FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — When there is a crisis, when there is widespread fear, people buy more guns. Gun store owners will admit that much is true. But this week, David Prince at Eagle Gun Range in Farmers Branch and Lewisville says he's noticed something different.
"It's been a really big change this last three or four days," Prince said. "The people coming in and saying they are scared for their lives, because of their religion they are expecting to be attacked."
Prince says he's seen a 300% increase in gun sales at his two locations immediately after the recent conflict surfaced in Israel and the Gaza strip. The customers, he says, are primarily Jewish, like a customer named Jake who agreed to explain his motivation for visiting the Farmers Branch location on Friday to practice at the shooting range.
"It was like literally living in the middle of a horror movie," he said of watching news coverage of the Hamas attacks and Israeli reprisals in his native country. He asked not to show his face or use his full name because of social media chatter about Israelis all over the world becoming potential targets too.
"From my experience in Israel, whenever something big happens, the Jews around the world, they suffer from it too as well," he said. "With what's going on over there, I'm more concerned of something going bad."
Prince who says he will sell defensive weapons to people who qualify through background checks and encourage them to receive training at one of his locations too.
"As long as they want to protect themselves and their families, that's all we care about," Prince said. "We don't care about anything else. We sell them for defensive purposes and that's what we're here for."
Jake, who describes himself as an observant Jew, says that's what he cares about as well is and an end to the conflict soon.
"We all want peace at the end of the day. That's all we want," he said. "That's the main thing that we hope for. That's all we want for our families and for our nations."