Last week, Israeli Interior Security Minister Gilad Erdan drastically relaxed the criteria for civilians to legally carry handguns. Overnight, any Israeli who previously served in an infantry unit became eligible to possess a sidearm, along with police volunteers and firefighters.
In explaining the move, Erdan told reporters that trained citizens are a valuable deterrent against the waves of terrorism that have rocked Israel since its founding. “Skilled civilians carrying a gun in public contribute to a sense of security, act as an important line of defense against lone-wolf terror attacks and increase public security,” said Erdan.
Lawmaker Amir Ohana, who heads the Knesset lobby for personal weapons possession, added that it was “unreasonable” to deny weapons licenses to Israelis who report to the military for up to a month every year in reserve duty.
According to Ohana, “a civilian who has no criminal or relevant medical record, and serves or served in reserves, should be able to defend himself and others – such a person is not the problem, but in many cases the solution.”
In recognizing that “a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun,” Israel’s legislators unconsciously adopted positions commonly held by the American gun-rights lobby. Indeed, Israel’s gun policy is living proof of arguments long propagated by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The NRA views trained civilians as a valuable first response to terrorism. While Israel has traditionally held a strict approach to civilian possession of firearms, it started to relax these policies after a brutal wave of terrorism rocked the country in 2015. Soon after the violence started, Israel eased its gun policies in order to enable a greater number of civilians to help respond to terrorists.
Suddenly, all army officers with the rank of lieutenant or higher were allowed to carry, even while off-duty. In addition, off-duty security guards, former special-forces operatives, and government employees were also permitted to carry. The government also expanded the geographic area in which its residents are automatically eligible for a weapons license, and lowered the minimum age requirement to 21.
In addition, Israel’s leaders have adopted the NRA’s belief that police cannot be everywhere at all times—many times, civilians are the first line of defense against terrorism. In fact, since 2015, a significant number of attacks in Israel have been stopped by Israelis citizens rather than law enforcement. Even unarmed Israelis have foiled shooting and stabbing attacks, using such eclectic items as umbrellas, selfie sticks, and shopping carts. In the recent attack, which killed former U.S. Army Officer Taylor Force while he was walking on Jaffa beach, the terrorist was subsequently neutralized by a nearby panhandler using his guitar.
Opponents of civilian gun ownership would point to Israel’s mandatory military service as the reason for the increasingly lax provisions for firearm licenses. Yet, on closer study, this argument is demonstrably false. Only around 10 percent of Israeli soldiers serve in combat units. The rest are paper pushers who receive bare-bones training and only shoot an average of 50 bullets during their entire service. Additionally, only a handful of soldiers serving in tier-1 special operations units learn to use a pistol, and the civilian pistol course required for a license only obligates you to shoot 35 bullets during a short training course.
Furthermore, the gun-rights lobby has always argued that laws restricting access to firearms will disarm civilians without having any effect on criminals. Enter Israel. Despite its small size, heavily guarded borders, and world-class Shin Bet internal security service, its Israeli-Arab community is bristling with illegal firearms, with some estimates putting the number of unlicensed weapons at 500,000.
Due to their collective exemption from military service, it is virtually impossible for members of the Israeli-Arab community to legally obtain a firearm. If gun control laws prevent criminals from obtaining firearms, as gun-control advocates say, then the Israeli-Arab sector should logically have an extremely low rate of gun violence. Yet that is not the case.
In a wide-ranging study published in early August, Israel’s State Comptroller found that weapons-related crimes in the Arab population is significantly higher than in the rest of the country. According to the data presented in the report, 95 percent of incidences of shootings within a residential neighborhood involved the Israeli-Arab sector, with the number increasing annually. Israeli Arabs were also responsible for 60 percent of murder cases, despite comprising only 20 percent of the general population, and were 17 times more likely to commit weapons violations.
Studying this data, it is clear that stringent gun laws do not translate to a lower rate of gun crime.
Finally, Israel demands that all schools be protected from gunmen, a position the NRA strongly called for as mass shootings proliferated throughout the U.S. Under Israeli law, every school must have at least one armed security guard. Armed security is also mandatory for field trips and other extracurricular activities. The security guards do not need to be ex-military and are only required to have a clean record and be over the age of 27.
Such policies have saved lives. Ever since terrorists killed 22 children in an attack at a northern Israeli school in 1972, every single terrorist shooting at a school has been ended, at least partly, by a volunteer. For example, an armed youth counselor shot and killed two terrorists who had infiltrated a high school in the Jerusalem suburb of Kfar Etzion. A few months later, an armed student and an off-duty army officer killed a terrorist who killed eight children during a shooting spree at a Jerusalem high school.
With mass shootings becoming a seemingly monthly occurrence in the United States, authorities would be well-served studying how nations with similar experiences have dealt with the issue. Gun control in the U.S. and Israel has been a total failure, with law-enforcement failing to act on tips—as was the case in Parkland, Florida. As Albert Einstein famously said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” and it would be insane to pass sweeping gun-control legislation that would only render law-abiding civilians defenseless.
