While they have how to protect schools pretty well down pat, the rest of Israel’s gun control laws don’t cut it. They’re more restrictive that anything, anywhere in the U.S.
After Uvalde, op-ed suggests Israeli-style gun laws
As per usual, the shooting in Uvalde has sparked a ton of debate about gun control. Frankly, I expect this is going to be a major topic for at least the next week or two, if not longer.
And a lot of people are going to be offering up their own opinions and hot takes.
Take this op-ed, for example, that suggests following Israel’s lead on guns
The mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, makes me want to scream.
If you are a parent, or if you were ever a child, it’s impossible to read about the deliberate slaughter of 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School by an 18-year-old gunman and not want to just shut down and cry.
That’s the natural response. After Sandy Hook. After Parkland. After Columbine. After Santa Fe….
One clear proof of this is Israel. Israel, like the United States, is a developed country where Uzi-toting soldiers are ubiquitous and private gun ownership is legal, though nowhere near as prevalent as it is here. But Israel had two deaths per 100,000 residents in 2019, compared to 12 per 100,000 people in the U.S.
In Israel, anyone who qualifies can get a gun — but those qualifications make all the difference. You must meet a list of criteria to ask for a license.
You need a note from your doctor assuring you are in sound physical and mental health. You can’t have a criminal record. You must take a written and practical gun safety test. You are permitted only one gun and 50 bullets at any given time. About 40% of requests for gun ownership are rejected.
“Israel’s social reality – the large number of firearms on the country’s streets – may look like an American conservative’s utopia,” Haviv Rettig Gur wrote in the Times of Israel, “but it got there via a domineering statist regulatory regime that American gun control activists can only fantasize about.”
And, more importantly, they got there via the fact that the nation of Israel doesn’t view the right to keep and bear arms as a right.
All of those requirements–things that I’m simply not going to stand here and allow to happen on American soil–and they still deny 40 percent of requests? How is that even close to recognizing the Second Amendment?
The simple answer, of course, is that it’s not. It’s nothing of the sort and it’s absolutely insane to even suggest it. Why did the author do so? Because he thinks it’s a gotcha.
Most American gun owners support Israel to some degree or another. We support their right to exist and defend themselves from aggression.
So, in his mind, that clearly suggests we support their other domestic policies. In fact, we probably should consider reproducing them here on American shores.
Yet I can support a nation’s right to exist and protect itself without supporting everything they’ve ever done. I support Ukraine’s right to exist and support them defending themselves from Russian aggression, but I can acknowledge also that there are serious problems there that they need to get in hand when this mess is over.
The Second Amendment clearly states that the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What is being proposed if not for a huge infringement?
Not that the author really cares about that. He, like so many others, is myopic to pesky things like rights.
We’re not, and that’s why that simply isn’t going to happen.