When Times reporter Sheera Frenkel was browsing through purses in a Jerusalem store recently, she found herself looking curiously at one of the bum bags which adorn the waists of so many Israeli men. Opening it, she was surprised to discover it was lined with thick foam cut out to fit a handgun and clip. “Until then I had thought it was a very badly misjudged fashion statement, but in fact it turns out that they are ideal for carrying guns,” she said.

There is a familiarity with guns in Israel that is rare among democracies, even in the firearm-friendly United States. Compulsory national service for both men and women of school leaving age means the majority of the adult population is trained in handling firearms. And while there are many illegal weapons in the system, it is easy - and in some cases actively encouraged - for civilians to acquire guns legitimately.

Members of the army, including reservists, are allowed to carry their weapons with them when they are off duty, and it is also common upon leaving the military for Israeli men to take armed jobs in security, a huge industry in a conflict-ridden country. Even if they then quit the sector, many simply hold on to their guns in order to protect their families.

In settlement zones, firearms permits are freely available. Any Israeli with a clean record can apply to carry a handgun, while in some settlements it is not uncommon to see young men with assault rifles slung over their shoulders. In the West Bank - as in Gaza until disengagement - almost every Israeli household owns a gun.

In the early years of the Jewish state, gun laws were comparatively strict, a hangover from the days of British colonial rule. But in 1974, an attack on a school compound in Maalot by three Palestinian gunman changed attitudes forever. Mourning the deaths of 16 teenagers, the nation looked for a way to prevent future atrocities, and increased gun ownership seemed the logical answer. Regulations were relaxed and all teachers at schools and nurseries were armed in order to defend their pupils against future aggressions.

Since that time, guns have become a commonplace feature of Israeli life, with few ever questioning the efficacy of the policy. Gun ownership has been credited with saving lives of Israelis under attack on numerous occasions, establishing a firm belief that only an armed community can defend itself against Palestinian terrorism.

In 2002, the Israeli Interior Ministry saw applications for gun licenses triple after an Israeli shoe salesman used his own weapon to fatally shoot a 46-year-old Palestinian man who had opened fire in a Tel Aviv restaurant, killing three diners.

However the arming of Israeli society has had some unintended, and distinctly undesirable, consequences. The ready access to arms within Israel has led to the emergence of clandestine networks supplying militants in the Palestinian territories, adding to the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition smuggled in from elsewhere in the Middle East. In November 2006, Israeli police busted a network of Israeli Arabs selling arms to militant cells in the West Bank, while in 2002 an arms ring involving Israeli settlers was uncovered. It is not uncommon for guns stolen from the military by Israeli soldiers to end up in the hands of the very people they are supposed to be fighting.

The 1994 massacre of 48 Palestinian worshippers in a Hebron mosque by Baruch Goldstein, a religious settler, and the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Jewish fanatic, briefly exposed the country’s liberal gun laws to controversy and lead to a tightening of licensing procedures. However, with general crime and murder rates some of the lowest in the world, few saw the need to seriously reconsider the policy.

Such is the fear of terrorist attacks that weapons have become an unremarkable sight wherever Israelis congregate, whether in the cinema, the synagogue or at the market. While in the UK, a man strolling down a busy road with a handgun tucked into the back of his jeans would likely trigger mass hysteria, on the streets of Tel Aviv few would even flicker an eyebrow.

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