PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Firearms Owners Against Crime President Kim Stolfer suggested during a Pittsburgh City Council post-agenda meeting Tuesday that the Tree of Life synagogue, where Robert Bowers is charged with killing 11 people last October, should be responsible for disarming its congregants.
“Why are we not holding the synagogue responsible for not having security?” asked Stolfer during the meeting.
On Wednesday Stolfer told KDKA Radio’s Lynne Hayes Freeland that he grabbed all of the headlines from the meeting because he, “had the temerity to point out that the rights of the congregants at the (Tree) of Life synagogue were. . .violated by a policy that left them defenseless and it’s our view that any entity, whether it be a business or a mall or anyone else that denies the civil right the right of the citizen to choose self-defense then takes it upon themselves to be the stewards of their security and they have to take and provide the necessary security against all eventualities,” said Stolfer.
“I know how it sounded. I know how I would’ve felt if that were my family. I know how I felt just being a resident of the City of Pittsburgh and anyone who cared about the situation at all had to have some . . . feelings toward that comment and whatever his intent, it did not come across very well for those of us listening,” said Kail Smith
Kail Smith adds not matter what Stolfer’s intent was, “it is never okay to blame the victim or to place any responsibility for an incident such as this on the victim.”
Stolfer says he isn’t surprised he has received pushback because it is “a hard truth that people have to face.”
Pointing to information presented by economist Dr. John Lott, Stolfer says society fails to see “that people that want to cause us harm look for the areas where people can’t fight back. He showed repeated examples of mass killers that avoided all kinds of other events and localities were there was a large gathering of people but selected an area specifically because there was a no gun policy.”