In Israel you can buy 50 bullets a year. That’s it. And only if you’re a licensed gun owner. That number jumps to 100 bullets if you’re also a security guard.

Of the 8.5 million people in Israel (the number doesn’t include the 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza), about 135,000 of them have gun licenses — more like 100,000 if you remove the security guards. Most of the licenses are for 9 mm pistols.

So why is our “Second Amendment above all else” crowd implying Israel is a model for rampant gun ownership in the U.S.?

Mike Huckabee and Wayne LaPierre have claimed in the past few days that the security guards Israel places in front of schools are the reason the country doesn’t have the kind of shootings we do. People in Israel beg to differ. They say the guards are there to protect against the very real threat of terrorism. The country doesn’t suffer from the kind of regular, random, out-of-nowhere shootings we have in this country, in schools or elsewhere. One reason is, they have far stricter gun laws.

An article in the New York Times describes Israel’s gun laws. Anyone who scoffs and shouts “FAKE NEWS” because the article is in the Times is an idiot. Do your own research and see if the Times reporting bears out. I did, for a column I wrote in the Northwest Explorer in 2012 following the horrific Sandy Hook school shooting. The situation hasn’t changed significantly since then.

Here are a few more facts about Israeli gun laws from the Times article.

If you’ve been in the military or completed national service, you can apply for a gun license when you’re 21. Otherwise, the minimum age is 27. You have to give a reason for needing a gun. For everyone other than registered hunters (not a large population in Israel), the reasons have to relate to legitimate situations where you might need to defend yourself or others.

To get a license, people have to pass a background check and get an OK from their doctor. Lots of applicants don’t make the cut. Every year, gun owners have to practice at a shooting range. Every three years, they need to renew their license.

I can’t even imagine the outrage we’d hear if someone brought up Israel’s version of gun regulation and bullet limits in Congress. You’d be hard pressed to find Democrats willing to co-sponsor a bill like that, it would be so unpopular.

So go ahead, gun rights crazies, bring Israel into the conversation. Try calling your legislation the “Huckabee/LaPierre Make Our Gun Laws More Like Israel’s” bill. That might be all it takes to get your folks to go along with it.

This article appears in Feb 15-21, 2018.

11 replies on “Israel, the U.S. and Guns”

  1. Anyone who scoffs because the article is in the NYTimes is an idiot, says David Safier.

    Way to promote enlightened critical thinking about the media, David.

    Anyone who believes everything a trusted media source says without understanding the perspective of that media organizations owners and without cross-checking key assertions or taking note of systematic failures to cover certain facts is doing less than what is required to be an informed consumer of news products in a deeply and dysfunctionally polarized democracy where much of what is printed even in the most reputable newspapers cannot ever be fully dissociated from the owners intent to sway public opinion in a direction in line with their policy preferences and in favor of the politicians that promote them.

    The Times may well be correct in this instance and in many others, but it should still be the habit of every thinking American to compare and contrast multiple sources from various positions on the ideological spectrum and to fact check assertions that, given media companies owners known political affiliations and proclivities, seem most likely to be skewed.

  2. I grew up in Israel in the 70s. While many things have since changed, this hasn’t much.

    It is absolutely fair to look at Israel for lessons because it has an undeniable record of stopping a vast number of mass attacks in the face of very determined efforts by bad guys with major apparatuses behind them; and it does so within the context of a vibrant Democracy with a strong rule of law.

    However, both sides in the US debate are only looking at elements of the context that support their narrow narrative. Gun rights advocates point out that the number of good guys with legal guns in Israel is huge, their guns are very powerful, and are carried openly. Sitting in a random streetside Tel Aviv cafe on any day, you would see more and bigger guns than in a Texas NRA rally. Conversely, gun control supporters observe that bad guys with legal guns are effectively nonexistent in Israel because of very strict private gun ownership laws as outlined in the article. Of course, with so many good guys carrying guns already, many legitimate individuals who want or need to carry a gun don’t have to get their own — the state is already providing them with a very powerful one (together with training and ammunition). Likewise, bad guys who wish to massacre Israelis don’t buy their gun legally, but rather obtain them from eagerly supportive hostile states and terrorist organizations.

    So, yes, do look to Israel for lessons to learn on how an armed population can stop bad guys from committing horrific acts; but keep in mind that the lessons will not fit the ideological desire of either sides of the US gun rights debate.

  3. Typical liberal solution. More new problems to replace the last, but never accepting responsibility for anything. Why don’t you analyze what you have done to education and faith in OUR country?

    TOO HARD TO ACCEPT?

  4. The Israel thing is a perfect dodge for the “guns everywhere” crowd. It’s nebulous and kind of hard to prove.
    Cons love Israel (even though most Israelis dislike American conservatives).
    Fact is, Israel simply has far, far lower gun ownership which is why there is less gun violence. There’s a simple correlation.

  5. What? Get out of Show Biz?!!!

    It’s an old story, but apt. The Gun Loving American Public is still very much in favor of no gun control….just as “everybody smoked” a long time ago.

    When enough people decided it was dangerous to us all….that changed! Amazingly!

    Some folks STILL smoke. It is not ILLEGAL.

    I think gun use and regs are in the same category…..eventually, there will be a realization that it is bad for our health, and it will STOP……sure there will always be some few who want to smoke/shoot/carry/fill in your verb here/but it will not be nearly as widespread as today. LAWS don’t fix us. WE DO.

  6. Actually, the vast majority of people in this country support universal background checks and a ban on the sort of assault weapons that were used in many of our mass shootings.

    The polling data is overwhelmingly clear. The vast majority of people want our government to take concerted action to stem gun violence. The fact that our politicians (in both major parties) are too corrupted and/or cowardly to do anything about it does not change that FACT.

  7. It would help may of you if you would arm yourselves with the facts.

    Although most crime is not committed
    with guns, most gun crime is committed
    with handguns.

    The FBI’s Supplemental Homicide
    Reports show that 57% of all murders
    in 1993 were committed with handguns,
    3% with rifles, 5% with shotguns,
    and 5% with firearms where the type
    was unknown.

    https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF

    Even the NY Times admitted truths about firearms:

    That idea was one of the pillars of the Obama administrations plan to curb gun violence, and it remains popular with the public. In a poll last December, 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban.

    But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.

    It turns out that big, scary military rifles dont kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html

    What will be your next action when you find out that you were wrong?

    Handguns were used in more than 80 percent of gun murders each year. Emotional ractions don’t solve problems. neither does the blame game.

    Never forget that Chicago has banned all guns and leads the country in murders.

    2016 Leading causes of death per the CDC:

    Heart disease: 633,842
    Cancer: 595,930
    Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
    Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
    Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
    Alzheimers disease: 110,561
    Diabetes: 79,535
    Influenza and pneumonia: 57,062
    Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 49,959
    Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193

    Stop and think. Then speak.

  10. The point is correlation is not causation. There are violent cities in states with high gun control and violent cities with no major gun restrictions at all. To say that any area in this country becomes violent because of the gun laws themselves one way or the other is false.

  11. This article is a useful starter for discussion. I hope the Weekly staff will build on this debate , generating more of a public forum, and not stop now and feel their job is done.
    A small but necessary criticism: the point about licensed owners only able to buy 50 bullets a year [aside from that being rounds]–is that is not adequate for any training except in cleaning the firearm. If Mr. Safier and anyone else in the newsroom or readers here think the lead statement was a good point, you are and have been helping gun owners or political opponents to perceive you as thoughtless, and are part of what is deficient with gun culture in America, just as much as any loonies and/or neglectful neighbors.

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