*Gun Law in Israel*
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/16/gun-law-in-israel.html>
Everybody knows that Israel has a lot of guns. But what you may not know
- I didn't until this article
<http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/07/24/3101546/despite-militarized-society-israels-strict-gun-laws-keep-civilian-violence-down>
- is that Israel also operates very strict control of civilian ammunition.
Gun owners in Israel are limited to owning one pistol, and must undergo
extensive mental and physical tests before they can receive a weapon,
and gun owners are limited to 50 rounds of ammunition per year.
Not all Israelis, however, may own guns. In order to own a pistol, an
Israeli must for two years have been either a captain in the army or a
former lieutenant colonel. Israelis with an equivalent rank in other
security organizations may also own a pistol.
In addition, residents of West Bank settlements, and those who work
there, may own pistols for self-defense.
David Frum is a contributing editor at /Newsweek /and The Daily Beast
and a CNN contributor.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mythbusting: Israel and Switzerland are not gun-toting utopias
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/mythbusting-israel-and-switzerland-are-not-gun-toting-utopias/>
Posted by Ezra Klein
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/ABifXwI_page.html> on December
14, 2012 at 5:36 pm
/My post "12 facts about guns and mass shootings
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/>"
included a mention of Israel and Switzerland, societies where guns are
reputed to be widely available, but where gun violence is rare. Janet
Rosenbaum, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of
Public Health at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate
Medical Center School, has actuallyresearched this question
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22089893>, and she wrote to tell me
I had it wrong. We spoke shortly thereafter on the phone. A lightly
edited transcript of our conversation follows./
Ricky Carioti --- The Washington Post
*Ezra Klein: Israel and Switzerland are often mentioned as countries
that prove that high rates of gun ownership don't necessarily lead to
high rates of gun crime. In fact, I wrote that on Friday. But you say
your research shows that's not true.*
Janet Rosenbaum: First of all, because they don't have high levels of
gun ownership. The gun ownership in Israel and Switzerland has decreased.
For instance, in Israel, they're very limited in who is able to own a
gun. There are only a few tens of thousands of legal guns in Israel, and
the only people allowed to own them legally live in the settlements, do
business in the settlements, or are in professions at risk of violence.
Both countries require you to have a reason to have a gun. There isn't
this idea that you have a right to a gun. You need a reason. And then
you need to go back to the permitting authority every six months or so
to assure them the reason is still valid.
The second thing is that there's this widespread misunderstanding that
Israel and Switzerland promote gun ownership. They don't. Ten years ago,
when Israel had the outbreak of violence, there was an expansion of gun
ownership, but only to people above a certain rank in the military.
There was no sense that having ordinary citizens [carry guns] would make
anything safer.Switzerland has also been moving away from having
widespread guns. The laws are done canton by canton, which is like a
province. Everyone in Switzerland serves in the army, and the cantons
used to let you have the guns at home. They've been moving to keeping
the guns in depots. That means they're not in the household, which makes
sense because the literature shows us that if the gun is in the
household, the risk goes up for everyone in the household.
**EK: As I understand it, there's a stronger link between guns and
suicide than between guns and homicide. And one of the really
interesting parts of your paper is your recounting of the Israeli
military's effort to cut suicides among soldiers by restricting access
to guns.**
JR: Yes, it's very striking. In Israel, it used to be that all soldiers
would take the guns home with them. Now they have to leave them on base.
Over the years they've done this --- it began, I think, in 2006 ---
there's been a 60 percent decrease in suicide on weekends among IDS
soldiers. And it did not correspond to an increase in weekday suicide.
People think suicide is an impulse that exists and builds. This shows
that doesn't happen. The impulse to suicide is transitory. Someone with
access to a gun at that moment may commit suicide, but if not, they may not.
**EK: I was surprised by one statistic in your article: You said that
Israel rejects 40 percent of its applications for a gun, the highest
rate of rejection of any country in the world. And even when you get
approved, you say that "all guns must have an Interior Ministry permit
and identifying mark for tracing." That seems like it might make people
think twice before they shoot from a gun they know the government can
track.**
JR: That's a requirement. I don't know a great deal about the ballistics
issue there. But that is in the regulations.
**EK: Israel and Switzerland are both small, highly cohesive countries.
So some say that the difference in gun crime shows that there's
something about American culture that's leading to these atrocities. Do
you buy that?**
JR: Israel is not a peaceful society. If there were a lot of guns, it
may be even more violent. Israeli schools are well known for having a
lot of the kicking and punching type of violence. I don't know that
Switzerland has that reputation. But Israel does, and it seems that the
lack of guns promotes the lack of firearm violence rather than there
being some nascent tendency toward peacefulness and cohesion. That
cohesion may or may not exist, but not having guns prevents guns from
being used in violence. People do still commit homicide and suicide but
they do it with less lethal means. The most common form of suicide in
Israel is strangulation, which is striking, because it's not that common
elsewhere.
****EK: Not to derail the conversation, but given that most
industrialized countries have quite strict gun laws, if they don't use
strangulation, what do they use?**
JR: I don't know what other countries have, but I've read about suicide
in Israel, and it's striking there, because there's an age discrepancy.
Between ages 18 and 21, when people are in the army and have access to
guns, firearm suicide is very common. At other ages, strangulation is
very common. So it does seem to suggest that people commit suicide with
what they have access to even in the same society.
-- *Charles *--
Website: TinyURL.com/EnzerMD
*"Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability"
*William Osler, M.D.
***Stop **Spammers**and **Virus Propagation***
***Before **forwarding**, please **delete**the history of all email
address***
On 12/21/2012 11:56 PM, Nicholas Geti wrote:
This lady expresses my feeling exactly.
http://conservativevideos.com/2012/12/survivor-of-1991-shooting-gives-impassioned-testimony-against-gun-control/
[excessive quoting removed by server]
_______________________________________________
Post Messages to: [email protected]
Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox
OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech
Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox
This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected]
** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the
author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
