Iraqs rebuke to the NRA

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Xlea321
Stranger

Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134

Iraqs rebuke to the NRA

#3150873 - 09/18/04 02:45 AM (21 years, 11 months ago)

Iraq's Rebuke to the NRA
If there are so many guns in Iraq, why is it still a dictatorship?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, March 14, 2003, at 1:56 PM PT

In the March 11 New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar notes in passing, "Most Iraqi households own at least one gun." This comes as a shock to those of us who've been hearing for years from the gun lobby that widespread firearms ownership is necessary to prevent the United States from becoming a police state. Here, via the National Rifle Association's Web site, is Bill Pryor, attorney general of Alabama, decrying the "war on guns": "In a republic that promotes a free society, as opposed to a police state, one of the basic organizing principles is that individuals have a right of self-defense and a right to acquire the means for that defense." The basic Jeffersonian idea is that you never know when you'll need to organize a militia against your government. In director John Milius' camp Cold War classic Red Dawn, Russians and Nicaraguan commies take over the United States in part by throwing gun owners in jail. In one memorable scene, the camera pans from a bumper sticker that says "You'll Take My Gun Away When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Fingers" to a Russian soldier prying a gun from the car owner's ? you get the idea.

The obvious question raised by MacFarquhar's piece is how Iraq got to be, and remains, one of the world's most repressive police states when just about everyone is packing heat. Chatterbox invites gun advocates (and Iraq experts) to e-mail (to chatterbox@slate.com) plausible reasons. The best of these will be examined in a follow-up item.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2080201/

chatterbox Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Iraq and the NRA: Reader Response
Why you can buy guns in Saddam's police state.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, April 4, 2003, at 9:30 PM PT

Three weeks ago, Chatterbox wondered aloud how Iraq could be a police state given that, according to Neil MacFarquhar of the New York Times, "Most Iraqi households own at least one gun." Chatterbox had been given to understand, by the National Rifle Association, that widespread gun ownership was a Jeffersonian bulwark against unfree government. Why did it fail in Iraq? Chatterbox invited readers to explain. Here are the answers he got:

They've got guns, but the Iraqi regime has better guns. One unidentified reader notes that he saw only shotguns in the photograph illustrating MacFarquhar's article. The Washington Post's Anthony Shadid has explained why, notes reader Jared Pitts: "Gun stores can sell only hunting rifles and pistols. But AK-47s, the weapon of choice, are provided to millions of members of the ruling Baath Party and allied militias such as the one known as Saddam's Fedayeen."

A case can certainly be made that freedom-loving Iraqis should have the same access to AK-47s as the Fedayeen. But you can only take this argument so far. If every Iraqi citizen were free to own a weapons cache that matched that of Saddam Hussein, every Iraqi citizen could own chemical and biological weapons. Even Charlton Heston can't want that.

Iraqis are very poor shots. This is the funniest explanation Chatterbox received. Reader David Pinkerd says he's convinced that "the main reason they are always firing guns into the air is that [it] is the only thing they are assured of hitting."

MacFarquhar has it wrong. "Did the Times reporter do a national survey of Iraq?" inquired reader Dave Pinsen. Surely not. And it's true that Chatterbox has chided MacFarquhar before for making fanciful seat-of-the-pants estimates. But MacFarquhar's piece provided testimony from gun shop owners that ammunition sales had risen as much as 50 percent in the runup to the war. He also provided eyewitness evidence (at Baghdad's Target Gun Shop and Trigger Gun Shop) that guns and ammunition are still sold freely and openly in Iraq. Even if he didn't demonstrate that most families have guns, MacFarquhar did demonstrate that most families have easy access to guns if they want them. Which is practically the same thing.

The NRA's basic premise is false. Chatterbox resisted this logic as long as he could. But reader Richard Antill notes that the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and many other western democracies (most, in fact) regulate guns much more heavily than the U.S., yet manage not to turn into police states. Maybe he's onto something.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2081185/

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