The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Iraq

[Mycroft]

Baghdad Residents Kill Three Militants

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets pulled out their own guns Tuesday and killed three insurgents when hooded men began shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to civilians increasingly frustrated by the violence bleeding Iraq.

Nothing like a citizenry willing to shoot back to discourage terrorism.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050322/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[crimresearch]

Hmmmm...

I'll bet that makes at least 3 insurgents who will be deterred from trying that again.

[TragicMonkey]

It doesn't speak well of a place when it's safer if everyone's heavily armed.

[Bruce]

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20050322/capt.bag10503221128.iraq_bag105.jpg

Is that a Chevy S-10? I used to have one of those. I didn't know the bed could comfortably fit the bodies of three terrorists. I never used my S-10 for moving anything when I owned it, but since I sold it, it seems like everyone needs help moving bodies and stuff.

[Zep]

Y'know, that's how they should do it in the USA too. Any citizen anywhere should feel free to shoot down any other person who even thinks about looking at them sideways. Bugger the requirement of reasonable defence or whatever. Just go for that wild-west shootout mode of civil peacekeeping.

Question: Who's to say the guys being shot aren't the police, and the shooters were the terrorists resisting arrest? Can't tell - lots of dead bodies not telling tales, eh.

[Mycroft]

Originally posted by Zep
Y'know, that's how they should do it in the USA too.

That's pretty much how it is done in the USA, don't you watch TV? Just last month I got myself two criminals. At least I think they were criminals.

[Zep]

An old report, but worth the read: http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/TurleyAndHarrisonHamline.htm

ILLUSION OF UTILITY

The risk of injury or death from the mere presence of a handgun should, by now, be apparent. But does that risk outweigh the usefulness or utility of this product when marketed over-the-counter to the general public? If so, then a judicial determination that it is an "unreasonably dangerous" product should be expected.

One recent poll indicates that at least 43% of all the persons owning handguns do so for "self-protection".[121] Records show, [Page 307] however, that, at best, the handgun carries only an illusion of safety; at worst, it endangers the life of its owner. The handgun is of almost no utility in defending one's home against burglars. A Case Western Reserve University study showed that a handgun brought into the home for the purposes of self-protection is six times more likely to kill a relative or acquaintance than to repel a burglar.[122] When homicides and suicides are added, the figure increases fifty-fold.[123] Since 90% of all residential burglaries are committed when no one is home,[124] the homeowners life is rarely endangered by burglars.

That fact alone illustrates a far greater likelihood that the handgun will be stolen rather than used for self-protection. It has been estimated that 275,000 handguns (most purchased for self-protection) are stolen each year and turned back against society. [125] Further, although a burglary is committed in the United States every ten seconds, [126] there are eighteen million residences in this country. [127] If one assumes a home is never burglarized twice, an assumption contrary to actual patterns, and couples this with the fact that in nine out of ten burglaries the resident is not at home, statistically it will take more that 120 years for a member of any given family even to have an opportunity to confront a burglar. And actual confrontation increases the likelihood of injury. [128]

The handgun is also of questionable utility in protecting against robbery, mugging or assault. In one survey of robberies and attempted robberies, even when the victim responded with a weapon, the robbery was completed four out of ten times,[129] and victims who responded with weapons were injured twice as often as those who did not.[130] The element of surprise the robber has over his victim makes handguns ineffective against robbery.[131] The victim of a [Page 308] street robbery, for instance, "seldom recognizes his predicament until it is too late to defend himself except by engaging in a gun battle at great risk to his life."[132]

A survey of Chicago robberies in 1975 revealed that, of those victims taking no resistance measures, the probability of death was 7.67 per 1,000 robbery incidents, while the death rate among those taking self-protective measures was 64.29 per 1,000 robbery incidents.[133] The victim. was eight times more likely to be killed when using a self-protective measure then when not.

Although handguns, possess little or no utility as self-protection devices, some may have a socially acceptable value when properly marketed under restrictive guidelines. Law enforcement activities, at least in this country, still require police officers to carry handguns when necessary. Producing handguns for law enforcement use, however, does not necessitate or justify marketing these products over-the-counter to the general public. Certain high-quality handguns may be suitable for sport-shooting purposes and still others may be suitable for collecting. Even these uses, however, do not justify the 22,000 deaths per year that result from marketing handguns to the general public. Sport-shooting clubs can easily continue activities under more restrictive marketing plans.

[Giz]

Zep "A survey of Chicago robberies in 1975 revealed that, of those victims taking no resistance measures, the probability of death was 7.67 per 1,000 robbery incidents, while the death rate among those taking self-protective measures was 64.29 per 1,000 robbery incidents.[133] The victim. was eight times more likely to be killed when using a self-protective measure then when not."

Is that "self-protective measures" refering to waving ones hands around and using harsh language, or deploying Uzi's? If these "self-protective measures" include non-firearm defences then they prove nothing (though they could just imply that if you're going to resist you need to be more heavily armed than the intruder...)

[rikzilla]

What with the crushing of Fallujah back in November, the successful Iraqi elections, the continued strengthening of the Iraqi police and army,...and now the citizenry itself fighting back. It appears that the insurgency is trending down.

Here's more evidence: (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/21/international/middleeast/21haifa.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1111590298-I1l+ErAT2BLiht1qjD4r0g)

But the change American commanders see as more promising than any other here is the deployment of large numbers of Iraqi troops. American commanders are eager to shift the fighting in Iraq to the country's own troops, allowing American units to pull back from the cities and, eventually, to begin drawing down their 150,000 troops. Haifa Street has become an early test of that strategy.

Last month, an Iraqi brigade with two battalions garrisoned along Haifa Street became the first homegrown unit to take operational responsibility for any combat zone in Iraq. The two battalions can muster more than 2,000 soldiers, twice the size of the American cavalry battalion that has led most fighting along the street. So far, American officers say, the Iraqis have done well, withstanding insurgent attacks and conducting aggressive patrols and raids, without deserting in large numbers or hunkering down in their garrisons.

-snip-

A Downturn in Rebel Fire

For now, the days when rebels could gather in groups as large as 150, pinning down American troops for as long as six hours at a time, have tapered off. American officers say only three Haifa Street mortars have hit the Green Zone in the past six months; in the last two weeks of September alone, 11 Haifa Street mortars hit the sprawling zone.



Good news all around. (Unless you ask Demon)
-z

[Mycroft]

Wow. That's from the NY Times, even.

[crimresearch]

Originally posted by Zep
Y'know, that's how they should do it in the USA too. Any citizen anywhere should feel free to shoot down any other person who even thinks about looking at them sideways...

Zep...tell whoever is posting under your name to leave your computer alone when you aren't there.
AUP doesn't have a key to your door does he?

'Looks at them sideways'???

This is still a combat zone, and these 3 opened fire on a crowd of their fellow citizens...and you are UNhappy that they weren't allowed to kill more people?

That just blows any claim you could ever advance of wanting *less* deaths, all to pieces.