Legacy of the gun
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<A
HREF="http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2916.shtml">http://w\
ww.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2916.shtml</A>
Swanee Hunt, who lectures at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the
former U.S. ambassador to Austria.
She can be reached at <A
HREF="mailto:response@s...">response@s...</A>.
What Price Freedom?
Legacy of the gun
By SWANEE HUNT
Aug 28, 2003
Cruising down a Wyoming highway in the 70s, I learned from a bumper sticker
that "the West wasn't won with a registered gun." I have news. The American
West was won about a hundred years ago. But the guns remain. And the war in
Iraq was won two months ago, according to President Bush. But media reports
continue to serve up bad news as American soldiers are killed or wounded, not
by
tanks and bombers, but pistols, rifles, grenades. These "small arms and light
weapons" include machine guns, shoulder missiles, and explosives. Portable,
cheap, and easy to hide.
U.S. forces in Iraq have found stockpiles in schools, hospitals, mosques and
homes. In Baghdad alone, they've uncovered tens of thousands of grenades and
machine guns. But most caches were looted just before our troops arrived, and a
thriving criminal market is funneling even more firepower from outside the
country.
Whether stolen, smuggled, or handed out during Saddam's rule, these weapons
are integral to everyday life. There's an old Iraqi saying, "Give everything to
your friend, except your car, your wife and your gun." In the months before
the war, small arms were so readily available that Iraqi vendors complained of
a slow, saturated market. The U.S. military has since clamped down on open
sales, but Newsweek reports a flourishing underground business, where hand
grenades go for $1.50 and rocket-propelled-grenade launches $70.
Lest we forget, America has a similar love affair with small arms: More
American teen-age boys die from guns than car wrecks. Ironically, when those
boys
are sent abroad in the U.S. military, they're still targets for handguns made
in the U.S.A.
The White House has a problem. How can the administration advocate disarming
Iraq (or Sierra Leone, or Indonesia) if we won't disarm at home? Collecting
arms from the citizenry, whether Asian, African or American, is anathema to the
powerful National Rifle Association.
Small arms have killed an estimated four million people worldwide in the past
decade, which is why the UN Secretary General aptly calls them "weapons of
mass destruction." They're spreading uncontrollably, and any one can be the
target. Small arms are recycled from one war zone to another. Nobel Peace
Laureate
Oscar Arias says, in "A Scourge of Guns," "all studies indicate that, in both
the military and criminal sphere, the greatest percentage of violent deaths
occur from the use of light weapons and small arms."
A proliferation of small arms contributes to an increase in terrorist
attacks, crime, home violence, and local warfare across the globe. From
Monrovia to
Tikrit to Boston, teens are fighting, killing, and dying. Gun running equips
the world's fighters _ including guerrillas, gangs, and child soldiers. In many
countries, children as young as seven, if strong enough to carry small arms,
are abducted for military training.
The problem is so pervasive, the United Nations launched a program two years
ago to encourage member states to destroy surplus weapons, track gun
ownership, and enforce arms embargoes. But compliance is voluntary, and the
UN's role
is limited to collecting information.
The most effective work is being done by community-based nonprofit groups
committed to ridding the world of this scourge. When the government of Albania
collapsed in 1997, a half million small arms and light weapons and tons of
ammunition were looted from military arsenals. The result: a sharp increase in
violent crime and civil strife. Illicit arms smuggling was so extensive, the
U.S.
State Department estimates more than half of the stolen arms ended up in
nearby Kosovo, exacerbating the violence there.
Women's groups in Albania, working with the U.N., lobbied for the collection
and public destruction of illicit arms. The Weapons in Exchange for
Development program raised awareness of the dangers with the motto, "One Less
Weapon,
One More Life." By the end of the program, 12,000 weapons and 200 tons of
ammunition were collected and destroyed in exchange for funding of development
and
public works projects. Smart.
Here at home, school shootings and sniper attacks have fed a culture of fear.
As filmmaker Michael Moore ("Bowling for Columbine") says, we believe that
"we have the right to resolve our conflicts through violence, and that we will
shoot first and inspect for weapons later. That's our mentality ... that's how
we're going to rule the world. And it will be our ruin if it's not addressed."
Straight shootin' talk.
(Swanee Hunt, who lectures at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the
former U.S. ambassador to Austria. She can be reached at <A
HREF="mailto:response@s...">
response@s...</A>.)
