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cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 05:15 AM Jan 2013

Iraqi gun control: An odd challenge to both sides of gun debate

Last edited Fri Jan 11, 2013, 03:46 PM - Edit history (6)

Something that amazed me when we invaded Iraq is that everyone had automatic weapons in their home.

Privately owned guns were limited in Iraq. A head of household was limited to 'only' one AK-47, a fricking machine gun that is illegal here.



Assault weapon developed for the Russian military. 30 bullet magazine standard. Fires ten rounds per second.

For home defense.

WTF?

This was quite a blow to the idea that an armed citizenry precludes tyranny! I had assumed that Iraqis outside the government were never allowed anywhere near a gun. (Surely some towns/areas or religious/ethnic groups were discriminated against, gun-wise, right? But I don't know that. The Shia south and the Shia side of Baghdad seemed to be packing when we first rolled in.)

Why didn't this population armed with military weapons never throw off the yoke of truly terrible tyranny?

On the other hand, it was a blow to my/our assumption of what would happen if everyone had a machine gun. The stifling dictatorship seems to have suppressed acting on the urge to go kill everyone in sight. The things seemed to get used most to make noise at weddings and parties. (In fairness, if there were bunches of civilian mass shootings under Saddam I don't know that I would have known, but it was said to be an unusually law-abiding populace.)

But when we brought 'freedom' (trademark) in the form of induced anarchy, suddenly the place is Dodge City. Civil war. Guerrilla war. Every kind of war, with every head of a household better armed than American gun nuts/enthusiasts... which is saying something.

So we get this paradox... A free society may be precisely the sort of society that can least afford everyone having a machine gun.

An incredible level of social control can keep people 'in the box' even if armed to the teeth. So it isn't just the guns. It's the guns and the lack of a ubiquitous, ruthless, oppressive security state that has broken the will of the citizenry.


If, hypothetically, forced to chose between the two I would take the free country without machine guns... but that's just me.


This post is not particularly pro or anti gun. It's just something that amazed me about Iraq, and probably led to some civilian casualties. Hell, I would have assumed that anyone walking around with a fricking AK-47 was part of Saddam's military or police, not just some working class father out looking at the passing invasion. (We told our soldiers about the issue, but to an American sensibility that is a uniquely military weapon, despite being the weapon of choice throughout much of the less developed world.)

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Iraqi gun control: An odd challenge to both sides of gun debate (Original Post) cthulu2016 Jan 2013 OP
Interesting. Glassunion Jan 2013 #1
I hear you. cthulu2016 Jan 2013 #2
It is amazing what people will start to question when knowledge is passed around. ManiacJoe Jan 2013 #3
Iraq and the AK... k2qb3 Jan 2013 #4
Regular American citizens can legally own AK47s and other real machine guns. OneTenthofOnePercent Jan 2013 #5
Is that full-auto disabled? cthulu2016 Jan 2013 #6
No. They are real AKs, M16, UZI, Macs ... the real deal full autos. (nt) OneTenthofOnePercent Jan 2013 #8
Full Auto is legal Lurks Often Jan 2013 #10
Like most laws in Iraq at the time, it was only on paper Recursion Jan 2013 #7
This seems true in quite a few oppressive regimes booley Jan 2013 #9
It is likely that the Hussein regime was viewed as tyrannical more by the US than by Iraqis. JVS Jan 2013 #11

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
2. I hear you.
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 05:38 AM
Jan 2013

I've spent time thinking about it over the years, but there are so many unlike-America varriables that I don't know that it tells us that much about ourselves.

But it's intriguing. And funny, in terms of the idea that guns prevent dictatorships.

Private guns do make a nation somewhat harder to invade, though. (As we learned) Perhaps there is a trade-off there for the aspiring dictator.

 

k2qb3

(374 posts)
4. Iraq and the AK...
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 06:28 AM
Jan 2013

Were made for each other.

As for them being better armed, I suppose full auto is well suited for the "allah wills it" school of marksmanship, but frankly I'd rather face Iraqi AKs than US deer rifles fired in earnest.

