhoods because of possible Klu Klux Klans targeting them, Martin Lurther King said.
The street patrols would include 50 to 200 people, mainly Blacks, carrying shotguns, along with people carriying other types of firearms.
See you change the context of who and when and have the benifit of hindsite and your whole attitude on the situation changes. (Maybe)
Now before anybody brings up the idea of well Martin Luther King isn’t the same as Rabbi Kahane remember the group said this: “it follows the principles of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.” It didn’t say the group follows ALL of the principles Kahane.
Now to address this:
Quote: Ye gods! This is more of Kahane’s followers acting loco. I think that there is indeed a need for a larger police presence in the neighborhoods - to arrest these psychos as soon as they start their “patrol”.
See above paragraph.
Quote: Yes, because there’s no justice like angry mob justice.
Quote: there is no need for armed vigilantees to roam the streets with guns.
Say a Muslim cab driver accidently hits a Jewish kid in the street. Do you think that mob could turn real ugly, really quickly?
Quote: Mob rule is not protected or encouraged by the Constitution.
In the interest of “fighting ignorance” here I would like to point out that there is a diffence between “citizen pratrol” armed or not and your telling discriptions such as “angry mob” “mob rule” and “vigilantees”. You seem to have already judged these people about their future actions and what they are capable of on nothing more than the fact that they choose to conduct their “citizen protrol” armed. I find that very offensive comming from someone who whole heartedly condemns preconcieved judgements and wide brush painting. Why don’t you hold back your condemnations until something happens.
nswgru1, fine, I’ve changed the term from “Jews” to “blacks.” I’m still against it.
But, you say, let’s employ hindsight. OK, fine. Simple enough:
Put it simply, had blacks in the South started arming themselves and shooting people, the authorities would quite rightly have had to (and sadly, likely would have been eager to) arrest all such persons and there probably would have been a lot of deaths. Furthermore, the sympathy and political support amongst whites that caused the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, etc., would very likely have blown away in the wind.
I really hope you didn’t throw out a muscle stretching for this one.
In the interests of fighting your ignorance, I would like to point out that, de facto and de jure, there is indeed no difference between an unauthorized citizen’s patrol and vigilantism. As stated by Black’s Law Dictionary, vigilantism is
The simple fact of the matter is that violence is the exclusive province of the government, which has checks and balances in place to make sure (as well as possible) that violence is only employed when necessary and appropriate. There are no such checks on this “citizen’s patrol.” Thus, it is mob rule.
What the Rabbi has proposed is quite simply a criminal conspiracy. NYC’s Police Commissioner has warned prospective participants that they will be arrested if they start a “patrol”.
Sua
Sorry for the double post; after being booted out of the SDMB twice late last night, I finally gave up and powered down for the night, since it looked like nothing was going to post at all. I was very surprised to see that, in fact, it had been posted twice.
Anyway, I went to public school, but there are several Jewish schools in Chicago which are more of the reform variety than yeshivas in the traditional sense; a friend teaches at one. My understanding is that while there is some religious and Hebrew language instruction, it’s not the core of the curriculum. My friends who went to Catholic school said much the same about their experience. In both cases, religious instruction by no means makes up half the school day; maybe Catholic schools have changed over the years, but my Catholic-school grad friends said the religious instruction wasn’t so much indoctrination into catechism as instruction in the nature and teachings of Catholicism, along with some info about other religions (including Judaism, by the way).
In fact, a friend of my mom’s teaches at a Catholic girls’ school in the suburbs; he was about to take his final vows as a Jesuit priest when he decided to drop out and marry my mom’s Jewish friend instead, and now they are both practicing Sufis. He says he has girls of many major religions, including some non-monotheist ones, in his class; apparently their parents think the Catholic school is the best available alternative. So you never know just how open-minded a particular school’’ administration may be, on a local basis. By the same token, some Muslims may not feel there is anything about having their child learn about Judaism that is incompatible with observing Islam.
At first, I thought ‘Jews on Patrol’ was some new gangsta-rap group…
I don’t see a problem with a given community protecting itself, if it feels the authorities are not doing a good job.