ADVERTISEMENT
<A
HREF="http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2916.shtml">http://w\
ww.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2916.shtml</A>
Swanee Hunt, who lectures at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the
former U.S. ambassador to Austria.
She can be reached at <A
HREF="mailto:response@s...">response@s...</A>.
What Price Freedom?
Legacy of the gun
By SWANEE HUNT
Aug 28, 2003
Cruising down a Wyoming highway in the 70s, I learned from a bumper sticker
that "the West wasn't won with a registered gun." I have news. The American
West was won about a hundred years ago. But the guns remain. And the war in
Iraq was won two months ago, according to President Bush. But media reports
continue to serve up bad news as American soldiers are killed or wounded, not
by
tanks and bombers, but pistols, rifles, grenades. These "small arms and light
weapons" include machine guns, shoulder missiles, and explosives. Portable,
cheap, and easy to hide.
U.S. forces in Iraq have found stockpiles in schools, hospitals, mosques and
homes. In Baghdad alone, they've uncovered tens of thousands of grenades and
machine guns. But most caches were looted just before our troops arrived, and a
thriving criminal market is funneling even more firepower from outside the
country.
Whether stolen, smuggled, or handed out during Saddam's rule, these weapons
are integral to everyday life. There's an old Iraqi saying, "Give everything to
your friend, except your car, your wife and your gun." In the months before
the war, small arms were so readily available that Iraqi vendors complained of
a slow, saturated market. The U.S. military has since clamped down on open
sales, but Newsweek reports a flourishing underground business, where hand
grenades go for $1.50 and rocket-propelled-grenade launches $70.
Lest we forget, America has a similar love affair with small arms: More
American teen-age boys die from guns than car wrecks. Ironically, when those
boys
are sent abroad in the U.S. military, they're still targets for handguns made
in the U.S.A.
The White House has a problem. How can the administration advocate disarming
Iraq (or Sierra Leone, or Indonesia) if we won't disarm at home? Collecting
arms from the citizenry, whether Asian, African or American, is anathema to the
powerful National Rifle Association.
Small arms have killed an estimated four million people worldwide in the past
decade, which is why the UN Secretary General aptly calls them "weapons of
mass destruction." They're spreading uncontrollably, and any one can be the
target. Small arms are recycled from one war zone to another. Nobel Peace
Laureate
Oscar Arias says, in "A Scourge of Guns," "all studies indicate that, in both
the military and criminal sphere, the greatest percentage of violent deaths
occur from the use of light weapons and small arms."
A proliferation of small arms contributes to an increase in terrorist
attacks, crime, home violence, and local warfare across the globe. From
Monrovia to
Tikrit to Boston, teens are fighting, killing, and dying. Gun running equips
the world's fighters _ including guerrillas, gangs, and child soldiers. In many
countries, children as young as seven, if strong enough to carry small arms,
are abducted for military training.
The problem is so pervasive, the United Nations launched a program two years
ago to encourage member states to destroy surplus weapons, track gun
ownership, and enforce arms embargoes. But compliance is voluntary, and the
UN's role
is limited to collecting information.
The most effective work is being done by community-based nonprofit groups
committed to ridding the world of this scourge. When the government of Albania
collapsed in 1997, a half million small arms and light weapons and tons of
ammunition were looted from military arsenals. The result: a sharp increase in
violent crime and civil strife. Illicit arms smuggling was so extensive, the
U.S.
State Department estimates more than half of the stolen arms ended up in
nearby Kosovo, exacerbating the violence there.
Women's groups in Albania, working with the U.N., lobbied for the collection
and public destruction of illicit arms. The Weapons in Exchange for
Development program raised awareness of the dangers with the motto, "One Less
Weapon,
One More Life." By the end of the program, 12,000 weapons and 200 tons of
ammunition were collected and destroyed in exchange for funding of development
and
public works projects. Smart.
Here at home, school shootings and sniper attacks have fed a culture of fear.
As filmmaker Michael Moore ("Bowling for Columbine") says, we believe that
"we have the right to resolve our conflicts through violence, and that we will
shoot first and inspect for weapons later. That's our mentality ... that's how
we're going to rule the world. And it will be our ruin if it's not addressed."
Straight shootin' talk.
(Swanee Hunt, who lectures at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is the
former U.S. ambassador to Austria. She can be reached at <A
HREF="mailto:response@s...">
response@s...</A>.)
