According to the new plan launched on Monday, August 20, by far-right Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan (Likud), as many as half a million veterans of Israel army infantry units with a Rifleman 07 level of training and up will be entitled to apply for a gun license. In addition, officers and NCOs will not be required to return their weapon and weapon license when they are released from active reserve duty.

Furthermore, those who have possessed a firearm license for their private gun for a period of more than ten years may continue to hold it – without proof of compliance with the license conditions. Also, volunteers in appropriate units of the Israel Police, as well as volunteers and paid employees of emergency services, like Magen David Adom, are now allowed to request a gun permit.

Minister of Public Security, Gilad Erdan, and US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Michele Nielsen, during a meeting at the new US embassy in Jerusalem, July 2018 (Photo: Ministry of Public Security)

Hadash MK Dov Khenin (Joint List) has come out against the reform: “Welcome to the war zone. More weapons mean more violence, more accidents, and more wounded and dead. The trend should be the opposite: a reduction in the presence of weapons in the civilian space in Israel – which is too high – and certainly not an expansion of it.”

“Like many bad fads that the right in Israel imports from the right in the United States, in this case too, it is better to stop before starting. Before there will be massacres here in schools, and before there will be another intolerable increase in the murders of women in their homes,” Khenin said.

Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women Chairwoman MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Hadash – Joint List) said ‎‎“Reality has taught us that in the absence of ‎rigorous supervision, ‘civilian weapons’ costs lives ‎‎– our lives.”