When I decided I wanted to learn how to handle a gun, even if only to be able to remove the bullets, I found that most firearms classes in Los Angeles demanded too much in time and money. Except for one, called JewsCanShoot. For $125, it promised the basics in just five hours on a Thursday. Behind the offer was an organization named the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, or CJHS, which bills itself as the “New Holocaust Resistance” and warns that Islam represents “an existential threat to the West.” Here was a class with some individuality. I sent in my tuition and showed up on a mid-September Thursday at the Angeles Shooting Ranges just north of the city.

“So I’m really glad you’re all here,” began Matt Weintraub, our lead instructor. He was a lean and fit 60-year-old wearing an olive baseball cap that said MATT. “The world’s changing from the way it has been,” he continued. “It’s a little scarier, and a lot of the things we used to do don’t work anymore.” On his hips hung a walkie-talkie and a holstered pistol. “My dad’s ninety, and he says, ‘We just gotta get out there and protest a little more and vote for certain things the way we want it.’ I tell him that didn’t work in the 1930s, when Hitler came to power through a democratic process. Voting helps, but it’s not the answer. There is no one answer, but learning defensive firearms is part of the answer.”

We were 13 pupils—Aaron, Yisroel, Deanna, Marilyn, Marsha, Lea, Leon, Linda, Allan, Alicia, Evan, Joan, and me—of whom only Yisroel and I seemed to be under 60. But all clearly felt it was better late than never to heed the call of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the Revisionist Zionist who famously urged Jews to master firearms, and all expressed concern over Islamic radicalism and anti-Semitism. Deanna mentioned that she had a new granddaughter and would kill anyone who tried to harm her. Marsha said she wanted her children to know that “I’ll have a gun, so if need be, they’ll come to me, and I’ll protect them.”

My shooting partner was Joan, a 75-year-old who moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and later became a lawyer at age 48. She asked me what I did, and I told her. “Oh, so you’re on the left,” she said. “We won’t hold it against you.” She wore white sneakers, pink pants, and a striped pink and white top that was embroidered with three small palm trees. During class introductions, Joan said she was there to conquer a fear of guns, not least because her husband, a survivor of Theresienstadt, believed that the world was more dangerous for Jews now than in the 1930s, with the Internet amplifying the hatred. “We’re living in worse times than anyone can imagine,” she explained. “It’s imperative that we defend ourselves.”

That said, world affairs mostly took a backseat to technical instruction, because we had a lot to cover. For the next two hours, we learned about the ABCs of handguns, including the difference between a semi-automatic and a revolver, between a single-action and double-action gun, and between a projectile and a round. We also learned when you can shoot a home intruder, and how much.