Originally published on this website August 25, 2000
On June 21, 2000, the Colorado Chapter of the Tyranny Response Team had 150-200
people in attendance at the Boulder city council administrative hearing. This
hearing was to gather public input regarding their (BCC) proposed gun ordinances
with which TRT (and all thinking folk) disagreed. TRT used this
picture in their demonstration to draw attention to the fatal results of gun
control as it relates to the Holocaust. Some of the dedicated activists
also wore the yellow Star of David with the words GUN OWNER emblazoned thereon -
pinned to their chests. The move prompted a letter from a representative from
the Anti Defamation League.
Below is a letter received by Bob Glass (one of
the TRT founders, gun shop owner, and, more interestingly, a Jew) from Bobbie
Towbin, Associate Director of the ADL. Bob's ever-so-magnificent response
follows Mrs. Tobin's letter:
Dear Mr. Glass,
We recognize that reasonable minds may differ
over the best way to solve the growing problem of violence in the United States,
and we respect the right of your organization to advocate its views. However, we
are deeply disturbed by the Tyranny Response Team’s exploitation of the
Holocaust to advance its position.
Our office has received a number of complaints
from people who were present at the Boulder City Hall hearing last Wednesday
night.
According to the complainants, the presence of
many Tyranny Response Team members wearing black shirts with yellow, six pointed
stars, was very distressing. The distribution of flyers containing photographs
of Holocaust victims served to raise even more anguish among members of the
Jewish community who were present—some of whom were Holocaust survivors.
We ask – in memory of the six million Jews
and millions of others – that you refrain from using the Nazi Genocide as a
political tool again in the future.
Sincerely,
Bobbie Tobin
Associate Director of the ADL
Bob's response is here:
July 24, 2000
Ms. Bobbie Towbin
Anti-Defamation League
1120 Lincoln Street, Suite 1301
Denver, CO 80203-2140
Dear Ms. Tobin,
Now that I have had some time to reflect on
your letter, and the subsequent phone conversation that we’ve had, I would
like to share some thoughts with you.
I must begin by correcting you on the initial
faulty premise of your letter. For openers, the Tyranny Response Team is not my
organization. Not that I am not extremely proud of the way TRT people conducted
themselves at the Boulder City Hall meeting, nor am I trying to distance myself
from the TRT—au contraire. I am simply stating a point of fact, that the TRT
is a true grass roots movement, and as such, has no leader, no board of
directors, no corporate charter, nor any of the other trappings that accompany
any hierarchical bureaucracy.
You openly state that you respect the right of
the TRT to express its views, yet claim to be “deeply disturbed” by the
TRT’s “exploitation” of the Holocaust, to “advance its position.” My
dear lady, you certainly have chutzpah. If there is anyone who has explaining to
do about exploiting the Holocaust for their own partisan political agenda, it is
the ADL, as I shall explain.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to
comprehend the notion that armed citizens are more able to resist state tyranny
than are unarmed citizens. One might even call that one, a “no-brainer.”
When you look at some of the worst examples of state-sponsored genocide in human
history, such as the Holocaust, the mass murders in Cambodia, under Pol Pot, the
mass murders in the Soviet Union, under Stalin, and the mass murders that took
place in China, under Mao, they all have one thing in common: their victims had
been disarmed by law.
In a very touching moment, outside of the
Boulder City Council chambers, where we gathered, a Cambodian gentleman came up
to us and spoke of the living hell he had survived, under the murderous regime
of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. He told us that the very first thing he did when
he came to these shores was to purchase a firearm. He went on to explain to us
how much he cherishes his gun and his right to own a gun. He thanked us for what
we were doing. He wasn’t offended by our Star of David with the words “Gun
Owner” printed on it.
I am not a religious man, but there were some
of us in the crowd that were so moved by their encounter with this Cambodian
fellow that they looked upon it as a true religious experience. Some people felt
that God had sent that man to them, at that particular time, to tell them his
story and give reassurance that we indeed were doing the right thing.
