Quote of the Day
Israel once encouraged citizens to own and carry. Gradual infringement cut this natural right to self-defense and property ownership (arms). Danger is what you get when government denies civil rights. Israel’s slightly relaxed gun laws are a good step, but a small one. America needs to remove any restrictions on peaceful possession of arms—infringements—banned by the Constitution. Officials who act to maintain infringements need to face charges for aggravated infringement—putting innocent lives in danger. Denial of civil rights is a crime, 18 USC §242. Aiding our enemies by disarming us must stop.
Alan Korwin
October 14, 2023
“Standing with Israel” Is Not Enough Mr. President!
Another reference to 18 USC 242. Anti-gun politicians, Enjoy Your Trial!
People will always have to pay the price for the actions of government. That’s as iron-clad a law as supply and demand.
Just as the people of Dresden were fire-bombed to rubble for Hitler’s policies. And the people of Hiroshima for the emperor’s.
Israelis paid a hard price for their government’s incompetence.
We will also. And have been for some time now. As the workings of our government protected/sponsored (by both the US and China), cartels of Mexico rob, rape, murder, kidnap, drug, and enslave almost anyone they want at will. (Showing Hamas to be the amateurs they are.)
1,400 compared to a 100,000 a year dead? Not counting the collateral damage, homeless refugees littering the streets. Overwhelmed EMT systems, robbery, economic destruction, what part of a war aren’t we in?
Just because we haven’t started lobbing 155’s back and forth, and digging trench lines. Doesn’t mean we ain’t losing a war. And if we aren’t being invaded, what else can it be called?
We already have enough evidence to try, convict, and hang 90% of politicians in this country.
We just refuse to look at them for the criminals they are.
Make them pay or you will pay for them.
“They say peace, peace. When there is no peace.” And never will be in our lifetime.
“Israel once encouraged citizens to own and carry”
Really? When was that ever the case? In the mid 1970’s you needed special permission to own and carry. You could only have very limited ammo at home, maybe 50 or 100 rounds. Think Mass or NJ levels of permission. It took a letter from a Col in the IDF to get a permit in my case. (This is firsthand from my time living there between 1976 and 1980 …)
The laws then were not that much different than they are today. Almost identical in fact.
Most commentators on Israel and firearms are very wide of the mark, and idealize what they think the situation is, rather than what it is, or was in this case.
This is the same mental failure that anti-gunners have in how they perceive things, only the polar opposite. Antis perceive firearms and lawless vigilantes and crime, people like Korwin perceive Israel as Switzerland in the Middle East (And even Switzerland isn’t Switzerland any more in this regard…) Both equally wrong.
Since Alan Korwin is so widely off the mark here going back to a time only 30 or so years after the formation is Israel, how trustworthy is any of his other commentary? Is it equally off the mark?
Good questions. Thanks for sharing.
I read the Israeli Security General’s initial post on the “relaxing” of gun laws to “allow” more people to buy and carry. The one where he included the number of citizens the “relaxed” rules would affect.
Then I did the math.
Adding up all the people who would be affected and would now be “allowed” to purchase and carry a defensive firearm, it sums up to about 2% of the population — assuming there’s no cross-over between the groups, and assuming every one of those people he counted chose to go through the process. And the government generously doubled the amount of ammunition they’d be able to buy and keep, from 50 rounds to 100.
They did NOT, however, expand which livable areas would be allowed guns; apparently only those living in certain towns/areas may apply. (Disclaimer: They might have further relaxed the rules since I last heard; I’m going by the first few announcements.)
Hamas stormed or paraglided over the border with over 1,000 fighters, and killed or abducted (by the current numbers) 1,600-1,700 people. While I don’t intend to downplay the value of any lives that might have been saved, that means that at best about 30 extra Israeli citizens might have been armed to resist those 1,000 terrorists … with 100 rounds each, for both practice and use.
But probably not; IIRC, few or none of the areas Hamas attacked are areas where citizens may apply for firearm permits.
