By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Fox News is reporting on a spike in gun ownership in California’s Jewish community, and it may be indicative of a national trend in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel communities bordering the Gaza Strip.
The Fox report discussed an organization based in Los Angeles called Magen Am, which, according to its website, is “the only Jewish, non-profit organization licensed to provide physical, armed security services on the West Coast of the United States.”
“Recently released numbers show a continued increase in hate crimes in Los Angeles,” the Magen Am website notes, “reaching the highest levels in 19 years. Additionally, a staggering 74% of all religiously motivated hate crimes targeted Jews.”
The drift toward gun ownership is not just a California phenomenon.
According to a Dec. 8 report in the Daily Signal, Jews around the world have been arming themselves against attack, which appears to be counter to tradition. The report quoted New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz observing, “Jews tend not to own guns, and that’s very unfortunate, because if you look at our history, we could’ve used one or two throughout that time.”
TGM contacted firearms retailer Joe Krawtschenko, proprietor at The Gun Shoppe in Sarasota, Fla. He confirmed an uptick in firearm sales over the past 2 ½ months since the October attack by Hamas terrorists.
“The day it happened,” he recalled, “things started picking up.”
He said there is a large Jewish community in Florida, and he has seen many Jewish Americans buying firearms.
“Anytime we see any kind of attack,” he observed, “in the Middle East, or involving terrorists, or at churches, people start buying guns.”
Back on Oct. 24, the Deseret News reported, “Gun sales have surged among Jews throughout the United States since Hamas attacked Israel.” The newspaper alluded to a report from the Anti-Defamation League which said antisemitic incidents in this country had risen 36 percent “before the war in Israel and Gaza.”
“Assaults, vandalism and harassment were higher in 2022 than in any year since the league began keeping records in 1979,” the report stated.
About that same time, NBC News was reporting how firearms instructors and Jewish security groups “across the country” were being “flooded with new clientele” in the wake of the Hamas attack. NBC quoted another Florida gun dealer—David Kowalsky, owner of Florida Gun Store in Hollywood—who told the network he had seen “a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms.” He said the majority of these new clients had never had any experience with firearms, or even considered owning one, but evidently the October attack changed that.
Mark Oliva, public affairs director at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told TGM the estimated gun sale-related background checks in October and November were up noticeably over the same months in 2022.
The October 2023 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Background Check ( NICS) data reflecting actual firearm transactions was up 8.3 percent (1,370,719) over October 2022, when NSSF data put the number at 1,265,311. Last month, he said, the adjusted figure showed a 5 percent increase over November 2022, with 1,595,476 sales-related NICS checks compared to last year’s 1,519,524 checks.
Back on Dec. 10, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a story about a man who “picked up a gun and learned how to use it” following the attack five years ago at the Tree of Life synagogue, where as madman murdered 11 people. The middle-aged subject of the story, identified only as “David,” acknowledged that when he was growing up, the thought of owning a gun was “taboo.”
But he didn’t follow through at the time, and decided not to purchase a gun. “Then,” the story notes, “Oct. 7 happened.”
It was like a wake-up call reminding him that all was not well in his world. There was antisemitic graffiti on a local high school and throughout his neighborhood. Lawn signs supporting Israel were defaced or even burned, and a woman armed with a hammer struck a window at a design shop which had a sign stating, “We Stand With Israel.”
A mid-October story at WFAA News quoted a gun dealer in Farmers Branch, Texas, who also said his sales had picked up, and that many of his customers were “saying they are scared for their lives, because of their religion they are expecting to be attacked.” This was one week following the Hamas attack.
Retailer David Prince at Eagle Gun Range in Farmers Branch and Lewisville told WFAA he had seen a 300 percent spike in gun sales at both locations, and the customers were “primarily Jewish.”
Such reports do not surprise veteran gun rights activists, who matter-of-factly explain that when people suddenly find themselves facing genuine threats, they suddenly “re-discover” the Second Amendment.
