Iraq: I.E.D.s Don't Kill People, PEOPLE Do Posted by Rosa Brooks

If that sounds like an idiotic and insane thing to say, ask yourself how gun control opponents can continue to make the equivalent claim in the domestic context.

No, hunters, I'm not after your shotguns: keep 'em with my blessing.  But how many more school massacres is it going to take before this country figures out that yes, there is a connection between the number of automatic weapons sloshing around, the laws that enable their easy purchase and concealment, and the amount of lethal violence? Sure, you can kill someone with a knife or a shotgun or by squishing them to death under sixteen tons of marshmallows, if you're really bent upon murder-- but without easily concealable automatic and semi-automatic weapons, it's a whole lot harder to kill 30+ people in a few short minutes.

Factoid: fanatical as the Bush Administration is about the right to bear arms-- and opposed as they are to the most common-sense of gun control laws,  one of the very first orders promulgated by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq was... yes, that's right, an order stating that "no person shall possess, carry, conceal, hide, bury, trade, sell, barter, give or exchange" heavy weapons, defined to include "all weapons firing ammunition larger than 7.62 MM." CPA/Ord/23 May 2003/03 also prohibited the possession of small arms in public places and the carrying of concealed weapons.

Funny, our commitment to bringing freedom to the Iraqis didn't include a commitment to guaranteeing the right of the people to bear any old arms they felt like bearing. On the contrary-- in the Iraqi context, even the Bush Administration readily understood that a society awash with weapons is more likely to see a lot of lethal violence than a society in which deadly weapons are more strictly controlled. Of course, we didn't do a very good job confiscating or controlling weapons and materiel in Iraq, but that's another story....

 

Comments

[Lane Brody]

It's extremely difficult to imagine a worse essay. By law everyone in Iraq can keep an AK-47 in their home for protection. Automatic weapons are not legal in the US without a very serious federal license.

One can easily defend gun control in various forms- especially against hand guns. Moreover, one can show excellent statistics showing a relationship between murder and gun ownership. However, in nations that recently took away almost all citizen's guns (UK and Australia) the rate of other violent crime increases significantly. Indeed right now in the UK there are very serious calls to outlaw the selling of most knives as murder and assault with knives is hitting a very scary rate.

It's also worth pointing out that someone with a gun can shoot crazies with guns- which is how many such crazies are stopped. The point should be that a given society gets to decide through it's laws how it wishes to govern itself. The Constitution does not prevent very serious regulation of the right to own a gun.

To compare a law in Iraq that does not allow anyone to have a heavy caliber machine gun (which has not been legal in the US for decades without a serious federal permit) when every home can have an AK-47 (and does) as something good enough for Iraq but not for the US is to be kind a tad factually challenged.

It's not ever going to be a black and white issue. Taking away guns does lower murder rates but does increase the rate of other crimes, including rape, assault, and especially burglary. Violent crime with knives is an epidemic in the UK, they are going to try and take away knives. At some point more guns starts to make sense.

[Rosa Brooks]

Lane, you're missing the point. To clarify: according to press reports, the weapon used in the VA Tech shooting was a 9mm machine pistol that could be (and presumably was) used on the automatic or semi-automatic setting. It had been legally purchased by the shooter a month previously. Such weapons-- along with various other heavier caliber weapons-- were originally defined as heavy weapons and absolutely prohibited by the CPA under its May 23, 2003 order. Later CPA orders modified the original prohibition and made CPA regs roughly track the older Iraqi weapons control regime, with some modifications, which had the effect of loosening the original restrictions somewhat. Beyond that, you're trotting out the standard NRA line about guns, and I think I'll let someone else take on your arguments there!

[Scott B]

"[T]he weapon used in the VA Tech shooting was a 9mm machine pistol that could be (and presumably was) used on the automatic or semi-automatic setting."

It was a Glock 19, which is called an "automatic" but capable of only semi-auto (one bullet per trigger pull) fire. Glock 19s are very common and actually quite a sound handgun; they're the same weapon used by police departments around the country, including the NYPD. A "machine pistol" suggests a weapon capable of full auto or burst fire - for example the Glock 18, which is law enforcement/military only.

The comparison with Iraq is rather spurious. As of 2003-04 at least, every household was permitted to keep an AK-47 capable of firing 7.62x39mm rounds that are vastly more powerful than the relatively small 9x19mm and tiny .22 cal rounds used at VA Tech. If this guidance was enforced in Iraq in such a way that had them confiscate 9mm handguns because they were "heavier" than 7.62mm rifles, then it's more a matter of bureaucracy and morons executing it than because these are "heavy weapons." Soldiers would know the difference, and they wouldn't consider a 9mm handgun heavier than a fully automatic AK-47 that can't even be sold legally in the U.S. (barring the usual NFA issue, which is the exception that proves the rule). I'm aware of units in Iraq that not only permitted people to keep AKs in their house, but actually dug up spares and armed families that lacked ways to protect themselves. A close acquaintance commented that his soldiers felt the only way to be sure a widowed mother with a teenage daughter could protect herself was by giving her a weapon.

A sense of perspective after these traumatic but unusual events is required. Gun violence is a public health problem not because some whackjob with a couple handguns found himself some extremely unlucky victims but because tens of thousands are shot and killed in this country on a yearly basis. The VA Tech killer was determined enough to chain himself in and fired hundreds of rounds. Someone that dedicated to going out in a blaze of glory isn't going to be stopped by even strict gun control measures.

[Lane Brody]

Rosa Brooks you are in need of a fact check:

1) The Glock is a pistol, not a machine pistol.

2) The pistol was not an automatic. Such weapons may only be owned by law enforcement, the military, or those with a federal permit- which is not easy to get. The sale of automatic weapons to the public is highly illegal.

3) The 9mm pistol round is not a "heavy" round. It's actually a small round. The stated size, in this case 9mm, does not tell you how big the round is.

4) A 9mm pistol may have been illegal under the CPA in Iraq but it's not a heavy caliber. A heavy caliber weapon in Iraq is something bigger than an AK-47 which is legal in Iraq. Specifically the restriction was on heavy machine guns.

5) I certainly did not trot out the NRA line nor am I a member of the NRA. I did in fact state it's easy to write an essay in defense of gun control and especially hand guns.

Finally to attempt to dismiss anyone who does not agree with strict gun control as someone just parroting an NRA line is to cease to have an intelligent discussion. Almost every single fact you based your essay on was wrong. Not wrong by degree but factually incorrect. It's a very bad essay.

In fact the NRA view would probably be that the real problem was that Virginia recently passed a law prohibiting the carrying of firearms on university grounds. It would be extremely easy to point out that by law nobody was allowed to defend themselves and if they had then someone would have shot the crazy murderer.

This in fact is a reasonable view. So is the view that most people not be allowed to own handguns. I would argue, were I so inclined, that either state would be better than the situation found on Virginia Tech where nobody had a gun but a killer. Your essay was not only factually challenged but lacked any sense of perspective. There are downsides to restricting gun ownership just as there are downsides in little or no restrictions. It's not black or write or zero sum.