That, however, is neither here nor there. The
bottom line is that the Jewish people were the victims of state-sponsored
genocide. In this particular case it was Nazi Germany that acted as the
executioner. One very big difference between the United States and Nazi Germany,
or Cambodia, or the former Soviet Union, or China, is that the U.S. has a Bill
of Rights, which includes the Second Amendment, which specifically guarantees
the right—not privilege, but right—of the citizenry to own and carry arms.
As our founding fathers so astutely learned,
after the war they fought for their freedom against the British and their
Hessian mercenaries, all written guarantees aside, the only real safeguard
against state-sponsored tyranny was an armed citizenry. “…the right of the
people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
It is specifically because the TRT wants to
honor the memory of those Holocaust victims, by learning from the lessons of
history, and taking specific actions to make sure that such a thing never
happens here, that we wore the yellow Star of David. This is our obligation to
ourselves, to our children and to all the victims of state-sponsored
tyranny—including the victims of the Holocaust.
The TRT is most certainly not trying to
“advance its position” by “exploiting” the Holocaust. I am outraged and
deeply offended that you would accuse me and the TRT of such a thing. If there
is anyone who truly understands all of the implications of the Holocaust and the
murder of innocent civilians, it is those people who are taking action to make
sure it never happens again—us. We are trying to show those people who would
take away our rights the dire consequences of allowing the Second Amendment to
be destroyed, and the liberty that it safeguards, along with it. If the ADL was
truly concerned about protecting Jews, like it purports to be, rather than
getting into bed and sharing the spoils of power with the Democratic Party, it
would be the most militant and outspoken defender of the Second Amendment. But
no, the ADL has chosen to bow before the Gods of political correctness so it can
keep those contributions rolling in, even at the risk of endangering Jewish
lives. It is ironic that for an organization that supposedly exists to combat
anti-Semitism, your organization is responsible for more anti-Semitism than you
could ever imagine. I reeled in horror, last week, as I watched on C-SPAN, an
ADL spokesman, I believe it was Todd Gutnick, plead with the Democratic National
Committee to adopt numerous planks to its convention platform. Among the
suggestions was an opposition to school vouchers, so as not to “jeopardize
public education.” What does this blatantly partisan political stance have to
do with anti-Semitism? Absolutely nothing. But the ADL certainly wouldn’t want
to offend the National Education Association (NEA), now would it? So, thanks for
giving all of the struggling gentile families, who bust their ass so they can
give their children a decent education a really good reason for hating Jews. The
ADL was lobbying for a pro-choice position on abortion. What does this issue
possibly have to do with anti-Semitism? Nothing. Thank you again for giving all
of the pro-life people—roughly half of the country—another good reason for
hating Jews. The ADL is calling for “hate crime” legislation. This is
nothing more than a slick infringement on the First Amendment. If you murder
someone, the crime is the murder. Are you suggesting that murdering a man
because he is gay or Jewish is worth 20 points, but a simple convenience store
clerk murder during a robbery is worth only 10 points? There are a myriad of
laws, already on the books, that make it clearly illegal to violate a person’s
constitutional rights. So called “hate crimes” are just a new tool to
promote and enforce the edicts of political correctness by limiting a person’s
right to free speech. That was not the worst of it. To fight the real or
imagined wave of Islamic terrorism that Mr. Gutnick seemed to think was a
certainty, he wanted to give the police sweeping new powers to combat this
menace.
This makes me extremely nervous. Shredding the
Bill of Rights just to give you the false sense of security that you are now
immune from foreign terrorism is dangerous folly. All you are doing is laying
the groundwork for the kind of tyranny and murder that no foreign terrorist
could even hope to achieve. If you think that by removing the strict guidelines
and limitations of power that the Bill of Rights has placed on the police you
will somehow be safer—you are in for a very rude awakening.
Along the same lines, the ADL is actively
calling upon the federal government to enact laws to regulate and license the
private possession of firearms, denigrating what heretofore had been a right
into a privilege. Besides being blatantly unconstitutional, this law will make
it exponentially easier for the government to preemptively disarm those
individuals who it deems as “enemies of the state.” Maybe for the “safety
of the community” they will make these people wear badges, so everyone else
will know who they are. Does any of this have a familiar ring to you? Besides
this being an horrendous idea, what does this have to do with anti-Semitism?
Nothing.
