Thursday, January 22, 2015

MK Moshe Feiglin: Citizens Carrying Firearms Prevent Terror

“If two armed and trained citizens had been on the bus yesterday in Tel Aviv, the terror attack would have ended in a completely different way –  or it wouldn’t have happened at all,” said MK Moshe Feiglin after Wednesday’s terror attack in which 10 were wounded, three seriously. “But Israel’s policy is to reduce the number of citizens licensed to bear arms as much as possible. The main excuse is the murders that have been perpetrated by owners of licensed guns. But the truth is just the opposite. In 2013, 13 murders were perpetrated with licensed firearms. 12 of those murders were carried out by security guards or police. Their weapons belonged to the organization for which they worked or to the State! They weren’t privately owned at all,” Feiglin said.
“How many tractors running people over, knife-wielding terrorists or other murderers and robbers have been neutralized by responsible citizens bearing licensed firearms?” Feiglin asked.  “So if weapons-bearing citizens help to secure the public domain, shouldn’t the State encourage responsible citizens to practice shooting and carry weapons? Why does it do just the opposite?
The answer is that the State of Israel is not increasing our liberties; it is reducing them. Dictatorship confiscate citizens’ weapons. ‘The State alone will take care of all your security needs’.
In the past, there were 300,000 citizens licensed to bear weapons in Israel. That number has now been cut in half. As a member of the Knesset Interior Committee, I was able to stop the trend. But we have to understand: Without liberty, we will not enjoy security,” Feiglin concluded.

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