One of the mantras of gun-nuts is that only the private ownership of firearms is keeping the United States from becoming a dictatorship. They believe the widespread possession of firearms guarantees American liberties. If a government rose that threatened them, the people have the individual firepower to fight back.
By that logic, Iraq is the perfect society. In Iraq just about everyone owns a gun. Not just some cheap Saturday-night Special, they own AK-47s. Heck, lots of them have 82-millimeter mortars they can lob into adjacent neighborhoods. When some outside force invaded with the intent of imposing control like, say the US Army, the Iraqis had the wherewithal to fight back. And they have, with a vengeance.
You will never hear a rightwing, Republican, gun-nut say so but what the Iraqis have done is exactly what they hope Americans will do if faced with a similar situation. Citizen-soldiers (militias) using their own weapons to fight against the government is a Republican wet dream.
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Listening to the Armed Forces Committee, Iraqi citizens (lawfully) keep one AK47 in their houses.
I'm about to turn off the radio and go back to reading,
Three Cups of Tea about the school-building Central Asia Institute.
It is inarguable that the widespread ownership of firearms in Iraq is making it difficult for the United States to assert its will there.
You will never hear a rightwing, Republican, gun-nut say so but what the Iraqis have done is exactly what they hope Americans will do if faced with a similar situation. Citizen-soldiers (militias) using their own weapons to fight against the government is a Republican wet dream.
Why would you suppose a right-wing Republican gun nut would hesitate to say that?
What you should be asking instead is if right-wingers would rather disarm Iraq, violating their human right of self-defense, to achieve victory over the insurgents?
I don't think it would be sensible to do so, however, for the same reasons gun control doesn't work here: we'd be disarming the law-abiding, not the terrorists.
A turning point in Iraq was when the citizen militias starting standing up to the foreign-led Al Qaeda. They were able to do so because they were armed.
Would you want less for your own countrymen, should China or Russia invade us?
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