The senseless attack on defenseless youth at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., has shocked the nation, and everyone is grasping for solutions.
In Israel, where the threat to our youth is mainly from Islamic terrorists, rather than from random crime and sick individuals, we have commonsense solutions to the problem of shooting attacks in bars, schools, and other public places, and those principles can be applied in America. The basic idea is to keep the guns in the hands of the good, stable, well-trained people, and only of those who need them to protect themselves or others.
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For starters, not everyone can get a gun license in Israel. And there are stringent background checks that can sometimes take weeks or months to investigate and process. Secondly, every school and most public buildings, restaurants, and bars have at least one trained armed guard and sometimes several.
In addition, virtually every public space has armed citizens, all licensed after extensive background checks, with many being very well-trained in their capacity as members of local emergency response teams. Furthermore, many schools and other public places also have security cameras.
Last, but not least, remember that violent attacks really do not occur randomly. Just as terrorism happens for a reason, however sick and unjustified, so too with senseless violence, which usually occurs when there is a vacuum of values.
When there is an absence of solid family and spiritual structure in the home and in schools to provide those values, the ensuing loneliness, chaos, and anger are often given safe passage, ultimately leading to such horrible, violent attacks.
David Rubin, former Mayor of Shiloh, Israel, is the author of the new book Trump and the Jews. Rubin is the founder and president of Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund, established after he and his then three-year-old son were wounded in a terror attack. He can be found at www.DavidRubinIsrael.com
