Branden Johnson grew up in a gun-owning family in Oregon. His mother and stepfather had several rifles and pistols, and they would head to a range in Eugene for target practice. Yet Johnson never had the slightest interest in joining them.
“I thought it was a little weird,” he said.
His attitude toward guns would change after the Oct. 7 Hamas rampage in southern Israel, which precipitated the ongoing war and a spike in antisemitic incidents worldwide, including in the Bay Area. A recent survey by the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area found that 61% of the region’s Jews feel less safe since the war began — and Johnson is one of them.
“I never envisioned myself being interested in learning how to shoot a gun, but since October 7th, I have felt very ill at ease in a way that I haven’t felt before,” he said.
That’s why on a recent Sunday, the 39-year-old San Francisco resident found himself sitting in a classroom at the San Leandro Rifle & Pistol Range with 17 other nervous-looking Jews, most of them in their 20s and 30s.
They came for a handgun shooting class organized by SF Bay Area Degenerate Jews, aka SF BAD Jews, an off-beat social group that launched in December. With the pop-pop-pop of rounds discharging nearby as a soundtrack, an instructor played a slideshow covering the National Rifle Association’s “safe handling” rules. Then the participants practiced with orange-tipped airsoft guns, learning how to grip the guns, load dummy bullets into magazines and aim using one’s dominant eye. After that, it was off to the indoor range to fire 50 rounds at paper targets from real 9mm pistols.
In interviews, many of the attendees said something along the lines of: “I’m not planning to buy a gun anytime soon, but I’d like to know how to use one if necessary.”
While waiting for her turn to shoot, Shani — who, like most others interviewed for this article, declined to give her last name due to personal safety concerns — said she signed up for the class to “let off some steam” after months of stress over the war. She was living in Israel on Oct. 7 and moved to San Francisco shortly afterward.
“I want to learn how to shoot to feel a sense of stability for myself,” the Pilates instructor said.
Several of the participants had shot rifles or shotguns before, but not handguns.
Sarah grew up in a small town in North Carolina, and members of her family hunted. She owned a rifle when she lived alone in a rural part of the state. Now living in Redwood City, Sarah said she doesn’t feel the need to keep a gun around. But, she said, “anytime that a minority group is experiencing active hate, if there are things they can do to feel empowered, that’s a good thing.”
She added, “Learning how to shoot is a good life skill to have, like learning how to drive a stick shift.”
Shelley and Ron, an Israeli couple who also live in Redwood City, learned how to shoot rifles as part of their mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces. They had never handled pistols, though, as private gun ownership was tightly regulated in Israel before Oct. 7. (After the war started, the Knesset eased the requirements to obtain a gun license. In December, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the National Security Ministry was receiving 1,000 license applications per day, compared with about 850 per week before the war began.)
“I wouldn’t even know where to go to get a gun in Israel,” said Shelley, an information security engineer. “You’re much more likely to see a gun in America, so it’s good to know how to be safe around one.”
What was it like to shoot a 9mm?
“The first few rounds are loud and powerful,” said Ron, a software engineer. “It’s not like the movies, which make it look cool.”
Shelley added, “It was really fun, but after a few times my shoulder was getting sore.”
Since Oct. 7, Yaniv Cohen of Novato said he’s been mulling over a question he had never considered before: “Do I need to arm myself?”
For most of his life, the 46-year-old IT analyst said he was proud that he had never shot a gun. But as an Israeli American, he has felt unsettled by the acts of harassment and vandalism targeting Jews and Jewish-owned businesses in San Francisco, Berkeley and other local cities.
“I feel the clock is ticking,” he said. “If someone comes to our house in the North Bay, I want to be ready.” He noted that his wife, who is Native American and “carries multiple generations of trauma,” supports his interest in learning more about firearms.
Igor Milgram, the founder of SF BAD Jews, is a gun enthusiast who owns several pistols and likes to go skeet shooting on the weekends. He said he organized the intro-to-shooting class because he had heard local Jews express concerns about their safety.
“I’ve been telling people: go to the gym, learn how to fight and learn how to fire a gun,” he said.
The general attitude among residents of the overwhelmingly liberal Bay Area is that guns are inherently bad, Milgram said, yet he knows many liberals, including Jews, who are gun owners. He called guns a “tool” that everyone should know how to use.
“If I could wave a magic wand and make every firearm in the world disappear forever, I would,” he said. “But that’s not the world we live in.”
He continued, “I do think that people should learn about them and respect them instead of just having the fear of them. If IDF soldiers are able to be taught, as a 19- or 20-year-old, how to safely handle a firearm, you can, too.”
Milgram, 32, was born in Ukraine and moved to San Francisco with his family when he was 2. He started SF BAD Jews because he said he found a dearth of activities for young Jews to do together outside of explicitly Jewish settings. Since December, he has organized outings to shows, restaurants and Clarion Alley, a collection of murals in San Francisco’s Mission District. He relies on help from volunteers and spreads the word about events on Instagram, where the @sfbadjews account has just over 1,000 followers.
He said he was happy with the turnout at the shooting class and pointed out that more women than men showed up.
“There’s tasers and there’s pepper spray, and those help, but being able to have a firearm in your home is going to be the No. 1 way to defend yourself as a woman — or as anyone,” he said.
The instructor, Robin Yang of local firearms training company Gun Kraft, told J. that he has been teaching classes in the Bay Area for a decade and that this was the first ethnic or religious group to reach out to him.
Shooting guns is not a traditional part of Jewish culture, though the right to self-defense is well-established in halachah (Jewish law). The Talmud states, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” In the past, local synagogues such as Congregation Beth Emek in Pleasanton have offered gun-safety classes for youth.
“Judaism is very big into self-preservation,” Rabbi Joel Landau of Congregation Adath Israel in San Francisco told J. in a phone interview. “My wife and I feel strongly about the importance of gun ownership for self-preservation. And we think background checks are crucial.”
Landau, who served in the IDF and owned a personal gun when he lived in Israel, said he supports local Jews who seek out instruction in firearms. “Just buying a gun and having it there is not enough,” he said. “Training is crucial. That’s the big deal.”
After Johnson, the Oregon native, took his turn shooting a 9mm, he posed for photos with his target. It was riddled with holes.
“My first few shots were really good, which is weird because I had never shot a gun before,” said Johnson, who works as director of business operations for Camp Ramah Northern California and director of education for Foster City’s Peninsula Sinai Congregation. “It seems strange to say that it was enjoyable, but I did find it somewhat enjoyable, just approaching it as developing a new skill.”
“Hopefully, I’ll never have to use it,” he added. “But at the same time, now I do feel much more comfortable with the idea of having to defend myself or others with a firearm.”