In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Israelis get guns for home
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Israelis get guns for home
By Don Melvin, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002
TEL AVIV -- William Hazan likes to have a good time at the Seafood Market, a restaurant and club in Tel Aviv. "Every Monday I go to the Seafood to drink, to dance, to be happy," the 46-year-old Moroccan-born Israeli said.
But last month his fun was interrupted by gunfire shattering the club's windows.
"It's something terrorist," he said to himself. He led his wife and friends to the bathroom and told them to lie on the floor.
Staying low, he crawled back to his table, stepping over the wounded, and fished in a friend's handbag for something he wasn't supposed to have in the club at all -- his gun.
Hazan grasped his 9mm Beretta and stood up. He saw a big man grappling with a little man of Arab appearance. As Hazan raised his hands to smash the little man's head with his pistol, the big man stabbed Hazan.
Suddenly understanding who was the terrorist, Hazan stepped back and fired four hollow-point bullets into the big man.
The man he killed was identified as Ibrahim Hassouna, 20, a resident of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus and a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. He had burst into the club armed with an M-16 assault rifle, hand grenades and a knife.
Three people were killed in the attack, including the smaller man, who turned out to be an Israeli Arab who was an out-of-uniform Israeli policeman.
Thirty-one people were injured, but many more might have died had Hazan not had his gun.
Israel is no stranger to guns. Military service is compulsory for most men and some women, and the sight of uniformed and off-duty soldiers with assault rifles slug over their shoulders is common in public places.
Yet Israel has long had strict gun laws and an aversion to a heavily armed civilian population. But the Palestinian uprising of the last 18 months, and particularly the recent series of deadly suicide bombings, have changed that.
The country recently expanded the number of people allowed to have gun licenses. Israelis are flocking to gun shops to buy weapons or trade the guns they have for bigger ones. Even opponents of loosening gun laws have dropped their objections, at least for the moment.
"You cannot ignore the situation," said Gali Etzion, a lawyer for Na'amat, a woman's organization that has in the past opposed liberalizing laws on gun ownership.
Until earlier this year, private gun licenses were limited to people in the army reserves who held the rank of colonel or higher, or to people who worked or lived in specified dangerous areas. Hazan, for example, is a shoe dealer whose work has taken him to the West Bank.
But in the beginning of February, the law was changed. For the next three years reservists with the rank of major can also be licensed to have personal weapons at home.
Etzion estimated the change in the law has made between 20,000 and 40,000 more Israelis eligible for permits.
In addition, organizations needing guns -- companies in Israel's fast-expanding security industry, for example -- can be issued a license. Their employees can take the guns home without having personal licenses.
Over the last two years, the number of Israelis applying for gun licenses has increased greatly. In 2000,4,417 people requested licenses; 2,550 were approved. In 2001, the numbers jumped to 7,790 requests and 4,588 approvals. And in the two weeks from March 3 to 17 of this year, 1,500 people requested licenses -- which would translate into an annual rate of 36,000.
About 265,000 Israelis carry handguns -- 215,711 with licenses and the rest as employees of security firms, municipalities or other licensed organizations. The population of Israel is about 6 million.
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_c35b20e3f6c610e80026.html
dmelvin@coxnews.com
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Don Melvin, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 11, 2002
TEL AVIV -- William Hazan likes to have a good time at the Seafood Market, a restaurant and club in Tel Aviv. "Every Monday I go to the Seafood to drink, to dance, to be happy," the 46-year-old Moroccan-born Israeli said.
But last month his fun was interrupted by gunfire shattering the club's windows.
"It's something terrorist," he said to himself. He led his wife and friends to the bathroom and told them to lie on the floor.
Staying low, he crawled back to his table, stepping over the wounded, and fished in a friend's handbag for something he wasn't supposed to have in the club at all -- his gun.
Hazan grasped his 9mm Beretta and stood up. He saw a big man grappling with a little man of Arab appearance. As Hazan raised his hands to smash the little man's head with his pistol, the big man stabbed Hazan.
Suddenly understanding who was the terrorist, Hazan stepped back and fired four hollow-point bullets into the big man.
The man he killed was identified as Ibrahim Hassouna, 20, a resident of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus and a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. He had burst into the club armed with an M-16 assault rifle, hand grenades and a knife.
Three people were killed in the attack, including the smaller man, who turned out to be an Israeli Arab who was an out-of-uniform Israeli policeman.
Thirty-one people were injured, but many more might have died had Hazan not had his gun.
Israel is no stranger to guns. Military service is compulsory for most men and some women, and the sight of uniformed and off-duty soldiers with assault rifles slug over their shoulders is common in public places.
Yet Israel has long had strict gun laws and an aversion to a heavily armed civilian population. But the Palestinian uprising of the last 18 months, and particularly the recent series of deadly suicide bombings, have changed that.
The country recently expanded the number of people allowed to have gun licenses. Israelis are flocking to gun shops to buy weapons or trade the guns they have for bigger ones. Even opponents of loosening gun laws have dropped their objections, at least for the moment.
"You cannot ignore the situation," said Gali Etzion, a lawyer for Na'amat, a woman's organization that has in the past opposed liberalizing laws on gun ownership.
Until earlier this year, private gun licenses were limited to people in the army reserves who held the rank of colonel or higher, or to people who worked or lived in specified dangerous areas. Hazan, for example, is a shoe dealer whose work has taken him to the West Bank.
But in the beginning of February, the law was changed. For the next three years reservists with the rank of major can also be licensed to have personal weapons at home.
Etzion estimated the change in the law has made between 20,000 and 40,000 more Israelis eligible for permits.
In addition, organizations needing guns -- companies in Israel's fast-expanding security industry, for example -- can be issued a license. Their employees can take the guns home without having personal licenses.
Over the last two years, the number of Israelis applying for gun licenses has increased greatly. In 2000,4,417 people requested licenses; 2,550 were approved. In 2001, the numbers jumped to 7,790 requests and 4,588 approvals. And in the two weeks from March 3 to 17 of this year, 1,500 people requested licenses -- which would translate into an annual rate of 36,000.
About 265,000 Israelis carry handguns -- 215,711 with licenses and the rest as employees of security firms, municipalities or other licensed organizations. The population of Israel is about 6 million.
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/today/news_c35b20e3f6c610e80026.html
dmelvin@coxnews.com
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878