The reality as I see it is most people in this modern world have access to the ability to do a significant amount of damage in one way or another if they're so inclined, most people just have no desire to do so.

The current wierdness is a distraction from the serious reflection as a society on how and why people slip through the cracks and end up so broken that mass murder/suicide seems like the thing to do. These mass shootings are very strange, they have no motive, no gain, no apparent religious or political end.

I believe there are a lot of parallels between the Iraq war(s) both of them actually) and this push for gun control. It's very much the same sort of mistake.

 

OneTenthofOnePercent

(6,268 posts)
5. Regular American citizens can legally own AK47s and other real machine guns.
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 08:07 AM
Jan 2013

The difference is just that every citizen can't own them. Wanna buy a real machinegun? Here, but be warned that they can get pricey due to limited supply and high demand: http://www.subguns.com/classifieds/?db=nfafirearms&category=All+Items+in+this+Category&query=category&search_and_display_db_button=on&results_format=headlines

Alot of afghan locals over here have all sorts of guns. Some are legal and others are black market. It's relatively quiet now, but most local villages and tribes are trying to stock up because they know a civil war will occur once we leave in 2014. Alot of ISAF/NATO forces look the other way on local dealers and regular townsfolk - liekly because they know that's whats going to happen in 2014 too. .

 

Lurks Often

(5,455 posts)
10. Full Auto is legal
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 04:27 PM
Jan 2013

just very expensive and private ownership is restricted to guns manufactured before 1986.

A full auto M-16 will cost between $18-$24k
An Uzi is in the $8-$10k range
A MAC is between $3500-$4500

Additionally you pay a $200 Federal Tax Stamp for each full-auto gun purchased, plus whatever the dealer charges for the transfer. Wait time runs 4-6 months depending how far behind the ATF is.

Murders with LEGALLY owned fully-automatic weapons are so rare as to be non-existent

A quick search indicates maybe 2 since 1934, one by a police officer (police officers can buy full auto if authorized by their department) the other reference is to a murder that MAY have been committed with a legal full auto. The link did not go into detail.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
7. Like most laws in Iraq at the time, it was only on paper
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 03:47 PM
Jan 2013

Arab Sunnis could be armed freely, particularly if they were from the "right" clans, Shi'ites had to hide theirs, particularly in the east. Kurds had them openly, but had been more or less autonomous since the Gulf War.

OTOH, you can bury an AK in sand, dig it up 30 years later, put it in an oil bath, and have a perfectly-functioning weapon, which is what happened a lot out east.

booley

(3,855 posts)
9. This seems true in quite a few oppressive regimes
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 04:03 PM
Jan 2013

Dictators seem less interested in if you have guns and more worried about what you might be saying.

I mean if guns = Freedom, then Saudi Arabia is more free then Canada.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/

Though it's anecdotal, it seems to me that when a police state comes to power, the first group they oppress aren't gun owners. It's artists and writers and intellectuals.

The reasoning would be that while you may have a machine gun, the government has machine guns and tanks and missiles and an army to use them. The regime will almost always have you outgunned and out numbered. Besides which dictatorships don't just rely on force of arms to stay in power. There are plenty of psychological mechanisms that keep a populace supportive of a repressive regime.

But those psychological mechanisms can be undone if enough people start speaking out.

And I never thought that all gun owners were psychotics just waiting to go on a killing spree. Most human beings, even in police states, find murder abhorrent. Anyone can become a murderer but it's not our natural state. So those people that own guns may be irresponsible sometimes or put in a situation where they panic. But very few out of the lot would knowingly kill another human being.

The problem was that some are murderers and and in this country they have access to some pretty lethal weaponry.

It's not as if the cops or the government is psychic. We often cant' spot the killers from the everyday joe schmoes until after the fact.

JVS

(61,935 posts)
11. It is likely that the Hussein regime was viewed as tyrannical more by the US than by Iraqis.
Fri Jan 11, 2013, 04:33 PM
Jan 2013

It also appears that they found our liberation less liberating than the American public was led to believe it would be.

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