http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/11/22/Features/Features.15998.html

Wednesday, November 29 2000 01:59 2 Kislev 5761

Under the gun
By Dan Williams

(November 22) — Though there has been a sharp jump in the number of gun-license
applications, Dan Williams hears why it is no simple matter for average citizens to obtain
firearms legally –

Elsewhere they might carry pepper spray to deal with unruly dogs, but for Israel’s
mailmen in the territories, handguns are mandatory. The dozen postal workers gathered at a
subterranean “Krav” (Combat) gun club in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood make a show of
irreverence, chatting among themselves as the instructor describes each exercise; yet when
questioned, they reveal a deeper seriousness.

“We used to have to train once a year, now every six months,” says one of the group
during a cigarette break. “What can you do? It’s life or death out there.”

His colleague nods solemnly: “I got rocks thrown at me just the other day. Another guy
barely got away without being lynched.”

Both reject the suggestion that having firearms within reach might embolden them into
confronting hostile Palestinians needlessly.

“I’ll always get out of there if I can,” says the first. “Anyway, I’ve had my gun 20
years, so why do something stupid now?”

According to range master Steve Averbach, there has been an influx of such old-time gun
owners since the “al-Aksa intifada” began.

“They come in to refresh their skills,” he explains. “And in some cases, they bring in
their small-caliber guns looking to trade up for something more effective.”

Indeed, in the corner of the club’s office there stands a slab of reinforced glass
embedded with bullets of various sizes; presumably the expanse of the cracks they caused on
impact is a measure of their “effectiveness.”

Several pistols available for in-house rental are laid out in a display case. Black
holsters and tactical belts hang on the wall, tagged with sale prices, waiting to be tried on.

An earnest-looking young man enters, gazes at the wares, then asks awkwardly about
beginners’ courses. There is no fixed time and cost, says the instructor behind the counter,
it’s up to each shooter’s progress. The young man leaves, promising to return after getting a
gun license. The instructor says such visits are frequent now.

THE INTERIOR Ministry’s firearms licensing department has experienced a 50 percent
increase in the number of applications during the recent weeks of regional violence. Department
head Amit Ya’acov estimates that 80% of applicants are gun owners whose licenses have lapsed
and are now eager to renew them. The other 20% are new candidates motivated by fear of the
civil unrest that has spread, often unbridled, on both sides of the Green Line.

“As for now,” states Ya’acov, “there is no plan to ease the conditions for eligibility
when it comes to gun licenses. We do everything in coordination with the Israel Police and
various government bodies, and a policy change is not yet believed necessary.”

Ya’acov says thousands of new licenses are issued yearly, but many of the recent rash of
applicants will be disappointed. Despite Israel’s image abroad as a firearm-friendly society,
eligibility for a gun license is determined after thorough criminal- and medical-history
checks, and then on a show-need, case-by-case basis.

Anyone spending significant amounts of time in the territories – as resident or worker -
is eligible, as are senior reserve officers of the IDF, Israel Police, or Prisons Service. Bus
and taxi drivers, and those regularly handling and transporting explosives or valuables, are
considered potential crime victims and allowed guns for self-defense. The list ends with
hunters and police volunteers, who themselves must pass stringent tests before being cleared.

It was not always so. From the War of Independence onward, any IDF veteran could own a
gun after a simple registration process. A gun in one’s belt, especially during hiking trips,
helped quell concerns of terrorist attack. Yet there developed an undeniable, androcentric
appeal to handguns, leading Ma’ariv columnist Yonatan Gefen to comment mordantly on Israel as a
“pistol nation.”

Maxim Kahan, the legendary founder of the “Danny-Hi” Olympic shooting complex in
Caesarea, still speaks of gun ownership in terms of Jewish manhood. An octogenarian, Kahan says
it would be “unthinkable” for him to relinquish his pistol, which he keeps by his bed for fear
of armed burglars.

The Israel Police refuses to release its data on patterns of gun use and abuse. Yet press
reports indicate that, other than the occasional gangland shooting or domestic murder, guns are
rarely used in common crime – despite the fact there are over 280,000 among the Israeli public.
In fact, veteran shooting instructor Yoram Schneider estimates that only one in 10 homicides
are committed with a firearm.

Schneider suggests that because they have military experience, Israeli gun owners show a
natural restraint and respect when it comes to their weapons.

“All Israelis are soldiers,” he says. “When they’re on reserve duty they go around with a
gun – but they don’t take advantage of that, do they? If they wanted to settle a score with
someone they could take their army-issue rifle and shoot the guy.”

And Israelis are pragmatic in their choice of pistol, continues Schneider, eschewing the
“glamour gun” trends seen in the American shooting culture with its heavy Hollywood influence.
Gun dealers confirm that Glock, Sig Sauer, Browning, and Smith & Wesson semiautomatics are
favored for their high-capacity magazines and rugged, low-maintenance design. The recommended
caliber is 9 mm – a popular, relatively inexpensive bullet considered an ideal combination of
light weight and killing power.

Schneider notes that American-born shooters tend to prefer revolvers for their reliable
mechanisms. Another gun dealer, however, suggests that the six-shot guns are chosen for their
Wild West connotations – they are not considered practical and are almost never used by the
security services.

