How a secular
policy wonk and
NRA member
discovered Judaism
and embraced
gun control.

JAMES D. BESSER

Washington Correspondent

Washington

riends knew Tom Diaz was
changing when he started
reading about ants. It wasn't
just the science that
intrigued him, although the Capitol
Hill staffer was known among col-
leagues as a wonk's wonk. It was the
miracle of creation — the endless vari-
ety, the questions science couldn't
answer.
The ants were early signs of a per-
sonal reassessment that ultimately pro-
duced a dual conversion in Diaz's life
— to Judaism and away from the gun
culture that had always been part of
who he was.
Diaz, in middle age, has become a
serious Jew and a major figure in the

5/28
1999

6 Detroit Jewish News

effort to stop the national flood of
deadly weapons. It's a bitter battle that
inched forward with last week's Senate
vote requiring background checks for
weapons purchased at gun shows. The
two shifts in his life are connected,
though not in a linear way.
The whole process of considering
conversion to Judaism involves think-
ing about leading an ethical life, about
the meaning and consequences of
what you do," he said in a recent
interview. That means everything
from what you eat to how you treat
fellow human beings."
The same needs that started him on
the path to Judaism, he said, pressed
him to reexamine guns. His new
book, Making a Killing: The Business of
Guns in America, is an angry look at
an industry he says is "out of control."
But Diaz said he is not optimistic

apartment door, a macho warning to
potential thieves.
But something began to change
within him in the early 1990s. In part,
it was job related; Diaz, a lawyer and
journalist, began working for then-
Rep. Charles Schumer (D-New York),
now a U.S. senator. Schumer is one of
the fiercest advocates for tighter gun-
control laws in Congress.
"It really started when I went to
work on the crime subcommittee,"
Diaz said. "My focus at first was ter-
Devastating Testimony
rorism; then, the person who had the
Growing up in a military family, Diaz,
gun account got promoted and I took
58, lived in a succession of southern
over."
towns where guns were as common as
Diaz put together hearings on gun
bicycles for boys. As an adult, Diaz
violence and kids; some of the testi-
collected guns, attended gun shows
mony, he said, was devastating. His
and bought and sold weapons. He was
work on legislation banning some
a National Rifle Association (NRA)
assault weapons opened a window into
member and a competitive shooter; he
a changing firearms industry.
displayed bullet-riddled targets on his

that political leaders are ready to take
the same moral leap, even in the wake
of a series of tragic high school shoot-
ings.
"I'm sorry to say I don't think
Columbine has brought the nation to
the point where we're ready to look
directly at the problem — that our
country is awash in a sea of guns.
"Despite the recent incidents, were
in a state of national denial."

