In Israel, a Privilege – But No Right – to Bear Arms

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gunOnly 2.5% of Israelis can legally carry a firearm, compared to 47% in America. Of those in Israel, 40,000 are security guards who work in supermarkets, malls and schools. But those who are licensed have proved capable of acting swiftly and effectively time and again to neutralize attackers during acts of terrorism.

“In 40-50 cases over the past 10 years, armed Israeli citizens have intervened during terror attacks,” said Dr. Shlomo Shapiro, a senior research fellow at Bar-Ilan University’s BESA Center. “In 70% of those cases, their intervention was crucial.”

The two critical factors explaining Israeli civilians’ relatively effective responses are training and an embedded sense of responsibility for one another. The training begins with the military, where combat soldiers are taught from day one to charge the enemy.

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}


3 COMMENTS

  1. Please note that to the Israeli the rifle is a tool, not a toy. It isn’t for fun or to “prove one’s manhood.” Also, Israelis feel responsible for one another, a feeling that some political groups in the US actively discourage.

  2. We should keep in mind the following incident. On the evening of March 6, 2008, an Arab terrorist, Yimach Shemo V’Zichro, entered one of the buildings of the campus of Yeshiva Mercaz Harav in Yerushalaiyim. When he came to the library and then the auditorium, he opened fire on the students there.

    EIGHT STUDENTS WERE KILLED, HASHEM YINAKEM DAMAM, AND ELEVEN OTHER STUDENTS WERE BADLY INJURED.

    Boruch Hashem though, the attack was stopped in the middle. One of the senior alumini students, Rav Yitzchak Dadon, Sh’lita, was in the building AND HAD HIS GUN WITH HIM! When he was able to get the terrorist into view, he shot the wicked slime bag two times in the head, gravely wounding him.

    In the meantime, another senior alumini student, David Shapira, who was then a captain in the Israeli army, lived right across the street from the campus. When he heard the sound of gunshots and screaming, he realized that something very terrible was happening. So, of course, TAKING HIS GUN WITH HIM, he ran across the street to the yeshiva. He came in just after Yitzchak Dadon had fired his shots and so he fully shot the terrorist dead.

    For a full account, see: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/8-die-in-terror-attack-on-j-lem-yeshiva-1.240822 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercaz_HaRav_massacre.

  3. And these guys were trained soldiers, not random citizens who just happened to have a gun. And in Israel guns are not toys. In this country, that’s what they are – machismo-enhancing toys. The kind of training you get in Tzahal is on a different level from spending a few hours on a shooting range.

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