The Windsor Hills Baptist Church of Oklahoma City gave away a gun at its annual youth conference, held last week. The youth conference included a shooting competition (Jesus loves a good target range, after all), and the winner received an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle donated to the church. I know it sounds bad, but don't worry: the church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, explained that the main thrust of the conference wasn't about guns but rather "teens finding faith.”
Nothing Says Faith: Like an AR-15
He said, “I don’t want people thinking ‘My goodness, we’re putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn’t respect it who are then going to go out and kill. That’s not at all what we’re trying to do.”

I’m thinking I might start a USY chapter that has an annual event where we play with knives, set fires, and practice punching crash test dummies in the gut. But in between the violence, we’ll give tzedakah, and sing David Melech Yisrael. Then it’s okay. 

I've always wanted to go to the shooting range. Maybe I just have an obsession with J. Lo's character in Out of Sight, but for years I've wanted toWill to Power: Author wanted to hold a gun in her hands know what it feels like to shoot a gun, to have that kind of power in your hands. So last week my friend Andy convinced me that after many years of talking about it, it was time. I had to cross this one thing off my life's to-do list.

Around noon on Tuesday, Andy and I walked into a firing range in Inglewood, just blocks from LAX. It was conveniently sandwiched between a porn store, a car wash, and a bar. When we told the clerk we wanted to shoot a few rounds, he barely blinked, took our IDs and asked which guns we wanted.

"What do they shoot on CSI?" I asked. He handed me a Beretta and two boxes of ammunition. Then we chose our targets. I was too freaked out to get ten human outlines, so we opted for some regular bullseyes, two human forms, and a selection of neon prairie dogs for good measure.

"We're new at this," Andy bravely told the guy behind the counter. I foolishly assumed the clerk was a gun enthusiast who'd be excited to give us newbies an hour-long lecture on gun safety, hold my hand while I took my target, and tell stories of training first-timers. I was wrong.

"Here's the magazine, here are your bullets. Don't EVER put your thumbs above the grip. Have fun," he instructed. "That's it???"

Andy looked at me and shrugged. "This is insane," I thought.

We went inside.

For the first ten minutes, I just sat there with the gun, jumping a mile every time someone else in the range fired off a shot. I was close to tears. But then Andy began loading the Glock he'd chosen and fired two shots, hands shaking. I got up the nerve to load my hefty Beretta, feeling its weight in my palms, and stood there, scared of the kick back, but knowing I had to do it. I was there, afterall.

I held the revolver just like they do on TV - right hand over the trigger, left cradling it below, feet planted firmly, staring at my target. I took my shot. The gun kicked back, but not nearly strong enough that I'd lose control. The pop was loud, so loud, and then it was just... over. It was so easy. I loaded it again, and shot again. And then I loaded three bullets into the magazine. Pop. Pop. Pop. So that's what semi-automatic means. Until we were through two boxes of 100 bullets each. I'm a decent shot, FYI. It was even getting... fun.

And then the implications of it being so easy hit me. "This is totally crazy," I thought. "What's a nice Jewish girl like me doing at a firing range?!"

The raucous bunch of Swedish guys were still at the other end of the range shooting rifles and a few tough-looking kids had come in next to us, with what looked like AK-47s. What if one of them decided the targets were boring? Anyone of them could just turn around and shoot someone. It sounds obvious, but when you actually have a gun in your hands, it makes their purpose feel so much more real.

I won't say I didn't get a thrill from the experience - I was high from the adrenaline rush the rest of the day, and I see now how people could get obsessed with it. But the reality of it was just too intense - THIS of all things is a constitutional right? I am not convinced that the shooting range is quite what our forefathers had in mind when they prioritized the right to bear arms. But you have to admit, a girl with a gun is pretty hot.