Oh, and by the way, nice going, Bobbie, now you
have given the 140 million American gun owners, yet one more good reason to hate
Jews.
The almost incomprehensible irony of the
situation has not been lost on me. Here is the Anti-Defamation League, an
organization that purports to protect Jews - and collects money under the guise
of doing the same - lobbying for laws that would dramatically increase the
police powers of the state, increase anti-Semitism and directly threaten the
lives of Jews. Haven’t you people learned anything at all from the Holocaust?
Bobbie, the stakes for what we are fighting for
are too high to play politics with. Consequently, I feel that it is imperative
that those people who are advocating victim disarmament understand what the
ultimate implications of their actions are—another holocaust. I resent and
thoroughly reject your absurd accusation that the TRT is using Nazi Genocide as
a “political tool.”
The ADL is the one actively soliciting money
and lobbying the government for a very partisan liberal political agenda - under
the smokescreen of fighting anti-Semitism.
Free men and women do not walk into gas
chambers; only slaves do. It is our aim and our commitment to regain and
safeguard our freedom—so we will never be herded into the showers.
With the exception of his parents, all of the
relatives on my father’s side of the family were killed in the Holocaust. My
grandmother came to this country at the tender age of 13, from what was part of
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, prior to World War I. She carried with her her
most valued possession - the family photo album. She showed me this album
shortly before her death. I saw the faces of all of my aunts and uncles and
cousins that she left, all of the relatives that I never saw, all of the men,
women and children that were murdered by the Nazis. The Holocaust has had a very
deep impact on me personally, philosophically and politically. There were at
least two other Jewish TRT people wearing yellow stars - that I know of - at the
Boulder City Council hearing. I find it absolutely incredible that you, in your
unbridled arrogance and self righteousness, find it so hard to believe that
other Jews might view the issues of victim disarmament (gun control) and the
Holocaust differently than the ADL. For so long, you have purported to represent
all Jews, that you have actually begun to believe your own propaganda.
Your fantastically arrogant response to my
genuine and magnanimous offer, for you to articulate your argument live, on Dr.
Norm Resnik’s radio show, just confirms to me how little you truly believe in
the righteousness of your request - and the inherent intellectual dishonesty of
your position.
At first, you turned down my offer to debate on
the flimsy grounds that your office closed at three o’clock and you had to
leave. Only when I called you on your transparent lie and offered to arrange the
radio debate to accommodate your schedule did you come clean and admit that you
wouldn’t get on Dr. Resnik’s show under any circumstances. You said that
“there was nothing to debate.” That debating the legitimacy of wearing the
yellow star, was like “arguing the Holocaust with Holocaust deniers.” That
is patently and self-evidently absurd.
No one is denying the Holocaust. On the
contrary, we know and acknowledge that the Holocaust was all too real. That is
precisely why we are so motivated to make sure that it never happens here—at
least not while we’re alive.
The Million
Mom March people want to feel all good and warm and fuzzy about their
politically correct “common sense” position on victim disarmament. The last
thing that they want to see are the graphic examples of the end results of their
feel-good legislation. Seeing terrified, naked women lined up in front of a
German firing squad is not a pretty picture. That is precisely our point:
stripping people of their rights - and the implements to defend those rights -
have dire consequences. These people need to be made fully aware of and held
responsible for the consequences of their actions.
So if we “raised anguish” amongst their
ranks—good. Maybe it will jar these very sensitive and emotional people into
thinking with their brains. Destroying rights and disarming victims have
consequences. They should take a long, hard look into the faces of those
consequences, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll come to their senses.
The reason that these people and the ADL are so
upset with our actions is not because we offended them, but rather because we
have done the very thing you people fear most—showing the correlation between
victim disarmament and genocide. There is an old saying, “When you start to
get flak, it means that you’re over the target.”
You mentioned that some of the people who were
present at the meeting that were “anguished” were Holocaust survivors. Quite
frankly, I don’t believe you. I’ve had the honor and privilege in my life to
speak with many Holocaust survivors, including Tuvia Bielsky, one of three
surviving members of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Not a single one of those
folks, especially Mr. Bielsky, have adopted the attitude that the best way to
prevent another holocaust is to put their faith in the government to protect
them. They all shared the belief that each individual must take the
responsibility for his or her safety and their respective families. They all
fervently believed that Jews should be well-armed and well-trained in the use of
firearms. If, however, these people who claim to be Holocaust survivors are
willing to come forward with their names and show me the numbers tattooed on
their forearms, I will be happy to publicly apologize to you—on that
particular point.
