A report submitted to the Knesset provided the numbers of civilian gun license requests submitted, rejected, accepted, or being put on hold since October 7. These helped inform an increasing debate within Israel about balancing the need for civilians to defend themselves against terrorists while ensuring guns don't fall into the wrong hands.
The Knesset National Security Committee held a discussion of the report, reported on by the News1 news site, per which some 265,000 requests for civilian gun licenses have been submitted since the beginning of the year until December 8. 33,000 were approved, 20,000 were rejected, and 53,000 conditional licenses were issued.
Of the requests that were rejected, some 8,500 were rejected due to the Israel Police's assessment that the requester is dangerous, 2,129 were rejected due to medical unfitness, and 57 were rejected due to court orders. An additional 28,000 were rejected for not meeting the general criteria.
While MK Tzvi Fogel, Chairman of the Knesset National Security Committee, argued in favor of the more expansive arming of the citizenry as necessary to defend against terrorists in a multi-front war, Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben Ari warned that there was a serious danger that domestic violence and murders could skyrocket if the government was not more careful about who it allowed to bear arms.
