The European Jewish Association (EJA), which represents Jewish communities across Europe, says that gun license laws must be altered following a string of deadly attacks on Jews in France and other European countries, where anti-Semitism has been growing at an alarming rate.
The recent attacks, including one on a Kosher market that killed four, "have revealed the urgent need to stop talking and start acting" in a way that empowers Europe's Jews, according to a letter sent Tuesday by EJA General Director Rabbi Menachem Margolin to EU leaders.
The EU, which has enacted very stringent gun control laws, should empower and train Jews to be proficient with guns in order to maintain their safety, according to Margolin.
Comment: What's next, they alter laws to make it legal for Jews to shoot and kill anyone that they feel threatened by? Just carrying a weapon won't stop people from hurting each other. And what about the safety of everyone else? I guess it's not as important as the safety of Jews.
"The Paris attacks, as well as the many challenges and threats which have been presented to the European Jewish community in recent years, have revealed the urgent need to stop talking and start acting," Margolin writes.
Comment: "We cannot make offensive art illegal if we want to live in a free society, but we can examine the context and power structures under which bigoted cartoons are created and hopefully come to the conclusion that cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammed ﷺ will just be considered one of those socially unacceptable things you just don't do."
It's a moral question: Given the license to be a bigot, should one do so? There's a difference between 'self-censorship' and common decency. Many are arguing that it's a good thing the Mohammed cartoons were published, because it exemplifies the expression of freedom of speech. But what aim is really fulfilled by insulting minority groups? People should definitely have the freedom to express offensive opinions, but so should they have the freedom to condemn the backward, bigoted nature of those opinions. That's one advantage of free speech: it gives us the opportunity to see the true bigoted character of many who use it to spread hatred and violence, whether that's some psychopath in ISIS, or in Washington.