I Am Alive, No Thanks to Gun Control
by Hillel Goldstein
There are times in our lives when many of our most basic assumptions come
under a barrage from the heavy artillery of reality. Some of us receive such
a wake-up call in the form of a life-threatening event that literally
shatters our lives. It is then up to us to do our best to take inventory of
the damage to body and soul, pick up the pieces, and start afresh. I would
like to tell you, at the time of the anniversary of a horrible encounter
that almost killed me, of such a time of reckoning. But first, some
background will help.

I was born in Rochester, New York, on the holiest of Jewish Holidays, Yom
Kippur. My parents are American-born children of Eastern European Orthodox
Jewish immigrants. Had my grandparents chosen to stay in Europe, I would not
be around. During World War II, every member of my paternal and maternal
families that stayed behind in Galicia and Lithuania died a horrible death
at the hands of the Nazis. So we can be counted among the fortunate ones.

Martial Memories

My family and I moved to Israel in 1973, a month before the Yom Kippur War.
At the time, it seemed strange to see young men and women toting rifles. I
quickly learned the reason for this: These young conscripts were the first
to leap into action if anything went awry. Almost daily, I heard news
accounts ? terrifying, chilling stories ? about terrorists who invaded high
school dormitories, or who stormed into the apartments of regular Israeli
citizens. Since most Israelis serve in the Reserves until well into middle
age, many of them were able to fight back, although the terrorists tended to
have the cowardly advantage of sheer surprise. I was drafted into service in
the Israel Defense Forces in 1983, and served for three years in a combat
unit. I saw two tours of combat duty in Lebanon. By the time I became a
staff sergeant, firearms were a natural extension of my arm, reserved for
what police marksmanship trainer Massad Ayoob would call the gravest
extreme.

At various points in my military career, I carried an M-16, short M-16,
m-203, Galil, and short Galil (Glilon). I was a good shot and a disciplined
soldier. In my specialty in the Israeli Defense Force, I functioned as a
drill sergeant for the 18-year-old boy-soldiers who were recruited every few
months. The many stereotypes that abound about basic training stem, in part,
from the immensely difficult task that recruits must master within six
months: They must transform themselves from high-school graduates into
soldiers. The extreme psychological stress inherent in military combat duty
left a strong impression on me. I became fascinated with the amazing
adaptability of people to less-than-ideal situations. I developed an
interest in psychology that has guided my career ever since.

Attacked in the U.S.A.

In the summer of 1986 I returned to the U.S. After acquiring a bachelor?s
degree and two master?s degrees in psychology, I settled in Chicago, to
raise a family and complete my Doctor of Psychology degree. I lost contact
with the world of firearms ? until Benjamin Smith, a Neo-Nazi from a wealthy
home, tried to kill me as I walked home from synagogue on Friday, July 2,
1999.

I am a Chassidic Jew, and at the time of Benjamin Smith?s attack I was
wearing my traditional Sabbath garb. “Easy target,” he must have thought.
Like many complacent Americans, I used to think ? naively ? that
spree-killings such as Benjamin Smith?s couldn?t happen in “my
neighborhood.” Yet there he was, my would-be assassin, idling at the stop
sign on my block. As soon as I came within a few feet of his vehicle, he
opened fire. I didn?t have a clue what was happening. As it was the Fourth
of July weekend, firecrackers had been going off all day, and this did not
sound any different. I kept walking, but I felt a sudden pain and I realized
that I was bleeding heavily. I had been shot in the abdomen, shoulder, and
arm. And so, on the Fourth of July weekend, when we proudly celebrate our
independence, I almost died.

What About Gun Control?

I was categorized as seriously wounded, and, thank God, received emergency
treatment at one of Chicago?s best trauma units. As I convalesced in the
hospital I was astounded at the number of phone calls I received right in my
room from the news media, local and national. Suddenly I was “somebody” to
these folks, because Benjamin Smith was still on the rampage in Illinois and
Indiana, and reporters hungry for a scoop continually pestered me for an
interview. I refused to speak to anyone. Although that time is somewhat
clouded by a painkiller and IV-induced haze, I recall all too clearly that
the vast majority of the media people wanted to speak with me about the
implication of my personal tragedy for “gun control.”

