CORTLANDT, N.Y. – With the smell of fresh pine and gunpowder in the air, Jay Werner reloaded his Ruger LC9s semiautomatic pistol. A Star of David hung around his neck. He squinted one eye, took aim at the steel target down range, and the sound of full metal jacket rounds firing cut through the silence.
“We have some of the highest rates of antisemitism in the country,” Werner told Straight Arrow News after his shooting practice at a suburban New York City gun club for Jewish people called Lox & Loaded.
“Being Jewish, I have to fear for my life every day, wherever I go,” Werner, a native New Yorker, said. “I don’t expect the police to protect me 24/7. …The only person I can depend on to protect me is me.”…