Israeli officials disputed claims made by the National Rifle Association on Sunday that the country serves as proof for the association's belief that the U.S. needs more weapons, not fewer, in light of a school shooting earlier in December where 26 children and adults died.

The NRA responded to the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hooks Elementary School in Connecticut by rejecting claims about tighter gun control and instead calling for armed guards and police at schools. On Sunday, NRA CEO  Wayne LaPierre appeared on the NBC News Show "Meet the Press" and referenced the Israeli school security system to back his proposal.

"Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing: They said, 'We're going to stop it,' and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then," LaPierre said.

However, CBS News reported that Israel has had only two school shootings in the past four decades. The worst was in 1974 when terrorists took 115 people hostage in a school in Maalot and used them to free other terrorists - a completely different motive and incident than that which took place at the Newton elementary school.

Additionally, LaPierre's comments linking America to a country in the midst of war and surrounded by enemies around its borders is a bit far fetched for some Israeli officials. 

"We're fighting terrorism, which comes under very specific geopolitical and military circumstances. This is not something that compares with the situation in the U.S," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor said. He also called the situation in Israel "fundamentally different" from that in the U.S.

"We didn't have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism," he said. "It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion."

Israel's school security system, the one LaPierre referenced in his comments, is part of a layered defense strategy the country evoked to prevent terrorist attacks that the country is prone to on a much larger scale than the attack at the Newton, Conn., school. Guards in Israel are not only stationed in front of schools, but also at other public facilities such as shopping centers, bus and train stations and restaurants. 

"There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children," Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer, said to the New York Daily News.

Israeli law also does not guarantee the right to bear arms as the U.S. Constitution does, according to Yakov Amit, head of the firearms licensing department at the Ministry of Public Security. Gun licensing is restrictive and only limited to those who are deemed to need a firearm because they live or work in a dangerous area, such as West Bank settlers, and residents of communities along the borders with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Licensing requires multiple levels of screening, and permits must be renewed every three years, with renewal not being automatic or guarenteed. Soldiers and officials working in security-related jobs are the only others allowed to carry weapons in Israel.