Get a Gun

 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/get-gun-liel-leibovitz-jews

We are, as the writer Louise Perry pointed out this week, increasingly in a world of anarcho-tyranny, wherein governments fail “to enforce or adjudicate protection to its citizens while simultaneously persecuting innocent conduct.”

“Even in a society that functions well, there are microbursts of that society failing,” Kareen Shaya, cofounder of Open Source Defense, said in an interview a few years ago. “If someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night, that’s society failing for a few minutes. If someone stops and mugs you in the street, that’s society failing for a few minutes. If your spouse beats you, that’s society failing for a few minutes. Society, if it’s functioning well, is going to have your back most of the time. In those moments where it fails, I would ask: Do you have society’s back? Are you ready to fill that gap for those few minutes until society can recover and come to help you? That’s how I view gun ownership.”

The Jewish way of gun ownership is more about responsibility than power. It doesn’t flex its muscles or measure its worth in calibers. It’s precisely what the license says it ought to be: concealed, there when you need it and unobtrusive when you don’t. You can see it on display—or, rather, you can’t—when you visit Crown Heights: Every store, more or less, has a little notice in the window informing you that if you’ve got a piece and a permit, you’re very welcome to walk right in. Which tells you that the men and women you see going about their day, while far from your stereotypical image of gun-toting berserkers, are staying subtle and staying safe.