Kirby Ferris Interviews Aaron Zelman
20 Years of Fighting for Your Freedoms
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership recognizes its 20 Anniversary this year. Here is an interview with JPFO’s founder Aaron Zelman. Aaron is questioned by contributing writer Kirby Ferris on matters surrounding "Gun Control". This is extracted from the Freedom Flyer PDF files which can be found on the "Freedom Flyer"page.
KF: Socially speaking, what is your original background with firearms?
AARON: I was raised in Tucson, Arizona, where, I like to say, there were more guns than cactuses. Like most rural youths, I fired a .22 when I was ten or twelve. Ironically this was at a Jewish day camp in Tucson! I seriously doubt that this would be happening today, because liberal Judaism has become so widespread. Additionally, one of the nation’s experts on ammunition reloading lived across the street from me. I bought my first guns via mail order. Obviously, today’s America isn’t what I grew up with. Additionally, many in Arizona’s Jewish community were the ancestors of pioneers who came to the Southwest in covered wagons. In nearly every photo of the descendents in the book “We Were There” the pioneer Jews are armed. Many of these Jews came from Eastern Europe or Russia and were probably very grateful to finally be on the right end of a gun.
KF: When did you first suspect that American politicians and cultural leaders were beginning to subvert the intent of the Second Amendment?
AARON: It was when the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA ’68) was passed. How could such an ill conceived, draconian collection of anti-American laws be instituted in a nation founded upon the ideal of an armed citizenry?
KF: So, some twenty years later, in 1989, you decided to form Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Why even say “Jews”? Why not “Americans for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership”?
AARON: An unsettling transformation had taken place in the ranks of “gun control” advocates. GCA ’68 was the brainchild of Thomas Dodd, who was not Jewish. The political and emotional advocates of GCA ’68, like Lyndon Johnson, Ramsey Clark, the Kennedy family, Jesse Jackson and the Martin Luther King family, were not Jewish. But then, somewhere during the expansion of “gun control” in America, liberal Jewish politicians and spokesmen became a disturbingly large percentage of the high profle gun prohibitionists. The myopically, arrogant viewpoints of Charles Schumer and Howard Metzenbaum began to seriously alarm me"
KF: In my conversations over the years, when I mention JPFO by its full name, people are a bit startled, but then so many of them say: “Well, that makes sense, seeing what Jews have historically been through.”
AARON: That non Jews seem to comprehend that in greater percentages than Jews, continues to disturb and disappoint me, considering that Jews are commanded to choose self defense. The Jewish religion teaches the absolute responsibility of self defense and the defense of the helpless. I can no longer refer to Jewish gun prohibitionists as innocently misguided, because JPFO has constantly provided them with common sense reasoning and the lessons of history. I now understand that many of them must be latently suicidal and, in many cases, emotionally unstable. They don’t trust themselves (because of their repressed anger against humanity) to possess a firearm, and therefore don’t trust others who do own guns.
As for someone like Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, or Rahm Immanuel? There simply seems to be an evil, authoritarian essence running through their core.
KF: To be fair, aren’t there are a growing number of Jews who are waking up to the dangers of so-called “gun control”?
AARON: At this time, I think the answer is yes, albeit a very small percentage. All of us, not just Jews, live in an increasingly dangerous country. But where are the outspoken Jewish advocates of gun ownership in the media, and in American political life? Why aren’t prominent Jews as blatantly visible in the defense of the Second Amendment as they were during the civil rights movement, when they marched for “equality”? Disarming honest Americans is a blatant form of inequality.
KF: JPFO came on the scene quite aggressively. Your first ad read: “Not all Jews are stupid or pro criminal, but Charles Schumer is both.” And what about your memorable image of Hitler with the headline “All those in favor of “gun control” raise your right hand”? That must have ruffed many feathers throughout the pro “gun control” community.
AARON: But no one has ever stepped forward to intelligently debate us. We didn’t publish and publicize that image just to make people upset. JPFO is a solution oriented organization. We reveal the issues, often times with irrefutable historical evidence, and then we offer hard hitting “intellectual ammunition” to combat these well orchestrated and deadly incursions on our liberties.
KF: What will it really take to remove “gun control” from American life?
AARON: There are five crucial steps that must be taken:
1. We must each deeply realize that we have a G-d given right to defend ourselves. It is immoral to interfere with this unalienable, individual right.
2. We must make sure every citizen understands the “Dial 911” hoax. No one has a guaranteed right to police protection.
3. We must make sure that all Americans have a full understanding of the 28 words that make up the Second Amendment.
4. We must demand that politicians explain their reasons for supporting any American law modeled on Nazi policies. Any excuse for such treachery should be political suicide.
