Why Israel has no Sandy Hooks

Hot Air ^ | December 17, 2012 | Allahpundi

[2ndDivisionVet]

A thoughtful piece at Tablet by Liel Leibovitz on why a country brimming with guns, that’s been under siege for more than 60 years, almost never sees the sort of mass shootings that the U.S. does. Spoiler alert: It’s not because the gun laws are unusually strict, or strictly enforced.

If the United States, itself awash with weapons, wishes to benefit from Israel’s experience, it must make sure it learns the right lessons. The first and most universal one is that ever more stringent gun control is bad policy: As is the case with drugs, as was the case with liquor during Prohibition, the strict banning of anything does little but push the market underground into the hands of criminals and thugs. Rather than spend fortunes and ruin lives in a futile attempt to eradicate every last trigger in America, we would do well to follow Israel’s example and educate gun owners about their rights and responsibilities, so as to foster a culture of sensible and mindful gun ownership…

In Israel, still a somewhat socialist country, mental health services are ready available, for free, to anyone...

[Doogle]

[Uncle Miltie]

[Uncle Miltie]

[Uncle Miltie]

[Fred Hayek]

Like! And she also knows to keep the finger away from the trigger.

[Uncle Miltie]

[MestaMachine]

People need to read the comments from actual Israelis after the article. Israel is NOT the panacea we are looking for here. Their idea of having armed guards at the schools is really the only thing that is even close to relevent to our situation.

[Uncle Miltie]

These folks should be armed to the teeth:

[Uncle Miltie]

[x]

Leaving all the politics aside for a minute, a country of 300 million people is bound to have more mass killings than a country of 7 million.

[Uncle Miltie]

Hey there, Fred!

Miltie here.

How’s that Q.E. IV workin’ out for ya?

[x]

The premise is flawed. Incidents that happen in the Middle East are more likely to be counted as terrorism or hate crimes, rather than mass shootings or rampage killings.

More weapons may keep body counts down, but many mass killers expect to die -- even want to die -- and won't be deterred by that possibility (or certainty). It's all to the good if fewer people die, but it won't prevent rampage killings.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Is that an M-1 or M-2 carbine?

[doc1019]

I doubt that there is any way to stop these events from happening. So, wouldn’t the next best thing be to keep the body count as low as possible?

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Jewbacca]

M1. They are issued to civilians and deep reserve for just this kind of thing.

[x]

Certainly. I’m just pointing out that there’s no cure-all or panacea.

[Jewbacca]

I don’t disagree with you. Israel is full of liberals who have been mugged, but the liberal tendency is still there.

I will say that it is easy to get a firearm for a Jewish person using proper channels in Israel.

Proper channels meaning we are fully aware 20% of our population is subject to sudden jihad syndrome at any given time.

[BunnySlippers]

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