WOODLAND PARK, NJ — My friend “JB” grew nervous as we walked into a Gun for Hire store in this suburb of New York City and saw bold typeface fonts in red, white and black colors.

“You see this?! It’s like the Nazis’ color scheme,” he says, looking around incredulously. The Third Reich color scheme was doubly weird given that we saw more than a dozen Orthodox Jews buying and firing guns as we arrived. JB seemed to have second thoughts about taking this road trip to check out a gun store and gun range. 

This Gun for Hire place calls itself “America’s urban defense institute since 1992” and bills itself as a “family destination gun range” of 6-star quality. It claims to be the “only 6-star” range of its kind but I’m not sure if they are using Zagat’s guide, Michelin stars, Yelp reviews or some other metric. It boasts that you can bring an 8-year-old to shoot with you. You can even rent a 9-mm hand-cranked gatling gun, which they advertise for “10 rounds of AWESOMENESS for only $7 bucks.”

They offer beginner courses, corporate events, bachelorette parties and even kids birthday parties. You can buy yourself an annual membership to this place from $199 a year to $4,850 a year, the latter of which gives you what they call “AMAZING PERKS” such as access to a private, VIP lounge, invitation to special events, unlimited range time and your spouse shoots free. Gun for Hire loves using declarative statements and exclamation points such as: “Rent Over 250 Different Firearms!”

“The whole reason I’m even considering it [a gun purchase] is I feel that things are very uncertain,” JB said that day. “I never before that ever considered having a gun in my house…. I never felt I may need it or want it.”

He’d arrived at a point where he wanted to think through gun ownership. Yet he felt queasy about lining pockets of the National Rifle Association and the firearms industrial complex. As someone on the center left of the political spectrum, he feels off kilt in the gun store.

JB isn’t alone. Americans from the ideological left, right and middle – and every stop in between – are increasingly trying and buying guns. Their fear is multi-fold: a Coronavirus pandemic, an uptick in unemployment and violent crimes in major cities, public unrest related to racial injustice, street battles between ideological foes and a presidential election that already has tones of conspiracy theories, recounts and allegations of fraud. What’s the evidence that this trend is true, beyond JB’s interest?

Upsurge in Gun Purchases

In 2020, Americans are squirreling away guns in record numbers. Americans bought 15.1 million guns between March and September, up 91 percent from the same timeframe in 2019, according to The Trace, a nonprofit news outlet that reports on guns in American society. Nearly three out of four voters are concerned about riots and violence after election day according to a JL Partners-Independent poll. ReligionUnplugged has reported extensively this year about how church groups in America are increasingly using armed “life safety teams” to defend against armed conflict in places of worship. The desire for guns is extending far beyond churches, however.

Mark Peter Smith, the CEO of gun maker Smith & Wesson Brands, told investors in September that 40 percent of sales this year went to new gun owners. Another industry CEO, Jon Barker of Sportsman’s Warehouse Holdings, said in September that, during the first seven months of the year, 5 million people purchased firearms for the first time. Other retailers such as Walmart are reporting massive shortages of guns and ammo. Meanwhile, share prices of Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger, the two top U.S. manufacturers, have soared 131 percent and 59 percent, respectively, this year.

“The historically high sales are adding millions of weapons to a nation that already has more guns than people. The Geneva-based Small Arms Survey estimated the number of U.S. guns at 393 million in 2017. That dwarfed the next highest totals of 71 million in India and nearly 50 million in China — countries that both have populations four times the size of the United States,” according to a report in Reuters.

The FBI reports a record number of background checks this year. The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) — a widely accepted proxy — shows a 41 percent increase in activity during the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2019, which was a record year. “With 28.8 million background checks through the end of September, this year’s surge has already surpassed last year’s all-time high of 28.4 million,” reports NBC News. The Trace reports the largest uptick in background checks happening in New Jersey (up 180 percent) and Michigan (up 198 percent). Even states with the lowest growth in background checks, North Dakota and Alaska, were still up by a third"

In past decades, gun sales were driven by white, male conservative voters – typically of the hunting, fishing and farmer variety. Reuters, The New York Times and others report that more women, liberals, Blacks and first-time gun buyers are visiting gun stores and buying weapons now.