Take for example the string of church bombings/burnings, during the 60’s, in the african-american community down south. Since it seems rather obvious that the official law-enforcement groups would not or could not provide sufficient protection, some churches organized their own 24-hour guards.
All people have a basic right to protection, and if the state cannot provide protection (one of, if not THE most important role of the state), then people must protect themselves.
Obviously, it is better to have the state provide law enforcement, but if it is not, then what is the alternative?
Um, Brutus (that is, Ottto), your post might have the tiniest shred of validity, if there had been a single attack on these neighborhoods by terrorists, that law enforcement had failed to stop.
But there hasn’t been any such attack, and ergo law enforcment has not failed to protect these neighborhoods.
What we are left with is a bunch of psychos deciding that because law enforcement may fail them in the future, so they will take the law into their own hands now.
Does that sound like good public policy to you?
Sua
On the contrary, dear Sua, I believe it is a citizen’s duty to usurp the functions and if necessary, overthrow the government if it becomes clear that the government is either ineffective or oppressive. However, that is a whole other ball ‘o’ wax. . .
I do agree with zev’s earlier post: This is an accident waiting to happen. As a pro-gun type, I’m all for loading a shotgun and keeping it behind the door at certain times, or even taking a personal sidearm/longarm to a friend’s house, knowing of an immediate and credible threat***** (i.e. public looting, threats to the friend, etc.) I even think it’s a good thing to bring a sidearm with you while camping or on an extended hike. A firearm is a tool and sometimes a damn useful one.
However, I don’t think there is any immediate credible threat to this particular community, and thus, no reason to take active armed patrols. This is just making people look bad, and giving the rest of us pro-gunners a bad name.
Tripler
***** Yep, them’s my own words. Nobody else’s.
Sua,
True. There have not been any recent attacks against Jews in Brooklyn (That I know of!).
But:
A) Should they wait until AFTER an attack to raise their guard?
B) What is the actual downside of them protecting themselves? I seriously doubt they will be trigger-happy…
And let me make a stretch here…With the recent news that suicide bombings may soon make their way over here, all of us may soon be asking our local communities to put additional guards out. Isn’t it better to prepare ahead of time?
So, do you believe there is a credible, immediate threat to their particular safety – something above and beyond the level of threat to the rest of the nation? Would it be unreasonable to ask them to keep their weapons inside, out of public view (and out of the line of fire)? Is an unarmed patrol such a bad thing? It’s eyes on the street. . .
I personally think openly brandishing a loaded weapon is a step towards ‘trigger-happy’. A very dangerous step, which doesn’t contribute much to the safety of the public, or the private.
**
Absolutely. Just don’t do anything that could jeapoardize the public. Just think if one goes off accidentally, and it kills someone. We’d all be signing a different tune. . . :smack:
Tripler
Arm yourself to the teeth, but do it discreetly.
A) Very true. Discretion is not unimportant. While I would not go so far as to suggest being unarmed is as effective as being armed, guard-wise, due to New Yorks over-reaching CCW laws, the peoples ability to discretely arm themselves is virtually nill. (Unlike here in Michigan, where we have a ‘shall issue’ ccw law)
B) I don’t buy that brandishing is a step towards ‘trigger happiness’. Of course, if a person IS trigger happy, when he brandishes, you best get away! Responsible people tend not to shot randomly.
C)“Arm yourself to the teeth, but do it discreetly.” Amen! But as I mentioned, NYC’s laws don’t really allow for that option. They could simply keep armed watch from inside, where they could keep a weapon out of site, but a normal CCW law would be much better.
I do not fully disagree with NYC’s stance on CCW. Being a legal resident of New Jersey, I actually feel a little better knowing that 750,000 in my county aren’t all armed. ‘Disarming a ticking time bomb’, if you wanna look at it that way . . .
I think something akin to a ‘Community Watch’ is a good thing. Give your pointmen or roving patrols cellphones or radios to call for more support should the need arise. But for the love of God/Jehova/Yahweh/Buddha/whoever, don’t put loaded, unholstered guns in such a position. It’s just inviting trouble.
Tripler
Yeah, I live in NoDak, but it isn’t really my home.