Nearly a quarter of a million applications for gun permits have been filed in Israel since thousands of Hamas terrorists attacked on October 7, 2023.
“More than 236,000 new requests for permits have been filed” since the attack, the Times of Israel reported, noting that that represents the number of applications filed during the 20 years preceding that attack.
Following the October 7 attacks, Breitbart News observed that private gun ownership among Israelis was low, as Israel lacks the Second Amendment protections that are in place in America.
The BBC reported, “Israeli gun ownership is low at about 2% of the population.” In contrast, the findings of a recent study by Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center estimated upwards of six in ten Americans own guns.
Israeli leaders focused on expediting gun licenses following the January 2023 attacks on Israel. But following the launch of the Hamas offensive, commentators suggested Israeli leaders would go further than expediting licenses this time, surmising that they would broaden the types of weapons Israelis can own privately for defense of themselves and the nation.
Now, in mid-November 2023, the Times of Israel indicated that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has “broadened” eligibility for a gun permit. As a result, “some 1,700 permits are being issued daily.”
By comparison, an average of 94 gun permits were issued each day in November 2022 and 42 a day during November 2021.
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AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.