American Jews are embracing a ‘come to arms’ moment, with thousands arming and training since October 7, 2023, driven by a 140% surge in antisemitic incidents. Conservative and Orthodox Jews lead, forming gun clubs and advocating Second Amendment rights, while some Reform Jews join the trend. Localized data and trainer reports confirm this shift, reinforcing the mission of Jews Can Shoot to empower our community through firearms education against antisemitism.
Recently, I made a video articulating a long-held personal belief—that Jews with CCWs, like myself, should be able to carry our guns into houses of worship and at Jewish events. The reason is basic; when I speak at events, there is usually armed security inside the venue. But outside the venue, when I am leaving and walking alone through the parking lot, there is very rarely any security protecting attendees. This is a glaring blind spot in Jewish spaces, and the effects are catastrophic—just look at the tragic shooting of the two young Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, in Washington, D.C. last month. They were not killed while in the event space, a Jewish museum where there was (scant) internal security; instead, they were shot while leaving the venue, as they were alone and vulnerable to attack.
Every time I express this position, especially alongside my broader conviction that it is extraordinarily important for Jews to obtain CCWs and carry guns, I hear a wave of pushback from within the Jewish community, which is still largely opposed to gun ownership. But their arguments are always flimsy at best and dangerously deluded at worst. These critics point to the use of deadly firearms in attacks like the embassy shooting, moralistically proclaiming that we should be pushing to regulate weapons instead of arming ourselves in return, and that antisemitism would be less deadly if it wasn’t backed up by the force of a lethal weapon.
But this argument neglects to consider basic realities—first and most obviously, the fact that antisemitism continues to rise in America. Just last week, a few days after an Egyptian national threw Molotov cocktails at elderly Jews attending a hostage awareness march in Colorado, the FBI issued a public service announcement highlighting an increased and ongoing “public safety threat” to “Jewish and Israeli communities.” These dangers to our community in a post-October 7th world certainly have not been mitigated by any liberal arguments for peace and discussion; rather, the anti-Jewish threat in our society, amplified by a ceaseless tide of social media propaganda, hate-spewing online bots, and leftist agitation, has only grown stronger.
By Dr. Sheila Nazarian