I went to mincha on Shabbat afternoon, and during seudah shlishit (the mini dinner they serve between mincha and maariv) conversation somehow turned to gun control. Where I come from, there’s a pretty uniform sentiment that guns are bad news, and that normal city-dwelling people shouldn’t go out buying Saturday Night Specials or shotguns for any reason. Even in the uber-frum community in Chicago, I’ve never heard anyone express any pro-gun feelings. In Nashville, though, things are different. Of the thirteen guys sitting around the shabbat table, I’d say eight were gun-owners. Enthusiastic gun owners. Ecstatic gun owners. There was one particularly smug gun owner who thought I was an absolute moron for suggesting gun legislation should be much stricter. Conversation was strained and annoying as hell. As I walked home, I started brainstorming comebacks for my next conversation with this guy. I think, probably, I’ll just avoid him in general since he’s proved to be pretty ridiculous, but I’m going to share my ideas in case any Jewcers out there can use them at their own unfortunate Shabbat table.
Scary: Keep 'em away
FrumNRALovr613: If Jews had had their own guns in Germany before the Holocaust they never would have let the Nazis take over.
Overcompensatingmuch: I think you’re missing the larger point. If guns hadn’t been given to so many whackos during the Holocaust, people wouldn’t have died. Making guns more available just made it easier for people to kill Jews.
FrumNRALovr613: Look at the Warsaw ghetto! We never would have been able to hold the Nazis back as much as we did if we hadn’t had any guns.
Overcompensatingmuch: Baruch Hashem, we’re not in a ghetto now. And the Warsaw uprising, while courageous, was a largely symbolic resistance. Guns didn’t accomplish anything for us then.
FrumNRALovr613: So we’re not in Warsaw--we’re in Israel now, surrounded on all sides by enemies. Don’t you think we should have guns there? Don’t you feel safer with guns all around you in Israel?
Overcompensatingmuch: In Israel, everyone goes through extensive gun training and safety in the army. Israeli soldiers have to follow very strict rules about where they can keep their guns, and when they can use them. This fosters a much greater understanding of the weighty power of a gun than most Americans have. (And regardless I can’t say I feel particularly safe surrounded by teenagers with M-16s.) The only comfort in Israel is that the people walking around with obviously big guns (no pun intended) are guards, and every time I want a slice of pizza I’m asked if I’m carrying a weapon. It’s not civilians walking around with guns in Jerusalem, it’s soldiers and policemen.
FrumNRALovr613: The Torah says that if a man comes to kill you that you should rise up and kill him first. Owning guns is the most surefire way to make sure you can defend yourself.
Overcompensatingmuch: The Torah also says that if you build a roof it must be properly gated (Deut 22:8) which is taken by the rabbanim as a general directive to remove all safety hazards. I’m not saying self-defense should be disallowed. I’m just saying guns should only be present in places where they’re not a danger to the environment. A home with children is an unsafe place for a loaded weapon.
FrumNRALovr613: Fine, but if I’m a single adult man, I should be able to just go buy a gun at Wal-Mart, no problem.
Overcompensatingmuch: Here’s the problem, though: the Talmud says you’re not even allowed to own a dangerous dog because of the harm it may do. It one does own a savage dog, it must always be kept chained (Bava Kamma 79b). Even if you have the dog defanged and declawed and it has been specially trained to be docile, it still must be chained at all times because it could cause people who don’t know it isn’t dangerous to be so scared they end up with stress injuries like a heart attack or a miscarriage (Shabbat 63b). If a dog has to be kept away so as not to scare people, so much more so a gun. Very dangerous and frightening things like guns need to be severely restricted. They shouldn’t be available to just anyone who’s interested.
FromNRALovr613: I agree that guns are frightening and dangerous, but that’s why I need to have my own—so I can protect myself and my family.
Overcompensatingmuch: Studies consistently find that there’s a strong correlation between gun ownership and homicide with a gun.
FrumNRALovr613: That’s because it’s called homicide even when someone kills the person who has come to rob them.
Overcompensatingmuch: Well, I don’t think robbery justifies shooting someone, but even if I grant your premise, gun ownership is significantly related to both the level of robberies and the level of sexual assaults. High levels of gun ownership are consistently found to be related to higher levels of violence generally. Which is to say that owning a gun increases the risk that anyone in your family be exposed to theft, sexual assault, and other kinds of violence.

For more on Jewish groups for stricter gun control, check out these links:
Gun Shy on Gun Control
Jewish Values and Gun Control
Gun Control: A Jewish Look

Thoughts on the symbiotic rapport between yoga and guns courtesy Patton Oswalt, The New York Times Magazine:

You shoot better when you realize that your soul is a leaf falling through time, and that work shouldn’t equal struggle. And yoga never aligns you with the universe better than when your forearm is still tingling from the buck and recoil of a .357 bullpup.

Someone needs to open a combination shooting range and yoga studio. I’m serious. Maybe I should do it. Hose off a few clips of Glaser safety slugs, then see how deep you can go into Warrior II. The murder rate would go down. No, wait — it would stay the same, but people would realize it’s all part of a bigger plan. Or, no, it would go up, because people would realize the transitory nature of existence, and that everything that has happened or is going to happen is always happening someplace forever, so why not put a slug in that dude’s head who won’t stop talking during “300”?