ISRAEL.TXT
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I, Abraham N. Tennenbaum, declare and say:

EXPERTISE ALLEGATIONS

I am an Israeli attorney practicing as a prosecutor and am a lieutenant
in the Israeli national police (Jerusalem).

I received my law degree in 1985 from the faculty of law of the
University of Jerusalem. In 1986 clerked for Israeli Supreme Court Judge
S. Natanyahu. In 1987 I joined the Israeli national police as a criminal
investigator and since 1988 have been a prosecutor with the Police
prosecution Department in Jerusalem.

Currently I am on leave from the Israeli national police and am studying
for my doctorate in criminology from the Institute of criminal Justice
and Criminology, University of Maryland (at College Park, Md.).

I am the author of: Israeli gun laws and their impact, a paper presented
at the 50th anniversary meeting of the American Society of Criminology
(1991) which is forthcoming in C. Cozic & C. Wekesser (eds.), Gun
Control: Current Controversies (October, 1992); The relationship between
Police use of deadly force and the homicide rate, Western Criminologist,
Fall 1991; and Police officers' need for self-defense causes brutality
in B. Leone (ed.) Police Brutality (1991). I have also published popular
articles on gun control, police use of deadly force and other
criminological subjects in the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, St.
Louis Post Dispatch, Hartford Courant, Cleveland Plain Dealer and USA
Today.

If called as an expert witness, I would testify as follows:

GENERAL REGULATORY SCHEME

1. Like England which once controlled the area and from which much
Israeli law is drawn, Israel has no formal written constitution. As in
England, Israeli law recognizes certain things as essential human rights
either by statute, regulation, practice or judicial decision. But gun
ownership is not among them.

2. Firearms possession is not by right, but by permission based on
policies which, in effect, promote public safety by assuring that there
will in all public places be competent, trained civilians bearing
firearms. The philosophy of gun control in Israel is that firearms
training is available to the entire loyal, law-abiding citizenry. In
addition to the firearms that are privately owned, firearms are freely
distributed to trained competent, civilians by the Israeli government
(Army or police). And therefore guns are, by comparison to the U.S.,
very available to the ordinary citizen.

3. Israel has very intensive and extensive gun control -- if that is
understood to include not only limitation-regulation of gun ownership
but encouragement-requirement of it. To own any kind of firearm, a
special permit from the Interior Ministry is required. No one may obtain
a permit without showing a legitimate reason for owning a firearm. The
permit has to have the approval of the police, and is specific as to the
owner, and the specific firearm whose serial number has to appear on the
permit. In addition, it is current policy that permitees qualify on the
range with the firearm and they must re qualify every other year.

4. It is easy for a law-abiding citizen (with no criminal record) to get
a permit for a handgun- The primary reason for a permit to issue is
personal protection, including the military function and self-defense
against terrorism- People have firearms for other reasons too, such as
hunting or target shooting, but the main reason is for self defense.

CARRYING CONCEALED HANDGUNS

There is no distinction in Israeli law between carrying a handgun and
possessing it: A permit to own a handgun is a permit to carry it on the
person (concealed or not concealed). Carrying it is recommended, because
then the gun is protected from thieves or children. (According to
Israeli law, the owner of a firearm is responsible for it. If it is lost
or stolen, s/he must inform the police within 24 hours. The owner will
generally be prosecuted for a misdemeanor offense which is known as
"negligence in keeping a firearm"; the "negligence" is more or less
presumed from the mere fact that the firearm has been lost or stolen.)

6. Given the ease of getting handgun permits, and that carrying is both
allowed and encouraged, in any large crowd there will be some citizens
carrying their personal handguns on them, usually concealed. This is
exemplified by the following incident which occurred at a perpetually
crowded intersection in Jerusalem some weeks before the MacDonalds
massacre [in San Ysidro, California, 1984]: three terrorists who
attempted to machine-gun the throng managed to kill only one victim
before being shot down by handgun-carrying Israelis. Presented to the
press the next day, the surviving terrorist complained that his group
had not realized that Israeli civilians were armed. The terrorists had
planned to machine-gun a succession of crowd spots, thinking that they
would be able to escape before the police or army could arrive to deal
with them. 1

GOVERNMENTAL FIREARMS DISTRIBUTIONS

While Israeli law limits personal ownership of firearms to those
possessing permits, firearms are readily available to law-abiding,
responsible civilians for temporary carriage. Most firearms in Israel
are not owned by those who use or carry them. They belong to the army,
the police, or to other authorities who loan them out. Some examples
will explain this huge distribution of firearms.

A. There is mandatory service in the army (three years for males, two
years for females). In addition, most of the males are recalled into the
army for reserve service approximately 30 to 40 days each year. Most of
them get firearms which they do not just possess while in service and on
active reserve duty. Reservists, like all soldiers are allowed (and
those serving in dangerous areas are required) to take their firearm
home during each leave period or between stints of reserve duty. The
result is that in any major crowd (bus stations, trains, main streets),
there are reservists or soldiers armed on the way to or from home.