As a result of my experience, I became interested in the issues pertaining
to the so-called panacea called gun control, and decided to investigate the
question with an open mind. I read about handguns, studied Second Amendment
issues, and examined all sides of the argument. To my dismay I reached the
conclusion ? without any help from such groups as the National Rifle
Association, Gun Owners of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms
Ownership, or the John Birch Society ? that good, law-abiding people are
being systematically disarmed. While some might contend that my traumatic
experience impaired my judgment, I beg to differ: It seems to me that as a
result of my personal tragedy I can actually see much more clearly than
before. All I want is to have the legal option to have a fighting chance of
surviving if a two-legged animal of any persuasion tries to kill me again,
or if, Heaven forbid, my beloved wife and two small children are in mortal
danger.

Many of the things said in the aftermath of Benjamin Smith?s rampage, and
the shooting spree conducted just weeks later by neo-Nazi Buford Furrow,
were utterly astonishing to me. Both Smith and Furrow were racist pagans
inspired by Hitler?s National Socialist ideology; Furrow made a point of
saying that his attack on a Jewish day-care center was intended as a
“wake-up call for America to kill Jews.” Guardians of “respectable” opinion
properly condemned the murderous bigotry displayed by Smith and Furrow.
However, the “real” problem, Americans were told, was private gun ownership,
and the “solution” was to deprive law-abiding citizens of the means to
protect their families from violent crime. This was the message of the White
House-orchestrated piece of political theater called the “Million Mom
March.”

Lesson of History

Surely, there are clear lessons taught by history, one of which is that
civilian disarmament empowers not only relatively small-time murderers such
as Smith and Furrow, but also paves the way for major-league mass murderers,
such as Adolf Hitler. It would seem that this lesson would be particularly
clear to American Jews. However, I was to learn, much to my amazement, that
my newfound understanding of this lesson was extremely unpopular in my very
own Orthodox Jewish community.

As I eagerly ? and somewhat naively ? shared my insights within my
community, I was hit with repeated fusillades of empty clich?s: “The police
are here to protect us” (although they were nowhere to be found when I took
three slugs from a neo-Nazi nutcase); “You?re not in the Army anymore”; and
so on. I soon realized that I had to keep my opinions to myself. I do not
mean to upbraid these good people: My community consists of kind, pious,
God-fearing people who still adhere to traditional values, and I am proud to
be associated with them. They were of great help and comfort to me and to my
family during my long recovery at home. But I think they were scared by the
new fire in my soul. Like many other good people, their views of the right
to bear arms have been shaped by people who seek the destruction of liberty.

My painful experience clarified issues for me. Far too many of my ancestors
died under Hitler?s National Socialist reign of terror for me to defile
their memory by indifference. A few months after I was shot, I walked into
the local gun shop with great trepidation, expecting to meet Jew-hating
Neanderthals bedecked in Nazi regalia. Obviously, my own views had been
molded, in part, by the same omnipresent, anti-gun propaganda that has had
such an impact on the minds of my Orthodox Jewish friends. But of course,
the people I met were genuinely nice guys. They were sincerely sympathetic
and not at all patronizing when I told them about my experience, and were
eager to help ? unlike the “compassionate” media people who pestered me in
the hospital out of a desire to exploit my tragedy to advance the “gun
control” cause. With the help of my new friends in the much-demonized “gun
culture,” I was able to the re-learn the art of soldiering, albeit the
civilian version.

Someday, I hope that my friends in the Orthodox Jewish community will come
to understand that it is un-Jewish not to try to defend oneself. In Vayikra
(Leviticus) and elsewhere, the Torah unequivocally commands the righteous to
defend themselves. Furthermore, Jews, more than most people, should
understand the lethal danger of allowing themselves to be disarmed and
therefore at the mercy of the lawless ? whether the criminals are thugs
prowling the streets or despots haunting the halls of government.

This understanding came to me at great personal cost, and I hope that good
people across our nation can learn this lesson in a less painful way.