As a Canadian, I can only giggle at this statement…

Frankly speaking, I think the comment on the Labor party is totally untrue. The quantity of Weapons in Gaza and the West Bank is fairly limited and most of it has been purchased from some body in the settlements who are usually heavily armed. (In the occupied territory, It cost around 2K-3K $ to buy the rifle) and almost 1-3 $ per bullet.

I agree that the people are not all armed, but come on, we have 170,000 Soldiers are in duty in cities and around the cities plus 100,000 of Shien Beit, security, .. ++ All the settlers.

Also we Have all the F16, Apache, Nuclear Bombs, US Aid and US Tax Dollars

So we are really safe

There’s reason to suspect the facts as presented by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine:

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

The problem is nobody wants to talk about race and crime in America. It’s not “nice”. It could very well be racist. Therefore I won’t address it. Now I feel better.

However, let me assure you that as an avid gun owner and collector, I am handsome, debonair, devil-may-care, peaceful to the extreme and a just an all around light hearted gentleman. Just don’t ever cheat me in a business deal.

I am sure it is. But then why, every time I see news footage of the Jewish settlements in occupied teretories do I see every other person go shopping with an Uzi slung from their shoulders?

Although, on the subject of gun ownership: it is really people who kill, not guns. If Michael Moore’s excelent movie “Bowling for Culumbine” can be believed, Canadians own more guns per capita than Americans do. Yet their annual gun death rate is in the low three figures, south of the border it is almost 12.000!

I’ve always found the notion that “An armed society is a polite society” hilarious. It’s only true if you believe that shooting other people is “polite” — Israel’s murder rate is something like a quarter of the US’s. I’d say that makes up for a lot of rudeness.

Just a quick note — it’s also very difficult for American civilians to (legally) own a fully automatic weapon. Doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s not relatively easy to pick one up.

“An armed society is a polite society”: If that were really true, the people living in the Gaza strip would have been the most polite in the world…

To Guan:
Here in Israel most adults are indeed reserve soldiers, but none of us store any military equipment at home. In fact, it is against the law to keep ANY military property outside the reserves duty time period. We are simply re-issued all the gear we need (i.e. personal rifle, fatigues, etc.) every time we arrive at the army base and must return it when we depart back to civilian life. Apart from being safer for the general public, this is chiefly done in order to save money by reuse.

You should watch the debates in the Knesset sometimes, they often turn into fistfights.

Something confuses me: I thought that all adult Israelis are former soldiers, and that many of them are reserve soldiers and therefore have an automatic weapon stored in a safe at home.