Jewish Views on Firearm Use & Ownership

"The Halacha of Selling Arms" Jewish Ideas Daily
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/5893/features/the-halakhah-of-selling-arms/

By the 5th century, it seems, Jews in Babylonia were selling arms to local [non-Jewish] authorities, reflecting a generally cooperative relationship with them. Christine Hayes has argued that exceptions to the gun sale ban might have already existed in the land of Israel in the 3rd century, as a parallel text in the Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 2:1) seems to indicate. In that text, the Talmud asserts that the prohibition applies only to cities where no Jews live. Once Jews live there, weapons sales remain permissible either because they will serve to protect Jewish as well as non-Jewish residents or, alternatively, because the peaceful habitation of Jews within the city shows that these Gentiles are not hostile to them.

Medieval commentators explained this Persian dispensation differently, possibly in partial reflection of their position within their own society. Rabbi Menachem Ha-Meiri took a moral approach. We need to do our share to help our society, he maintained, arguing that the original prohibition applied only to the godless barbarians of yesteryear. Others made more pragmatic calculations: We need their help now, and we hope they won’t later turn their weapons against us (Nimukei Yosef). Maimonides formulated this dispensation in terms of an alliance: “If Jews live among idolaters and have established a covenant with them, it is permitted to sell arms to the king’s servants.” In the 13th century, Rabbi Yitzchak of Vienna further deemed such a sale permissible even if the local ruler was at war with a city known to have a Jewish population, though he hoped that no harm would come to those Jews (Or Zarua Avodah Zarah 132). Others argued that no unvarying rule could be made, since the nature of Jewish-Gentile relations varied according to time and place (Riaz al ha-Rif). It remains clear, however, that this was not a mere theoretical discussion: Many sources affirm that Jews throughout the Middle Ages sold weapons or their components to their Gentile neighbors, because it benefited both parties and because they believed that the non-Jews in any case could acquire weapons by other means.

"Gun Control in Halachah" Jewish Action
https://jewishaction.com/religion/jewish-law/gun-control-halachah/

As noted earlier, the Talmud prohibits selling a weapon to a mashmuta—a Jewish bandit who has no history of violence but may use the weapon to escape capture. Rashi (Avodah Zarah 15b, s.v.L’Olam) notes that even if one is certain that the bandit won’t use the weapon to kill someone, he may use it to threaten someone and commit a crime (steal, et cetera). Thus, selling weapons to a bandit could make one guilty as an accessory to a crime. Rabbeinu Nissim (Avodah Zarah 5a), however, has a different explanation. He suggests that even if the bandit does not have a violent past, he will eventually be in a situation where he will use the weapon to avoid being captured. According to Rabbeinu Nissim, we are not only prohibited from selling weapons to people who are actually prone to commit murder, we may not sell weapons to those who have a greater than average propensity to use the weapon in a destructive manner.

"Jews and Guns" My Jewish Learning
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hunting-in-judaism/

Most authorities say it is not permissible to hunt for sport. Two sources are generally cited in this regard. The first is Rabbi Isaac Lampronri, who wrote in his work Pahad Yitzhak that it is forbidden to hunt animals because it’s wasteful. The 18th-century rabbinic authority Ezekiel Landau added that recreational hunting is forbidden on the grounds of animal cruelty and because of the risks to the hunter. Neither of the two biblical figures known to be hunters — Esau and Nimrod — are held up as role models. All the biblical patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob), as well as Joseph, Moses and King David were herders — nurturers of animals, not their pursuers.

Hunting for food is, in principle, not objectionable. However land animals must be ritually slaughtered by hand to render them kosher , which would make hunting them for food with a firearm impermissible.

"Jews and Guns" My Jewish Learning https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/hunting-in-judaism/

Some have suggested that if Jews had possessed guns in Nazi Germany, the Holocaust might not have occurred. Germany’s move to forbid Jewish gun ownership prior to launching the Final Solution is typically cited as a key support for this belief. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson briefly made this notion a matter of public debate after including it in his 2015 book A More Perfect Union and in subsequent interviews. The Anti-Defamation League responded that it was ludicrous to suggest armed Jews could have stopped the Holocaust. (Carson called the ADL statement “foolishness.”)

But the argument has also surfaced in publicity materials from Jewish gun activists, including the 2010 documentary No Guns for Jews, which implied that gun control measures in Europe in the 1930s enabled the Nazi genocide. “When the right to self defense is denied, God’s law is violated,” the film intones. “Would history have been rewritten if the SS confronted thousands of armed Jews during the riots of Kristallnacht?”