Shooting is expensive: New pistols range in price from NIS 1,500 to over NIS 5,000, and a
day’s outing to the range costs hundreds. The recent rush to arms has, not surprisingly, been
welcomed by firearms businesses. Only last June, in fact, Ramat Gan Shooting Range director Avi
Mor complained to reporters that “the market is dead.”

YET IT is too early for firearms dealers to celebrate. Mor was bemoaning the fact that,
over the last decade, criteria for private gun ownership have been made more stringent in an
express bid to reduce the number of license holders. So swift were the changes, in fact, that
many shooters who deposited their guns with the police while renewing their licenses found
themselves declared ineligible, and their weapons inaccessible.

Firearms left in police care must be redeemed within 18 months, or become state property.
Usually they are disposed of quickly. Every few months, thousands of pistols, rifles, and
shotguns are shipped to a smelting factory for destruction. Previously the weapons would be
taken on a police boat into international waters and dumped overboard.

The move against Israel’s traditionally liberal gun policy began in 1992, after a
deranged security guard shot dead four staffers at a mental-health clinic in Jerusalem’s Kiryat
Hayovel neighborhood. Then-health minister Haim Ramon initiated a program for better
coordination among the IDF, police, and psychiatric services in sharing information on
prospective gun owners.

And the fact the shooting victims were all women led to a long-term drive for firearms to
be denied men who might eventually repeat such a crime. MK Yael Dayan eventually spearheaded
legislation requiring that guns belonging to violent husbands be confiscated.

“For a pistol to be accessible in cases where domestic abuse has been reported is
unthinkable,” she says.

Following the Kiryat Hayovel massacre, then-interior minister Aryeh Deri appointed Fire
and Rescue Authority chief Shlomo Cohen to head a committee on changing the nation’s gun laws.
The firearms licensing department was one outcome, formed as a specialized unit to deal with a
sensitive issue.

Kahan, however, has little respect for the department’s authority, noting that it seems
oblivious to the distinction between shotguns and hunting rifles, grouping the former under the
latter’s title of roveh tzayid.

The Cohen Committee recommended that gun owners be required regularly to prove
proficiency with their weapons, which led to the evolution of yeri ma’asi, or practical
shooting courses based on techniques used by the security services. This set-up provided two
legal loopholes welcomed by almost everyone, says Kahan: citizens could buy guns for target
practice, and then carry them everywhere as if “on the way to the range.” And Arabs could be
tacitly excluded from gun ownership by the prohibitive cost of the courses or instructors
reluctant to admit them.

Ya’acov denies the latter claim. “Applications by all Israeli citizens are weighed by the
department without prejudice, on the basis of validity,” he says. Indeed, Schneider says he is
regularly approached by Arabs looking for retraining with their weapons, many of them involved
with the defense establishment – as either IDF servicemen or former collaborators. According to
Kahan, there are over 7,000 shotguns in the Arab sector.

At the beginning of the Israeli Arab riots last month, a policeman was shot in the leg in
Nazareth, and there was further gunfire reported outside Fureidis, near Zichron Ya’acov. Later
that month three Galilee Arabs were arrested on charges of shooting at police. However,
traditionally guns in the Israeli Arab community have been used for hunting, settling
underworld scores and clan feuds, and as family heirlooms. They are often fired in the air at
communal celebrations, often at the cost of hapless “friendly fire” victims.

The true shock to the private-firearms system was the Rabin assassination in 1995. Just
as in America – where the Gun Control Act followed the killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and
Robert Kennedy, and the Brady Act followed the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life – Yigal Amir’s
use of his legally issued handgun to shake the nation demanded drastic gun-control reform.

Amir had shown how easily the system could be abused: he had acquired his pistol while
living in the territories, but had failed to hand it in after moving back to Herzliya and
losing the legal right to be armed. The present show-cause restrictions were thus imposed, and
the yeri ma’asi loophole canceled. Thousands of gun licenses were invalidated virtually
overnight.

Yet for all the anger at Amir’s actions, there is a resentment of what has been seen as
bureaucratic overkill in gun control. Kahan, Dayan, and Mor all maintain that the police have
done little to confiscate illegal weapons, even though the names and addresses of their owners
are known.

“The hysteria after the Rabin murder was excessive,” adds Schneider. “If I’m an Israeli
citizen, I served in the army, I have no criminal record, I see what’s happening around me, and
I’d like a gun, what’s wrong with that?”

Schneider and Averbach cite dozens of incidents where the intervention of private gun
owners prevented or mitigated terrorist attacks. Kahan, meanwhile, suggests that civilians have
no choice but to fend for themselves against enemy hostilities. He mentions the October 22
incident where a busload of soldiers accidentally entered Anabta, near Tulkarm, and allowed
their weapons to be confiscated by the Palestinian Police, after which they were fired upon and
all wounded.

“Are these the sort of soldiers who’ll protect me?” Kahan says.

With such reasoning, a resourceful group of prospective gun owners could file a High
Court petition against the Interior Ministry restrictions. But there is no real gun lobby in
Israel, just as there is no popular movement favoring more limited access to firearms. Dayan,
for example, believes that the present political situation does not justify more lenient gun
laws, yet herself carries a Beretta .22 for self-defense.

Though the Interior Ministry may not be planning any changes in policy, the new interest
in firearms ownership could prove sustained and persuasive. With this conflict seen continuing
for long months ahead, threatening Israelis all over the map, the prospect of becoming a pistol
nation once more may not seem so unwelcome.