Ben Shapiro: Every synagogue ‘should have at least an armed guard’

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called Monday for U.S. synagogues to “have at least an armed guard, and several qualified people with firearms” following the weekend stabbing of five people at the home of a New York rabbi during a Hanukkah celebration.

“Seeing some heartburn over guns in synagogues to protect worshippers. Get over it,” Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, wrote to his 2.4 million followers on Twitter.

Seeing some heartburn over guns in synagogues to protect worshippers. Get over it. Relying on the kindness of strangers to protect against anti-Semitism is historically idiotic. Every shul should have at least an armed guard, and several qualified people with firearms. Ours does.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 30, 2019

New York investigators reportedly discovered anti-Semitic rhetoric in suspect Grafton Thomas’s journals and on his cellphone, including drawings of swastikas and an online search for “German Jewish Temples near me.” 

Federal hate crime charges were filed against Thomas on Monday in addition to five earlier counts of attempted murder and one of robbery.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said over the weekend the attack was “an act of domestic terrorism.”

The attack comes three weeks after a shooting in a Jersey City, N.J., kosher store left six dead, including two shooters who carried it out.

Last year’s mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which killed 11, was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.