Erdan's happy trigger finger
Op-ed: Sane countries—that are not the US—seek to disarm citizens, because a gun in the hands of an unskilled citizen could be dangerous both to him and his surroundings. But the public security minister wants us to be like America. Is that what we want?
The minister's statement begins and ends with security. And what begins with the "sense of security"—meaning, in the psychological sphere—ends with the ontological sphere—guns "bolster public safety." In between there's pseudo-scientific babbling.
The trained citizens (who underwent basic training 30 years ago) are not armed with guns, they are "carrying firearms." They are not walking the streets armed, but the "public space." They are not unskilled gun-slingers (skill doesn't mean the ability to operate a gun—this can be taught in five minutes—but the ability to identify a security threat and deal with it in a level-headed manner—this you don't learn in Givati's basic training), they are "incidental boosters of strength" (oh, the wording, the wording... everything can be done with it).
Erdan is not concerned that like in the United States (or in the Wild East behind the Green Line), armed citizens would open fire at "incidental" suspects, "incidental" passersby, or at each other. On the contrary, as far as Erdan is concerned, the thousands (and perhaps tens of thousands) of new armed citizens make up a nice addition to his not-big-enough-fiefdom. They're actually part of the security forces under his control—"an important line of defense against lone-wolf terror attacks."
So what's the problem with the minister's plan? After all, my criticism of his wording skills is not a good enough reason to disqualify the plan, especially as wording skills are a matter of taste.
After the Police Investigation Unit announced there was no evidence that Yaqoub Abu al-Qiyan, who was shot by police officers in Umm al-Hiran, was planning to carry out a car-ramming attack, for example, the minister declared that "I feel that there's a higher probability that this was a car-ramming attack." This wording: Feelings, probability, denial of facts—in short, it's a matter of taste, both in the selection of the words and in the inclination to open fire, whether it's necessary or not.
But back to the point. What's wrong with arming tens of thousands of additional unskilled citizens? The problem is that a sane country—which is not the US—seeks to disarm its citizens. Those who are supposed to use "firearms in the public space" are members of the security forces, who have the required skills and training and who are under the supervision of their commanders. All of the other armed citizens could indeed aid in certain cases, but in many cases they make a mountain out of a molehill and hurt innocent people. Even the truly skilled often have a hard time deciding when to use a weapon (see: the Umm al-Hiran incident), not to mention the 1998 alumni of Givati basic training.
Here, of course, is not where the problem ends. Erdan's assumption is that all gun carriers—who will join the police officers, security guards and many armed soldiers already on the streets of Israel—see their main purpose as serving as his reservists. They carry weapons to stop lone-wolf attacks. The problem is, it's not entirely clear whether this is how they see themselves.
If we can learn something from the US, it's that a weapon in the hands of unskilled people is frequently used to settle scores, to commit murder inside the family, to resolve neighborly disputes, to end road disagreements and a thousand and one other matters in which it would've been better if the sides had been unarmed.
This is why modern nations are very cautious when it comes to arming citizens. A weapon in the wrong hands is dangerous to the carrier and to those around him.
At times, I must admit, there is no choice. At times the security problem is such that it's not possible to recruit enough police officers to handle it. The catch is, this isn't the situation in Israel. It's hard to claim its streets are flooded with attackers, and that the dangerous remedy proposed by the public security minister is the only solution to this problem. So what can we say? That Erdan wants Israel to be like America. The question is—is that what we want?