5. We must pound home the obvious fact that gun owners will always get the amount of “gun control” they are willing to tolerate. Gun owners must develop a zero tolerance for “gun control”. Otherwise, be prepared to lose a right that was essential to the creation of America.
KF: Are you perhaps talking about making “gun control” politically incorrect?
AARON: Political correctness is poison. Nazis, Communists and Socialists build empires on it. However, what if the psyche of America changed and it became shameful to call someone who was willing to defend their lives, and the lives of the helpless, a “gun nut”? What if it became a cultural taboo, just like calling a Jew or and African-American a derogatory term? All Americans need to realize, that the Charles Schumers and other gun prohibitionists of our country are mentally unbalanced and fear inanimate objects. Should people with this delusional viewpoint be enacting public policies that harm all of us?
KF: So I’ll ask you a question that I’ve been asked. “Do you want everyone armed?”
AARON: Why not? It worked fine for the first 150 years of this nation’s history. Anyone who is lawfully adjudicated unfit to carry a firearm should not be on the street in the first place. They should be in prison or in a mental institution. We’ve thrown the baby (our personal liberties) out with the bathwater, making us helpless to protect ourselves from armed criminals and lunatics. And who promotes this delusional illogic the most fervently? Politicians and the law enforcement hierarchy. Is it only JPFO members who smell this rat?
Even more importantly, JPFO may have been the first organization to point out that governments have murdered far, far more unarmed people throughout history than all the street criminals who ever lived. Statistically, based upon sheer body count, government, any government, is more a threat to your physical safety and life than any number of common street criminals. It’s an uncomfortable realization.
KF: Why can’t one of the other pro gun organizations do what JPFO is doing?
AARON: When the profile of the gun prohibitionists became blatantly more Jewish, the label of “anti-Semite” was wielded with a heavy hand against those who protested. At that point it became obvious that a Jewish pro gun organization was sorely needed. I’ve been called a few things in my time, but “anti-Semitic” would be laughable. Historically “gun control” has been a fundamental tool of anti-Semitism. It is also racist and totalitarian, because African Americans were the targets of the first American gun prohibition schemes, and “gun control” preceded every major genocide of the 20th Century.
KF: Has JPFO left its mark? I’ve had motivated gun owners tell me that JPFO has “radicalized” the entire pro gun movement.
AARON: I believe that JPFO has directed the debate into more fundamental channels. Our moral outrage against the most blatant politicians, our use of educational materials, and our leading edge use technology are matters of pride for me. While the big “pro gun” institution cuddles up to the jack booted goons of the BATFE, JPFO says “Abolish the BATFE”. While the big “pro gun” institution says “some gun control is okay”, JPFO says “Destroy all ‘gun control’. Nothing good can come of it.” While the big “pro gun” institution practices “reasonable compromise”, JPFO tells the truth: Compromise invites defeat.
KF: Do you think that people are afraid to join JPFO, or any other pro gun group, because they fear they’ll be put on a government list?
AARON: That fear is irrational, considering the hard, cold facts. If you have a subscription to a firearms magazine, if you belong to a gun club, if you’ve ever purchased a hunting or fishing license, if you’ve ever bought a firearm in a store … and especially if you were ever in the military … you’re in the database. If you drive a pickup truck or motorcycle, or have ever ordered anything from a mail order business that also sells hunting and shooting supplies … you are on some government list. Don’t be naïve. Based on these inescapable realities, one is working against one’s own best interests by not supporting those who are striving diligently to destroy the evil that is “gun control”.
KF: Are non Jews invited to join JPFO?
AARON: Absolutely. Anyone who wants to destroy “gun control” will fnd a home at JPFO. We have never asked the religion of a supporter.
KF: Give me a highlighted retrospective of JPFO projects over the last twenty years, some of the freedom tools that you like to call “intellectual ammunition”.
AARON: Before that, I’d like to thank our members. Without their generous and continuing support none of these freedom projects could have ever happened. With that in mind, here’s an overview of some of our accomplishments:
See - Retrospective of JPFO projects
And, or course, add to this the numerous radio interviews over the years that have brought the JPFO story to the public’s attention. In closing I would like to remind people to please access JPFO’S website (www.jpfo.org) search engine to review all the above accomplishments in detail. Then use them to destroy “gun control”. If even two or three percent of the probably EIGHTY MILLION gun owners utilized JPFO’s material, we would not have “gun control” in America today. Please support our efforts, and tell your friends and family what the members of JPFO have accomplished in our efforts to keep our freedom alive.
