Students in Israel Don’t Carry Guns to Class, Contrary to Social Media Posts

On May 29, the Independent Firearm Owners Association — which describes itself as “a gun rights, pro-privacy, pro-freedom organization” — shared a photo on Facebookshowing young women walking with military-style guns. The caption reads, “No school shootings in Israel. Must be great gun control? What, they carry guns to class – oh no, not that!” The post received over 13,000 likes and 8,000 shares.

The photo has appeared in similar tweets, also claiming there are “no school shootings in Israel.”

But the Facebook post and the tweets misrepresent the individuals in the photo. And it is not true that there have been no school shootings in Israel.

We don’t know when the photo was taken. But through a reverse image search, we found the photo had been posted in 2011 on Defence.pk — a self-described “one stop resource for Pakistan defence, strategic affairs, security issues, world defence and military affairs” — with the heading, “Pictures of Women in the Armed Forces.” 

We also found the image used in an article from 2020 published by SHTF Blog, a survival blog website, titled “Israeli Gun Ownership, Culture, and Laws.”

The blog identifies the women in the photo as members of the Israel Defense Forces. 

The IDF is the combined military forces of Israel, consisting of three branches — ground forces, air force and navy — that function under a unified command. 

IDF soldiers — who are at least 18 and tend to stay on a military base during the week — were able to carry guns to civilian settings when they went home on weekends to prevent weapons theft and kidnapping up until 2006, according to a 2011 report on firearm access and ownership in Israel and Switzerland.

But in 2006, the report noted, soldiers were prohibited from bringing home their service weapons on weekends because of high suicide rates among the IDF.

This restriction was reversed in 2016 after IDF Chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot issued an order that all IDF combat soldiers must carry their weapons — on or off duty, in uniform or out of uniform — in response to a rise in violence at the time. 

The bottom line is the individuals in the photo shared on social media are not school kids taking weapons to class, but apparently trained members of the military.