The phrase, “Too little, too late,” comes to mind. But it’s what happens when the right to keep and bear arms for any lawful purpose — including, but not limited to, repelling foreign invasions — is not recognized by a government.
IIRC, their historical “buy and carry” areas were kibbutzes out in the hinterlands. Areas where there were no police or military stationed in.
Also, I think you are able to buy extra ammo, beyond your yearly allotment, at a range where the ammo had to be consumed in practice. It could not leave the facility.
Their carry laws are so tight, that you, and your wife, could be military officers, with identical handguns, and in deep shit if found with your mates gun in an inspection.
I worked at an Israeli startup in Silicon Valley, and tried talking to some of them about the 2nd. They saw no reason for civilians being armed for any purpose. These were people that had scars earned in some of their wars. Very socialist type thinkers, it turned out. Even if it was legal, I’m doubtful there would be a large number that would bother exercising that “privilege”. As socialists, they expect the .gov to take care of them. Thirty some years ago, they were well indoctrinated to think that way. “never again”, my ass.
“As socialists, they expect the .gov to take care of them.”
Ah, yes, that imaginary friend whose name starts with a G, that will always be at the place they are needed, and protect them from bad stuff.
Ya, for a people that keeps spouting that phrase, “never again”, They sure go out of their way to see that it does.
This one is on them.
Vox Day put this one up today; From the Times of Israel’s, Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden,
“To dislike certain ethnicities is racist; to see jews as equals is antisemitic.”
I’m thinking we would all have a hard time living next door to that.
My take? It can be very instructive watching God pit the world’s smartest people against the world’s dumbest.
As our turn in the barrel is coming soon.
“IIRC, their historical “buy and carry” areas were kibbutzes out in the hinterlands. ”
Yes, and at the same time no.
Yes, in that in those areas firearms were more commonplace for the reasons you state.
No, because they were pretty much universally issued to the residents by the state as part of the IDF reserve, or other official capacity, from government stocks.
I would note that when the settlers were moved from the West Bank and Gaza when the PA was stood up, the government first recalled all the issued firearms in those areas.
For bloody sake, Israel is five miles wide in places. I did a longer hike with my Scouts in the hottest part of the Seattle summer, and all we did to prepare was make sure everyone had about two liters of water on them.
The Gaza strip is 25 miles long and 5 miles wide. With only the Egypt side open (which it is not, thanks Egypt), a person can walk at a leisurely pace from the furthest point to the Egypt border in under a day, right past the cars that Hamas is holding up with their roadblocks.
This isn’t Eastern Washington where the next town over is ten miles away over rolling hills and farmland. This isn’t Singapore where my daily commute to the Seattle office, in the words of the taxi driver that picked me up from the airport, is “bigger than their country”.
Hamas doesn’t need any guidance in their plumbing-aisle-derived rockets because (assuming their paleolithic rocket doesn’t drop on their own people) anything that gets off the ground is likely to hit people they’ve like to “from the river to the sea”.
The Israelis hardly need rifles for their non-military engagement ranges. They could do fine with shotguns, but they’d do better with ARs with 4x ACOGs and four 30-round mags per adult.
“No, because they were pretty much universally issued to the residents by the state as part of the IDF reserve, or other official capacity, from government stocks.”
If you were not a Sabra, but immigrated there as an adult, I was told that I would probably have to buy a gun, if I was intending to live/work in one of those outlying areas.
In the early 80’s I had an Israeli roommate, and it was enlightening having him detail how things worked there. I had to teach him to drive, as it was an expensive process for them, and if you wanted to learn to drive in your IDF time, you had to add a couple years of service for that privilege. That seems counterproductive if most of your soldiers can’t operate the vehicles they would encounter during military service.
He was a bright guy, and all the idiocy he had to deal with drove him out of Israel. He had two degrees, one as an electronics engineer, and another as a technician, done at different schools. He said that this gave him a much broader employment window. Working as an engineer, he could do his own setups if needed, and working as a tech, he had his engineering background to make him look better. He never informed a company that he had both degrees, and using two schools, it didn’t turn up during background checks.