If I were a comic, I would ask sarcastically: why don't we take all the weapons from those who need to collect the illegal ammunition that is circulating, and transfer it to those who beg for weapons and are not given them?
But I'm not a comic, and the truth is that this is also a really bad solution.
A weapon circulating in the masses cannot solve security, national and personal problems, but it has a considerable potential to create countless of them.
Army and police are our existential infrastructure.
Also education.
But a weapon?
This year is the 2018 school year and we have not learned anything.
In Illinois, USA, they show signs of disillusionment and limit the number of cartridges, photo: GettyImages
A gun store in Illinois, USA, photo: GettyImages
I had a beautiful and gentle man
I was once in a certain relationship with a man who owned a licensed firearm.
He met all the threshold requirements at the time, even though they were strict.
But at the beginning of our acquaintance, he did not get the rifle that he dreamed of, and made another request and another request and shook the heads of the Sifs, until everyone said what it is, what kind of thing it is, in this country they don't know who deserves a weapon and who doesn't.
And in the end he really got it.
The weapon was an integral part of it.
He slept next to him in the room, he went on trips with him, he visited the ranges with him once a year.
A gentle and beautiful man, who goes with a weapon for self-defense to any place that might be dangerous.
Well, where is it not dangerous nowadays, since the dawn of our founding as a nation?
He also created a special place for his rifle in the car, so that while driving - if required - he could immediately pull out the very cumbersome weapon and react.
I often wondered, even to his face, what would happen if he really had to use.
After all, by the time he understands what is happening, and acts accordingly, and takes, and claims - it will be too late anyway.
He does go to the reserve when necessary, but the impression is created that the training in the Tsalim less prepares you for such situations on terrorist-infested roads, or for sudden terrorist attacks during frequent visits to Afula.
Buying a gun (illustration), photo: Yehoshua Yosef
Israel is a post-traumatic country.
And the more the post-trauma of the beautiful and gentle man was directed at me, the closer I felt the weapon.
As the beautiful and gentle man felt that I felt the weapon hot and close, the gun became smoking.
Those who think of handing out weapons and "flexing procedures", are invited to dive with me into that pleasant family morning when I realized that I should report to the police what was happening in my private life, and where the subconscious of the beautiful and gentle man probably hinted to him that the celebration was about to end.
I drove to my grandparents, and the beautiful and gentle man sat next to me the whole way.
I was driving, and the weapon he got on a license after a fight with the authorities is lying between his legs.
His hands hold him gracefully, and I drive, like in an American thriller, keeping silent so as not to annoy.
On both sides of the road, fields spread far away, from horizon to horizon.
And grapefruit and olive and gilboa.
No negotiations for my rescue take place, and the weapon I know from the bedroom looks at me from the seat next to the driver.
This is the same group that told me a few months ago not to lock the door.
This is the same group that used different types of domestic terrorism on me.
This is a cat that does not allow a safe life.
No driver who drove by us could imagine what was happening in the passing vehicle, and what lay between the gentle and beautiful man and the cold-hearted driving.
Even at the police station, before I answered each and every section of the dangerousness questionnaire, they said to me: Him?
Unable to hit a fly.
But I'm not a fly.
A gun found by the police (archive), photo: police spokesperson
Licensed rifle in the first act
A rifle found in the room is a pistol attached to the temple.
There is no home, in Israel or in the world, where the presence of a household weapon in the private space will not permeate the sense of security in it.
And if there is a house in the State of Israel whose existence depends on having domestic weapons in it - then the state's security work is bad.
Police officers and regulars carry weapons - true.
In an orderly manner, there are guidelines, it's part of their job.
But citizens who are eager to own weapons other than as part of the necessary requirements of their job?
- enough.
The State of Israel believes in the security of its citizens, and giving weapons to citizens is bankruptcy.
It's like taking a megaphone and shouting: "Dear citizens", or actually, "Unnecessary citizens, we are not able to take care of you. We decided to privatize security - so every family is now a small army, there is a Rami Levy sale: a gun for 99.90. Take care of yourself, Bye".
There is an argument "then keep your gun too" - personally, as someone who once a day doesn't know where she put her car keys/house keys/employee card (how lucky you pay via cell phone, otherwise I would lose my wallet as well), I wouldn't want to To have a gun even if I lived in a stressful neighborhood in south Tel Aviv, or in Umm al-Fahm, or in Jerusalem.
"Hold your gun too" (illustration), photo: Dodo Greenspan
And even if I remembered (and there are things I do) - the normalization of weapons is a social distortion.
When the female gun or the male rifle, and vice versa, become an integral part of the routine - we live a more violent reality.
For many in Israeli society, the granting of a gun license is an opportunity to put into action the sick fantasies from the Xbox, even if it has nothing to do with domestic violence.
is not that a loss?
"The whole nation is an army, the whole country is a front," said Ben-Gurion in 1978. In our time, we can use his inspiration for solidarity and mutual aid. There should be more sophisticated ways to fight the enemy than arming every household with weapons (and come on, these are mostly men who submit requests ).
Miracles happen when terrorists enter communities where there are patrol veterans on vacation, and less miracles happen when terrorists penetrate neighborhoods with personnel who were not in commandos and did not come home for the weekend with weapons from work. But if this is how our security policy is determined - the threat to our homes is real. A new threat , from the inside, on those houses - will not solve anything.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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