I find it even more amazing and ironic that
when I corrected your false assumption that “All Jews would be offended by the
actions of the TRT,” when I pointed out to you that I am Jewish, and I
wasn’t offended, that you countered by saying, “Yes, but you are way in the
minority.” For the representative of an organization like the ADL, that is
supposed to be protecting the rights of a minority group, to attack a position,
not based on the merits—or lack thereof—of its argument, but simply because
it is a view held by a minority, stretches your credulity to the limit.
Not that this is even relevant to the argument,
but for what it is worth, the ranks of the leadership of the gun rights
movement, are swelled with Jewish Americans. The yellow star with the words
“Gun Owner” on it was first coined by Aaron Zelman, chairman of an
organization called Jews For the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO).
Can you take a guess what JPFO is all about? One
of the most brilliant and articulate legal defenders of the Second Amendment is
David Kopel—Jewish. KHNC talk show host and tenacious defender of the Second
Amendment is Dr. Norm Resnik—Jewish. The head of the Citizens Committee for
the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is Allan Gotleib—Jewish. One of the heads of
the National Shooting Sports Association, (NSSA) is Richard Feldman—Jewish.
The Commissioner of Boulder County and professional newspaper columnist, and
fervent defender of gun rights, is Paul Danish—Jewish. The Publisher of The
Partisan magazine—yours truly—Jewish. I could go on.
The pages of the history of the 20th Century
are blood-soaked
with the names of innocent men, women and children who have been murdered by
their own governments. Neither the ADL, nor the TRT, nor anyone else, holds a
monopoly on how to acknowledge, commemorate and pay homage to the victims of the
Holocaust, or any act of state-sponsored genocide. I believe that the best way
to honor the victims of genocide, which include my own family members, is make
sure that it never happens again.
So, I have every intention of continuing to
wear the yellow Star of David with the words “Gun Owner” emblazoned on it.
And I have every intention of continuing to fight with every means at my
disposal, to uphold, protect and defend the Bill OF Rights and the Constitution
of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic. And quite
frankly, I welcome you to make good on your implied threat to find “another
way” to get me and the TRT to stop wearing the yellow Star of David. Hopefully
you’ll try and drag me into court (I could really use the money), with some
bogus lawsuit, to strip me of my First Amendment rights. The last time you guys
tried that in Colorado it didn’t work out too well for you, as I recall. Oh
well, win a few, lose a few. No big deal. You can always do what your good
buddy, Morris Dees, has already done—that is send out fund raising letters, to
guilt-ridden liberals, accusing me of Anti-Semitism and anti government
extremist activities. You should be able to scare the living daylights out of
them with lies about how Bob Glass and the TRT represent a new threat to Jews
everywhere. That should enable you to line your coffers with a few million—at
least.
Unlike yourself, Bobbie, I will be happy to
defend and articulate my ideas in a public debate with you, or anyone else,
anywhere, anytime. I look forward to such opportunities, because I believe in
what I’m doing and the facts of history are on my side. Unfortunately, every
single proponent of victim disarmament, including Tom Mauser, Arnie Grossman,
John Head, Amy Sodnicar, Peter Boyles, Rabbi Foster, Dianna DeGette, Bill Ritter
and many others, have all refused to take me up on my offer to debate. If you
wish to take me up on my offer, as you indicated on the phone that you might,
please feel free to call me.
I am not naďve, Bobbie. I don’t expect you
to read this letter, break down in tears, and thank me for showing you the
light. But consider this, Bobbie: When you surround yourself with like-minded,
partisan political people, it is very easy to lose your objectivity—especially
when they’re the ones signing your paycheck. But, what if—just what if I’m
telling the truth about even some of the things that I have said?
Think about it. Discovering and embracing the
truth can be a very liberating experience. You might consider giving it a try.
Yours in Liberty
Robert Glass
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