There is a crowd at the Hollander shooting club in Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv. Hundreds of customers come for the training required to obtain a firearms permit. The exercise, theoretical and practical lessons, lasts one day. In a gymnasium, a group of nine men between the ages of 20 and 60 practice drawing, blank shooting, kneeling on the floor and changing magazines in front of their instructor, a member of the Israeli special forces. “You have to reload without taking your eyes off the enemy. “You’re not Rambo yet, but with a little practice you’ll become one,” he assures.
“I came to have my own weapon. Since the attack on October 7th, no one feels safe anymore. Israel will never be the same again. It changes the people, the politics, the army… I live near Arab areas. What Hamas did could happen to us. This is not science fiction,” worries Amir Erez, 49 years old. A father of three teenage girls and the owner of a small software company, he spent 25,000 shekels – almost 6,000 euros – to get all the training, as well as the pistol and ammunition. The goal for him and his comrades is to be able to hold on and wait for help in the event of an attack.
“Many people didn’t want guns in their homes. But that has changed. We may be hiring to cope with the influx of new applications,” comments Riki Hollander, the club’s manager – a family affair. Roy, his 24-year-old son, who has just finished his service as a shooting instructor in the army, believes that a gun is useful: “It can slow down an attack. Terrorists cannot move freely in the open if they are threatened with fire. »
Precise boundaries
Since the massacre committed by Hamas, Israel has faced an unprecedented demand in its history: according to the Ministry of National Security, headed by Jewish racist Itamar Ben Gvir, 180,500 new applications were submitted to purchase a private weapon. The trend was already increasing: there were 19,000 inquiries in 2021. They doubled in 2022, reaching 42,000. The aftermath of the riots of May 2021, when mixed cities were the scene of intercommunal clashes between Jews and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Reservists like to show off their assault rifles on the country’s streets. Yet only 2% of Israelis legally own a gun.
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