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Israel to review enforcement of gun regulations following U.S. school massacre

19 December 2012 20:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Israel's State Comptroller Yosef Shapira intends to examine the state's oversight of regulations regarding ownership of guns and the issuing of licenses to private security companies, the Yediot Aharonot daily reported Wednesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The decision came following the recent murders of Israeli women by spouses who worked as armed security guards, as well as a shooting spree last Friday at an elementary school in the U.S. state of Connecticut, where a gunman killed 27 people, 20 of them children, in an event that shocked the United States and the world.

The review will focus on the public security ministry, which issues gun licenses to both individuals and organizations, and whether they are being given out according to the terms outlined by law, according to the report.

Despite an often complex security situation in which Israeli civilians are periodically targeted by militants, most people don' t privately own a weapon due to stringent criterion.

The majority of gun owners include residents of West Bank settlements, public transportation workers and officers discharged from the military with the rank of lieutenant colonel, all of whom are granted a license pending an exhaustive physical and mental screening.

Public committees had previously been established to recommend ways of improving the state's supervision of estimated 300,000 weapons held by Israelis. The upcoming probe will seek to determine if it is also monitoring how they are being used or misused, the report said.