Gun Culture and Violence in Israel

In a recent "Pomegranate" blog post on the Economist.com the author mentions some growing concern of human-rights activists regarding the prevalence of guns in Israel. However, the reported figures (esp. the number of gun licences) seem surprisingly moderate, actualy not witnessing of any formidable cult of gun carrying in the Israeli society. Allegedly, in the Jewish state whose population exceeds 8 million:

"gun licences belong to almost 300,000 Israelis, including 130,000 employees of the country’s fast-growing private-security industry."

And that is perhaps assumed to indicate the looming catastrophe. In comparison, in the Czech Republic, with its slightly more than 10,5 million inhabitants, there are some 310,000 persons licenced to possess guns. Out of that number more than 230,000 are holders of the type "E" licence, who are permitted to carry a (concealed) gun (typically a handgun). On the contrary, the quantity of employee-type licence ("D") is considerably lower than the comparable number in Israel (cca 63,000 in the CZ v. 130,000 in IL). In sum, the proliferation of the gun-carrying in the two countries seems to be more closely comparable than I have ever thought. Yes, there are supposedly substantial differences between the attitudes toward guns in the Czech Republic and Israel, e. g. with respect to the mode of carry (in the Czech Rep. it is generally illegal to carry a gun visibly), the role of the army (there is no mandatory military service in the Czech Rep. any more), or the overall security situation. However, in terms of the number of people licenced to carry firearms the nations are quite simmilar.  But in the Czech Republic, so far, the problems related to gun-violence have been rather negligible and in no way resembled the incidents described in the above cited blog post.

To conclude, it is very unlikely that the problem of recently growing violence by Israel's own (non-Arab) nationals is a corollary of the sole fact of the domestic gun prevalence, as argued by a blogger on the Economist.com.