Charles Hu dishes out take on the world at John Jovino store

New York City usually doesn't come to mind when one thinks of gun stores, but the reasons why someone would want to buy a gun in the city really aren't differ from anywhere else.

This time of year, with the holidays arriving, Manhattan's only gun shop, John Jovino on Grand Street in Little Italy, sees an increase in sales.

"Usually Thanksgiving sales will increase several times compared with normal gun sales," said Charles Hu, 67, a native of Shanghai who manages the store, which has been in business since 1911 and bills itself as the oldest gun shop in the United States.

Hu said the store, which is known for its large sign of a revolver, has reached its sales target for the year already, calling the days around Thanksgiving "a big extra bonus".

"The gun sales increase at least five times on Black Friday, with approximately $100,000 daily net profit," Hu said.

According to Wikipedia, the original owner, John Jovino, sold the store to the Imperato family in the 1920s. The New York Times, in a 2003 article, quoted Anthony Imperato as the store's owner.

"The surging sales are partly because people want to send guns to their beloved" as gifts, said Hu, "from fathers to sons or wives to husbands".

"I bought the guns for self-security," Benjamin Petrosky, a former New York police officer, told China Daily at the store earlier this month.

Most of the eligible buyers are police or foreign diplomats, as New York City has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the nation, with permits to carry a handgun even more difficult to qualify for.

Hu said that to become a registered gun dealer, a store "must have a good relationship with law enforcement, the gun manufacturers and the government".

Hu said he was part of the first group of government-sponsored Chinese students studying abroad in the early 1980s. He also said he has always kept a low profile.

"You should never ask where the hero comes from," said Hu, using a Chinese expression.

After receiving his American citizenship, Hu worked as a media manager at the China Press newspaper in New York and as a New York City policeman before becoming the general manager of the store.

A self-proclaimed "president of Chinatown" in Manhattan, Hu speaks Mandarin (in which the interview was conducted), Cantonese, Shanghai dialect and English.

"Everyone in Chinatown turns to me for help," he said. "And I am always ready."

The visitors to the store are not always gun buyers, and some are local Chinese Americans who need help.

A Chinese man in his late 50s came to the store and asked Hu in Cantonese for something, later telling China Daily, "I need to track the package of the medicine for my intestinal cancer, but I can't speak English."

Hu said he is the "only New York guy" who has such a unique combination of identities.

Long Yifan in New York contributed to this story.