Earlier in October, a group of 13 men in Michigan were arrested for plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat. Media reported that seven of the men were part of a militia group called Wolverine Watchmen. In late October, Walmart removed guns and ammo from display in stores as a “precaution” in case civil unrest sweeps the country during the presidential election and stores are robbed.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” JB says. “I don’t see this going away. This is something that I think, unfortunately, will be with us for a long time.” He says history suggests these kinds of forces emerge quickly and lead to violence, whether organized or random.

Journey to a Gun Store

JB is an industrial designer and entrepreneur. He spent two years in Israel as a child and shot guns there. Otherwise, he is not a card-carrying NRA member or a gun enthusiast. He despises Donald Trump and believes the country’s at risk for massive civil unrest. As a self-described religiously-unobservant Jew and center left Democrat, JB and I both thought he might be the last person to visit a gun store. Yet JB, one of my suburban dad friends in a New Jersey suburb called me one day as I was waiting for the train to New York City. 

“This may sound odd but hang with me for a second,” he said. “I’m concerned about the direction of the country and civil unrest. I want to buy a shotgun for home protection. I’m wondering if you want to come with me to visit a gun store?”

After several days of juggling kids and work, we found a couple spare hours to drive to Guns for Hire roughly 30 minutes west of our left-leaning suburban enclave, a Portland of the East, to a more 86-percent White and 34-percent Italian enclave of Woodland Park.

JB waits in line to talk to a burly sales associate wearing a polo shirt with a corporate logo and a holster on his belt. The man answered JB’s questions about whether to buy a Mossberg “tactical” shotgun for home protection or a “bird gun” like a Remington 870. The Mossberg’s are sold out for at least a year, the man says. The Remingtons are also scant as the company recently went bankrupt. But other shotguns are available. 

We ask the man if we can practice shooting guns in the range that day. He smiles, says yes, invites us in, pointing us to a counter where sales staff, working behind plexiglass shields, take our government issued IDs and have us fill out forms so we can shoot. We were accepted into the family. 

“A shotgun will work well on protestors,” the front door salesman said with a smile, accepting us into his club. “I mean violent protestors.” 

Later, JB referred back to that remark. “Did you hear that?!” he said. “He was making a joke about shooting protestors!” 

A Growing Religion of Guns

After filling out forms, we wait in line to select the guns we wanted to shoot at the range. We settle on a Mossberg 500a 12-guage shotgun and a Sig Sauer p320 9-millimeter handgun. The total bill to shoot those two guns for an hour with three boxes of ammo and have an instructor give us safety tips cost us $206.02. The clerk hands us one of those plastic pagers that blinks red when your table is ready at chain restaurants like The Cheesecake Factory. Fifteen minutes later, we take our boxes of ammo and gun cases through an airlock security door, into the range.

“Boom! Pow! BOOM!”

Shots ring out across the firing range. We estimate roughly 30 percent of the 100 or so patrons we see are Hasidic or Orthodox Jews. Some have rented the biggest assault rifles possible and have one of their wig-wearing, young women aiming the gun down range and firing bullets at a target, the big gun rocking her backward as her male companions - wearing yarmulkes, hair curls and tallit katan cloaks with fringe strings – grin from ear to ear. Is this some kind of verboten sexual turn on? Is it some kind of spiritual high for those interested in self-defense against anti-Semitic terrorists?

“It was clearly a thrill” for them, said JB, who lived in Israel as a kid and visited regularly. He explained differences of religious practice and devotion of the different Jewish groups in the range, noting at least one group looked Israeli.

“Kapow! Zzzip! BOOM!”

Another tribe of patrons in the gun range seems to be young men and women of color, representing many different ethnic backgrounds and age ranges. I wonder why they are so intrigued with guns and why any young person wants to spend hard-earned money to shoot these guns? Are they worried, like JB seems to be, about armed Trump supporters wreaking havoc on the nation? Or are they Black Lives Matter protestors who are angered by armed Boogaloos, Proud Boys and vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisc.? Are they gearing up for battle?

“Boom! Booom! BOOOOM!!!”

And the other tribe at the gun range seems to be generally white, clean cut American men with stocky builds and resolute dispositions. They seem to mostly wear cargo pants, polo shirts tucked into their belts. They speak and act a bit like soldiers. Are these Trump supporters, Law and Order Republicans?

Our safety instructor, Chris, arrives to walk us through the tips of loading a clip, cocking the barrel and firing off shots into our home robber target. Chris is a black guy who seems military-trained, maybe a cop – super polite, disciplined and straight-edge. He’s a guy I’d want on my team playing Laser Tag or Thanksgiving Day pick-up football.

