Tuesday, August 9, 2011
(47% decline in individual gun permits since 1995) Israel to strengthen gun control, tighten purchase rules

State moves to strengthen gun control, tighten purchase rules

Gold and diamond dealers to no longer be granted weapon licenses.
By Gili Cohen Haaretz Published 02:45 09.08.11
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/state-moves-to-strengthen-gun-control-tighten-purchase-rules-1.377692

The Public Security Ministry is amending weapons licensing regulations in an
effort to reduce the number of gun permits issued to Israeli civilians.

The changes include eliminating gold and diamond dealers from the list of
people whose occupation qualifies them for gun ownership, and giving
preference to permits held by institutions rather than individuals.

According to the latest figures available to the ministry's firearms
department, 173,818 permits to possess and carry guns have been issued to
individuals in Israel. The vast majority of these are for handguns, although
a few thousand permits are for hunting rifles, air rifles or small-bore
rifles.

An additional 130,000 institutional permits have been issued. These are
issued to organizations, including private companies, with employees whose
work requires them to carry a gun, and that meet ministry requirements. Most
of these deal with training and protective equipment for the users.

The number of gun permits issued has declined significantly over the years.
The peak was in 1995, during the height of the state's "gun for every
citizen" policy, when 330,000 Israelis were licensed to carry firearms. In
the last decade alone, that number has declined by about 100,000.

The main reason for the decline was the tightening of requirements for
obtaining a permit, including licensing fees and proficiency requirements,
which discouraged individuals without a genuine need for a gun to continue
renewing their licenses. In addition, thousands of permits issued in the
1990s were not renewed because their owners no longer complied with health
requirements, or no longer met occupational or other requirements. Another
contributory factor was the tightening of supervision, as well as reducing
the validity period for gun permits from five years to three. Public
Security Ministry officials even admitted that some blind people had gun
permits.

According to an internal memo circulated recently within the ministry, since
the 1970s more than 23,000 licensed guns have been lost or stolen and have
fallen into the hands of "unknown sources." Ministry officials believe that
a significant number of these are in the hands of criminals.

"Weapons that are stolen are not stolen by good people. The majority end up
in the hands of criminals and are used afterwards for criminal activities,"
said Yaakov Amit, director of the ministry's firearms department. The
possibility that legally held guns that have been reported lost or stolen
were actually sold by the permit-holder to criminals is behind the
ministry's decision to impose a cooling-off period of between three and six
years on individuals reporting the loss or theft or their weapon.

Ministry officials acknowledge that the actual number of stolen guns in
Israel significantly exceeds 23,000, since that number does not include guns
stolen from Israel Defense Forces bases.

"Criminals always prefer good guns, and the main source for these is the
IDF," Amit said. "A gun that shoots far and kills faster is more effective,
and that's the kind the military has."

According to figures published this year in the IDF magazine Bamahane, 137
guns were stolen from the army in 2010.

Immoral.

After the history of the Jewish people for the government to do this to the Jewish people is immoral and evil.