March 10, 2013 update: In response to a torrent of responses to Mr. Stein’s ridiculous opinion piece last week (and of course the publicity he and the Sun-Sentinel were looking for on the backs of “pit bulls” and their owners whom Stein had maligned, which serves to generate ad revenue), Mr. Stein unapologetically wrote another hit piece noting that the responses to his response used the f-word alot. Funny, isn’t it, how people don’t like it when you try to push legislation that kills innocent animals? Not only that, but Mr. Stein actually had the audacity in his latest diatribe to call out some letters to him that were racist when he used the “those people,” “in that neighborhood,” “with those kinds of dogs” language himself. Yeah, we all know he’s racistly referring to black and Latino neighborhoods, his latest harangue even racistly opining against Cubans apparently, but then he cited Dogsbite.org as a source! So Forrest Gump truly was right: Stupid is as stupid does. And Mr. Stein is once again incorrect when he says that “Pit bull lovers don’t like that site, because it makes their dogs look bad.” No, we don’t like that site because it’s junk science, with skewed and erroneous statistics that no proper media outlet in its right mind would ever cite as a credible source. But then, the Sun-Sentinel‘s admission that it has used Dogsbite.org as a source calls the Sun-Sentinel itself into question as a credible source, as do Mr. Stein’s ridiculous prejudices about “pit bulls,” Latinos, and gun owners. That’s also why, of the three reasons that I listed why Mr. Stein might push Hitlerian gun control and breed-specific laws, mentally challenged AND corrupt got my votes.
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Today, the utter foolishness of Broward County, Florida, editorialist Gary Stein, who wrote the hit piece, “Getting a bang out of pit bull spiels” for the Sun-Sentinel poking fun at “pit bull” advocates and pro-gun lobbyists, deserves the following well-reasoned and godly response. Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived, wrote:
“Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
Or you will also be like him.
Answer a fool as his folly deserves,
That he not be wise in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 26:5)
So, via the following, I’m going to answer Mr. Stein as his folly deserves.
Like his wiser forebear Solomon, Mr. Stein ought to know that we, as God’s creation, have a moral obligation to stand up for the weak, the poor, and the helpless. But so often anti-gun lobbyists have appeared to overlook the glaring first amendment violation (specifically a violation of citizens’ freedom of religion) inherent in gun control/disarmament. For the Christian and the Jew, Exodus 22:2 (i.e. the Pentateuch) very clearly states: “If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no bloodguiltiness on his account.” In other words, God clearly allows for protection to the death of one’s home, property, and the defenseless.
Similarly, when Cain killed his brother Abel using the jawbone of a donkey, God did not outlaw crude implements that could be used by wicked humans to take a human life; He cursed and banished the murderer (Genesis 4). So there are very clear scriptural precepts that allow for humans to take another human life or hurt another in protection of one’s person, property, or in defense of another. In other words, Jews and Christians have a moral obligation to defend themselves and others. When the anti-gun lobby and the “representatives” they purchase reduce or eliminate citizens’ rights to protect themselves under the Constitution and under scriptural law, they are defying God’s authority and citizens’ moral obligation to defend their lives and the lives of others that are imperiled, which in turn is a 1st amendment freedom of religion violation. If elected officials, and editorialists apparently, would read the scriptures more, they might not be so cavalier about pushing their own laws in clear violation of God’s.
To put the prior paragraph’s argument more succinctly: We have a right and a moral responsibility to defend ourselves, our own, and those who cannot defend themselves. So when Mr. Stein does the bidding of his godless puppet masters and relates “pit bull” owners to 2nd amendment advocates, calling both “rabid,” his utter foolishness needs to be exposed.
I’ll get back to Mr. Stein’s sour grapes in a moment, but first let me give you the backstory. Last week, Broward County, Florida tried to pull a fast one in an attempt to pass a breed-specific law (BSL) in direct defiance of the state law that prohibits BSL. “Pit bull” advocates lobbied hard to prevent Broward from doing so. The “pit bull” advocates were successful, and Mr. Gary Stein et al didn’t much like that. He did what his ilk (corrupt politicians and their lapdog media) always do when they don’t get their way: He threw a temper tantrum and lashed out. He used “those people” kinds of semantics to indirectly point a finger at “pit bull” owners, likening them all to 2nd amendment advocates. Yep, there’s that vaguely racist all-“pit bull”-owners-are-thugs and/or gun-toting-rednecks spiel again. No, of course Mr. Stein wasn’t directly racist, but when he says this,
“I’m resigned to the fact nothing is going to change, and pit bulls will still be in neighborhoods where they shouldn’t be. And the next time you hear about a cop being called to a neighborhood to shoot an out-of-control cocker spaniel, let me know.”
we all know to which “neighborhoods” Mr. Stein is referring. Likewise, when BSL advocates have historically referred to “thugs,” “gangbangers,” or “drug dealers” as being the supposed predominant owners of so-called “pit bulls,” they have meant African-Americans and Latinos. They used to be outright racist instead of vaguely racist, but now with political correctness, the racism is still there, just perhaps a little more veiled.
