Illegal Weapons In Israel – A Matter Out Of Control

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Arie Egozi

Israel is a huge storage of illegal weapons. Weapon theft from IDF bases is just one source for the massive amount of illegal weapons and so far, no real effort is being done to reduce it.

Whenever illegal weapons or a stolen legal weapon is used, the subject reaches headlines but nothing is being done.

One the one hand, law abiding citizens are experiencing great difficulties to receive licenses for weapons for self-defense, but at the same time gun control in Israel is one of the worst in the world.

According to police estimations, there are 400,000 illegal weapons held by both Arabs and Jews in Israel.

This number is shocking considering that the number of licensed weapons only reaches 290,000.

These are astounding numbers of stolen weapons. No wonder these weapons have become an almost daily item in criminal activity and innocents are being injured almost weekly.

Add to that the unbearable lightness of stealing weapons from the IDF, and we have a major problem. The ease with which facilities were broken into, facilities which were supposed to be secured, and guns of all kinds were stolen came as no surprise to people of the gun industry in Israel. They tell of legal weapon storages without even the most basic means of security, of guns locked in cupboards so simple to open, that you can break the lock with a paperclip, and of weapons being left in offices in unlocked drawers.

Thefts from the IDF and from border settlements have enriched the arsenal of illegal weapons now serving mostly people of the underworld. Today they posses, according to experts, guns, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, grenade launchers, frag, stun, and smoke grenades, and even rocket launchers.

Israel has some IDF bases that were once targets for weapon thefts. People in the gun industry say that today you can load a truck with weapons in one of those bases and leave without anyone even noticing.

“Some measures were taken but the matter still hasn’t been dealt with thoroughly,” said a source in the weapons industry.