JB and I work our way through a box of 9 mm shells, taking turns pumping a clip of 10 bullets into a target featuring an image of a robber using the Sig Sauer pistol. Every so often a spent shell from a neighboring booth flips into our space and lands on one’s neck with a hot metal sensation. Loud “BOOMs!”and “POPs!” punctuate the air. Thankfully, we are wearing rented noise canceling headphones and goggles.

Accidental Tensions Flare

At one point, a small group of young guys – all people of color -- arrive at the booth next to us and I thought one guy asked me a question. I said, “Huh?” and looked at him inquisitively. I thought I was being polite. They seemed alarmed at us suburban dads wearing our flannel shirts and handling firearms with relative ease. He waved his arms in retreat as if he thought I was agitated and he wanted to de-escalate the situation. I couldn’t hear anything with noise canceling headphones on and gunshots blaring all around. I wanted to communicate peace in return. I didn’t have an olive branch or white flag handy so I just smiled and performed gun range charades. I gave a thumbs up indicating, “All good! I’m not trying to shoot you or start a fight with you. Nor do I think you are trying to start anything with me.” They seemed to get the message and smiled back. Phew! Peace in the gun range.

After each time JB shoots the target 10 times, he likes to push the button to whisk the target back to the shooting booth so he can inspect the shots and carefully marvel at his marksmanship.

“You got him right in the thoracic cavity,” I remark.

“Yeah. Right,” he says. “I gave him a tracheotomy.”

Having shot our fill with the pistol, we migrate to the Mossberg shotgun. Another instructor, this one an older white man with a Pittsburgh Yinzer accent explains the lock, the sights and how to load and fire the gun, which is launching slugs rather than birdshot. “You want to lean into it a little bit,” he instructs.

“Five yard minimum with your target. So no less than five!”

“What’s the caliber?” JB asks, feigning knowledge and a deep voice.

“It’s a 12-gauge!” Chris says.

“Oh. Right,” JB says. “12-gauge.”

JB recoils a bit as the instructor blurts instructions through a flimsy neck scarf that doesn’t pass the CDC guidance as an effective Covid-19 mask.

“Aim for the center of the target,” the instructor says. “I know he’s a zombie and you got to kill him in the head.” But staff doesn’t want people shooting shotgun slugs into the ceiling or hitting the electronic equipment that zips the targets back and forth in the gun range. “He’s not actually a zombie, Ok?”

Frustrations And Fringes

Neither JB or I expected the gun range in 2020 to be the equivalent of going to the mini-golf course. Groups of friends giggled, laughed and squeezed off rounds as if playing corn-hole. It only turned gloomy as we were leaving. One black man at the gun-rental counter was getting upset that he wasn’t being allowed into the shooting gallery with his friends. He threw up his hands and raised his voice with the clerks. They looked at him sternly and explained the rules. Their hands were ready to pull a gun on the customer anytime they needed. For a moment, it felt like we were all in an Old West Saloon with tensions running high between bar patron and bartenders.

As we drive away, back to our suburban enclave, JB reflects on the lack of resolution for his original quest. And he feels even more conflicted.

“Where do people toward the center or even on the left who aren’t opposed to guns and don’t want to kill the second amendment but are interested in greater restrictions, how do we participate in gun ownership without supporting the fringe?”

He wonders aloud if people on the center right and center left need an alternative to the NRA. We start brain-storming names of such a centrist gun ownership organization.

“Aim for the Center,” he proposes.

“Shoot for the middle,” I retort.

We are not sure the acronyms AFC or SFTM have a chance to dethrone the mighty NRA.

He worries about militia groups, fringe groups, unrest from the far right and the far left. We ponder what will happen in this country where a record 17 million guns have sold this year and where violence seems poised to explode.

“This is a very serious issue that a lot of people are feeling right now,” JB says. “I hope it’s all just precautionary. I hope that none of these concerns ever come to fruition.”

Paul Glader is executive editor of ReligionUnplugged.com and is a professor at The King’s College in NYC, where he directs the McCandlish Phillips Journalism Institute. He spent a decade as a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal and has written for The Associated Press, The Washington Post, Forbes.com, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and numerous other publications. He is on Twitter @PaulGlader.

Note to readers: ReligionUnplugged agreed to use JB’s initials rather than full name at his request.

God & Guns

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