With the rise of anti-semitism, Jews are doing the smart thing and arming themselves.
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“To be honest with you, I hate guns,” Peter, 76, shouted over the sound of gunshots Saturday afternoon as his wife took aim at a target at Gun World in Deerfield Beach. “But it’s better us than someone else.”
The Jewish couple had arrived for their Intro to Handguns lesson with Florida Firearms Training about noon. Peter, who asked to keep his last name private for safety reasons, had shot a rifle decades ago; his wife had never shot a gun before. By the end of the day they would be returning home with one. . . .
In an average week, FFT sees about 40 students in its intro class, Farrugia said. Now they’re looking at 80 to 90 students.
“There’s definitely a blip on the graph, a huge blip of just an influx of new shooters,” he said. “Of which I would say fifty to sixty percent are Jewish.”
The students are not gun nuts, or even necessarily conservative. Many know little to nothing about guns.
These are “people that have never thought of buying a gun, that are now saying ‘I need a gun,’” Farrugia said. “It’s all for the same reason. There’s that concern of, ‘Can something happen here? Can something happen to my family? I need to have a way of defending my family and my home.’ Sad, but that’s where we’re at.” . . .
Shira Moolten, “‘We don’t feel safe.’ As antisemitism threat rises, South Florida’s Jews arm themselves,” South Florida Sun Sentinel, November 5, 2023.
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