B. Whenever a school project involves a field trip to the countryside,
they are required to have companions with firearms. These will usually
be parents and/or teachers. In order to obtain enough firearms, one of
the parents or teachers will go to the local police station and be
assigned some firearms, which s/he will return after the trip.

C. The Israeli police operates a civilian volunteer body called the
"Civil Guards." One of its functions is to provide voluntary armed
civilian patrols during the night in some neighborhoods. The patrollers
are equipped with firearms, which are issued at the beginning of, and
are returned at the end of, the patrol. Many of the volunteers are high
school students (ages 1618). After a short period of training, they
carry firearms like any other volunteer.

D. Another example is the way the police handle cases of criminal
kidnapping, a phenomenon which is very rare, but which does occur. If a
person is missing, volunteer teams are issued arms and go out to search
the forests and caves, while the media call or people to be aware of the
situation and try to locate the missing person.

CRIMINAL POSSESSION AND MISUSE OF GUNS

8. The police and the court take seriously the felony o1, possessing a
firearm without a permit, which almost always means- that the gun is
stolen. People with previous criminal records who are caught with
firearms are generally sentenced to a year or two in prison. There is no
parole for this and they serve their full sentence.

9. Criminals can get guns in Israel, but it is not easy.  Usually,
handguns are stolen from private citizens while grenades, and explosives
are stolen from the army. An unfortunate aspect of this is the greater
use of explosives and automatic weapons in murders.

10. To summarize: It is not as easy to get an illegal firearm in Israel
as in the U.S.A., but it is possible. However, the phenomenon of drug
dealers or other criminals walking around with a firearm on their person
is unknown in Israel.

INCIDENCE OF HOMICIDE AND SUICIDE

11. The Jewish homicide rate in Israel has always been very low. Indeed
despite the common availability of guns to law abiding civilians, the
Israeli homicide rate is comparable to, or lower than, most Western
European nations and much lower than the United States. As in the U.S.
and most other nations, the Israeli suicide rate is much higher than the
homicide rate. Nevertheless, it, too, is lower than the U.S. suicide
rate and much lower than European nations whose suicide rates are often
several times greater than the U.S. -- or even greater than the U.S.
murder and suicide rates combined. The following table of international
murder and suicide rates illustrates this:

1 INTERNATIONAL INTENTIONAL HOMICIDE TABLE The Table is based on: 1987
data from The Statistical Abstract of Israel; an article by Killias
which gives averages for many countries for the years 19834 6 (Gun
ownership and violent crime: The Swiss experience in international
perspective, Security Journal 1990; 1: 169-74); and data on other
nations from the latest year available in the U.N. Demographic Yearbook-
l985 (published, 1987)- Figures from Killias are in bold face.

Country             Suicide         Homicide              TOTAL

RUMANIA              66.2              n.a.             66.2 (1984)

HUNGARY              45.9              n.a.             45.9 (1983)

DENMARK              28.7               .7              29.4 (1984)

AUSTRIA              26.9              1.5              28.4 (1984)

FINLAND              24.4 (1983        2.86             27.2

FRANCE               21.8 (1983        4.36             26.16

SWITZERLAND          24.45             1.13             25.58

BELGIUM              23.15             1.85             25.00

W. GERMANY           20.37             1.48             21.85

JAPAN                20.3               .9              21.20

U.S.                 12.2 (1982        7.59             19.79

CANADA               13.94             2.6              16.54

NORWAY               14.5 (1984        1.16             15.66

N. IRELAND            9.0              6.0              15.00
(Homicide rate does not include "political" homicides)

AUSTRALIA            11.58             1.95             13.53

NEW ZEALAND           9.7              1.6              11.3

ENGLAND/WALES         8.61              .67              9.28
(Homicide rate does not include "political" homicides)

ISRAEL                8.00              1.00             9.00
(Homicide rate does not include "political" homicides)


12. In simple words, the "gun density" in Israel is very high.  The laws
are designed not to prevent gun ownership and carrying by the law-
abiding, but to bring these phenomena under the scrutiny of the public
authorities. The philosophy of gun Control in Israel is that, subject to
police oversight, the public can be trusted with firearms; indeed, we
can distribute many weapons to authorized people. And, therefore, guns
are, by comparison to the U.S., very available.

13. The fascinating point is the combination of what may seem to other
nations contradictory components. On the one hand, owning and carrying
guns is strictly licensed. On the other hand, guns are available and
used by almost every law-abiding citizen at one time or another.

14. In Israel this combination works very well. The question is whether
it could be successfully implemented in other societies. Perhaps the
Israeli success is attributable to unique cultural or local conditions.
It may not be generalizable to other nations.

VERIFICATION
I certify and declare under penalty of perjury under the laws 19 of the
State of California that the foregoing is a true and correct statement
of my views and of the information upon which they are based. Executed
this 20 day of September, 1992 at the University of Maryland, College
Park.

______________________
1       Kates, Firearms and Violent Crime Old Premises, Current Evidence
in T. Gurr, Violence in America (1989), v. 1, p. 209.

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