Why Israel Has No Newtowns
It’s the Jewish state’s gun culture, not its laws, that prevents mass shootings like the one in ConnecticutBy Liel Leibovitz
Israeli girls wear automatic rifles as they dance together during the celebrations for Independence Day in Jerusalem on April 19, 2010
Why? In the days since 27 innocents, most of them children, were murdered in Sandy Hook Elementary School, all have been asking that question, trying to make sense of an ultimately senseless act. Simpler minds insisted that anyone who has ever argued in favor of anything but the absolute abolition of firearms was complicit in the murder of innocent children, while more astute thinkers tried to look past their indignation and heartbreak in search of sensible policy alternatives. Not surprisingly, they often ended up looking to Israel, a nation, went the argument, whose citizens are heavily armed yet rarely use their guns to shoot each other. This, more than one report noted, was due largely to Israel’s surprisingly strict gun-control legislation: Assault rifles are banned, registration is necessary, and a whole system of checks and requirements is in place to keep weapons out of the wrong hands. A popular statistic spread like wildfire on Facebook and Twitter: Only 58 Israelis were killed by guns last year, compared with 10,728 Americans.
It’s a compelling story. It’s also wrong: There’s much that we can learn from Israel when it comes to firearms, but it’s the state’s gun culture, not its gun laws, that keeps its citizens safe.
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Let us, for the sake of argument, put aside the fact that nearly all Israelis serve in the army, and that virtually all soldiers are armed with semiautomatic weapons that they carry on their person at all times, even when back home on vacation. Most men continue to enjoy this unfettered access to arsenals for the duration of their service as army reservists (at least a few weeks out of each year until they’re 45). If we disregard the glut of guns facilitated by the Israel Defense Forces, we are left with strict-sounding laws that require anyone who wants a firearm license to register with the government and meet a list of seemingly stringent conditions.
To receive a gun license, one technically needs to meet two sets of criteria. First, the basics: A gun owner must be a citizen or a permanent resident and speak some Hebrew. The person can’t be a minor and can’t have any physical or mental problems hindering him from operating a firearm. Second, one must show cause to carry a weapon, a privilege limited on paper to about a dozen categories of people whose work conditions are perilous enough to justify carrying a firearm.
These are the strict gun laws that many commentators have been citing as the reason the Jewish state has no Newtowns or Columbines. But take a closer look, and that second set becomes quite porous: Security guards, obviously, are permitted their guns, but so are men and women who work in the diamond industry, or who handle valuable goods or large sums of cash. Anyone who lives or works in an “entitled residency”—code for a high-risk area, meaning the settlements—is permitted a weapon, no questions asked. Retired army officers can easily obtain a license, as can anyone who has inherited a gun from a friend or a relative. And sportsmen can easily get shotgun permits if they claim that they wish to use it to hunt pheasant or boar.
The upshot: Anyone can come up with an excuse to legally own a gun. I have personally witnessed more than one friend apply under false premises, claiming that their work required that they travel to settlements and other high-risk areas, and walk out, a short while later, with pistols much like the ones used in Aurora or Columbine. Assault rifles, admittedly, are harder to come by in Israel. If you are not a soldier or a reservist or don’t have one in your family—again, nearly the entire population—the only way to obtain semiautomatics is if you reside, or claim to reside, in a settlement.
It doesn’t take much of an expert to realize that these restrictions, in and of themselves, do not constitute much by way of gun control. And even though there have been no Newtown-style mass shootings in Israel, the Israeli government has tightened the reins over the past decade, passing a series of additional restrictions and placing further emphasis on enforcement. The result was clear: In 2000, there were approximately 400,000 legally owned firearms in Israel, the majority of them handguns, and the number of illegal weapons stood at about 150,000. Ten years later, thanks largely to the new strictures, the ratio was reversed: 180,000 firearms were legally licensed, and more than 400,000 were illegally obtained, most of them assault rifles like the M-16 and the Galil, stolen from the Israel Defense Forces. Naturally, this led to an increase in the number of casualties, as it placed far mightier tools in the hands of criminals who were previously content to handle their affairs using the perfectly legal and readily available guns at their disposal.
I don't believe that Israel's gun laws have anything to do with the fact that there are fewer (or no) incidents like the Newtown, Ct. incident there.
ReplyDeleteI believe that it has to do with a culture that values life, quality of life, Democracy, and equality, much more than the culture of the U.S., despite what many in the U.S. may think or claim.
Jewish culture, in particular, does NOT glorify violence and war! Israelis may be armed, but they don't go out and demonstrate, celebrate, or protest by wantonly shooting bullets into the air, as the residents of Israel's neighboring countries do. Jews also have a long history/tradition of NOT being hunters. Jewish tradition abhors even causing pain to animals, let alone to humans. I believe that the majority of even the most ardently secular Israelis still tend to share these types of traditional Jewish values.
One of the important aspects that comes of valuing quality of life and a slightly higher level of equality among citizens that we see in Israel, and most other industrialized, Democratic nations, except for the U.S., is access to health care for all - including mental health care.
I don't know whether the Lanza family had access to appropriate mental health care. They seem to have been wealthy, so one would assume that they could have afforded it. But most health insurance plans in the U.S. severely limit their coverage of mental health care. This limitation is likely to discourage even wealthy families from seeking necessary mental health care for family members who obviously need it, as the insurance companies cause their customers to believe that such care is a luxury, and not really necessary - and even that it is not really health care!
Speaking to the aspect of greater equality among citizens, radio show host and author Thom Hartmann cited statistics, this past week, showing a clear correlation between higher levels of gun violence, and higher levels of *inequality* among residents of any given area, both internationally, and in the U.S.