So, that was the history of Broward County’s BSL debacle last week, and I guess a little bit of history for the racists who have historically pushed BSL. Now let’s look at some Jewish history. I already mentioned Cain and Abel, quoted Solomon and Exodus, and illustrated God’s views on defense, so let’s go on. As a Judeo-Christian myself, and as one who reads the pentateuch and the prophets, it’s so hard to read Jewish history sometimes. As preacher Charles Stanley once noted,
“You would think that somebody in the nation of Israel today would read this book [Genesis, Exodus, etc.] and remember what God said: ‘You sin against Me, you will be punished by the wicked.’ Do you know what it took to cure Israel of its idolatry? It took total Babylonian captivity…You cannot disobey God without the judgement of God coming.”
And it’s not just Israel either. Look at America. No one can reasonably argue that we are better off today than we were 50 years ago before abortion was made legal, before prayer was kicked out of schools, before the God under which our nation was founded was removed from so many things. So, it’s not just Israel’s history, but Stanley’s point is, that Israel has thousands of years of history behind it and you read over and over how one generation was God-fearing, and the next generation worshipped idols instead and incurred the wrath of God.
It’s even worse when you see some Jews pushing gun laws and disarmament — in direct defiance of the Constitution and God’s laws about defense — which only serves to set themselves and others up for another Holocaust. How do we know? Because in the 20th century alone, look at the genocide that followed in countries — China, Cambodia, Germany, Russia — that disarmed their citizens.
If you have ever spoken to a Holocaust survivor, I don’t know how you could ever advocate for gun control. Yes, for all Mr. Stein has made of us “rabid” “pit bull” and gun owners, shouldn’t he know that, as the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) stated in 1993 when their exposé appeared in Guns & Ammo, that,
“…the Nazi Weapons Law (March 18, 1938) is the source of the U.S Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA 68). Adolph Hitler signed the Nazi Weapons Law. The Gestapo (Nazi National Secret Police) enforced it.”
And Mr. Stein implies “pit bull” owners and pro-gun lobbyists are rabid and stupid??? Who opts for the same kind of gun control that Hitler advocated??? My only answer to that rhetorical question is either 1) someone who is stupid, or 2) someone who is evil. Still, what makes people like Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein try to pass the same kind of gun elimination measures that saw approximately 6 million Jews horrifically murdered in the Holocaust, hmm?
Likewise, Mr. Stein quips that “gun-crazed folks love pit bulls as much as they love guns,” which apparently means his foolishness, or his corruption, won’t allow him to see, or at least say, the truth: Bulldog owners and the 2A gun lobby love the Constitution and their freedom, which, not so coincidentally, breed-specific laws and gun control both negate. So, Mr. Stein, what is it that you don’t like about freedom? Why do you advocate for gun control, and as JPFO illustrated, the exact same gun control, that went on to kill 6 million Jews?
And incidentally Mr. Stein, there’s no such thing as a “pit bull.” “Pit bull,” as described by the doggy killers you defend, is a moniker used to describe countless dog breeds, their mixes, and lookalikes who fit a type, which makes it easier for the radical animal rights groups who want to end domestic animal ownership to kill them. If actual breeds were parsed out of the slang-term “pit bull,” no one breed would emerge as more statistically likely to bite, maim, or kill.
Certainly you, Mr. Stein, must know how awful it is to be discriminated against based on nothing more than hysteria and people’s ill-conceived and prejudicial beliefs about you right? Isn’t that what Hitler did before he killed 6 million Jews? He publicly propagandized, using his disinformation campaign, saying that Jews were greedy, and disproportionately owned too much of the world’s wealth, implying they were crooked in business matters. He likened their appearance to rats. He dehumanized them — taking away their property, their right to defend themselves, and even their identities — and, according to the Holocaust survivor I interviewed, got them to see themselves and each other as nothing. And yet, isn’t that what you’re doing Mr. Stein? You would stricture or take away people’s property — their dogs — based on nothing more than prejudice and the hyped hysteria and faulty statistics of radical animal rightists. You would stricture or take away people’s rights to defend themselves via firearms against the kind of tyranny Hitler unleashed a mere 68 years ago. Did you also know, Mr. Stein, that in addition to disarming the populace before he began his campaign to murder 12 million people, Hitler was also an animal rightist? Hmm, I wonder if that’s a coincidence?
Mr. Stein’s support, whether directly or indirectly, of radical animal rightists’ breed-specific laws and of the anti-gun lobby’s disarmament campaign, both of which were agendas of Hitler’s, leads a well-reasoned individual to ask Mr. Stein the following: 1) Are you a self-hating Jew, and would you continue to dehumanize yourself and others the way Hitler did? 2) Are you mentally challenged in some way that makes it difficult for you to draw direct parallels from history to the present day? 3) Are you corrupt?
I leave it to Mr. Stein to decide which of these he is since I see no other possible explanation than one of these three. At the end of the day, he’s the one who has to wrestle with his God-given conscience. Perhaps too Mr. Stein will remember that though there are those who want to negate the sovereign of this great nation we call America, just like King George III did to the early colonials, it was the “rabid,” raucous gun owners and freedom lovers who fought a revolution to give us the freedom we enjoy today. And some of them owned bulldogs too. 😉
Related:
Gun Grabbers and Doggy Killers Unite over Little D.C. Boy Attacked by 3 Pit Bulls?
New Jersey Pit Bull Finds Alzheimers Patient Lost in the Woods
Fairfield, Maine Grandmother Credits Pit Bull for Rescue from Strangulation
South Dakota pit bull protects wayward toddler; thats why they call them the ˜Nanny Dog