What gun laws does Iraq have?

[Oleg Volk]

I asked this in soc.culture .iraq but got no answers and can't even find my post...does anyone know the laws on ownership, carry and other uses of weapons in Iraq (guns, knives, batons)? If not, could someone research this.

I am very curious just how mild or oppressive they are, and how selectively applied.

 

[chaim]

I don't have a link and I don't know for sure but there was an NPR report the other day about how just about everyone there owns at least one gun and many people own several. It was a report the gyst of which was "look what we'll be facing if we invade" so I don't know how much credence to give it. My guess, especially since they do expect us to attack, most or all members of ethnic groups loyal to Sadaam have them, and members of other groups do if they are believed to be reliable and loyal. Oh, that includes civilian ownership (or more accurately, possession) of full auto AKs provided by the government.

 

[answerguy]

Every Iraqi owns a gun? That's fine, more spoils of war for our guys as they toss'em and surrender. They must have learned how to wage war from the French.

 

[MicroBalrog]

Read somewhere that...

With the war on the horizon they repealed all gun control to repel the invasion (!!)

 

[gun-fucious]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030112/170/30w50.html

An Iraqi man is seen through a shop window inspecting a handgun at a shop in Baghdad, January 11, 2003. Iraqi clan groups, a key force in the country, are stocking up on rifles and pistols from the Iraqi capital's 45 retail gun outlets, taking heed of government calls for the populace to ready itself for a U.S. invasion, Bedouin gunshop owner Yassin al-Jabbouri says. Photo by Akram Salah/Reuters

 

[Chris Rhines]

Interesting.

I've heard everything from, "Guns are illegal unless you have state connections," to "Guns are freely available over the counter."

Third-world kleptocracies tend not to enforce the laws they do have, though. You just have to be careful not to disappear in the middle of the night.

- Chris

 

[anchored]

I did a little browsing on Findlaw.com, and found the Iraqi constitution - it has 65 articles, none of which guarantee a right to bear arms, although defense of the homeland is the responsibility of each citizen and conscription is compulsory.

I'll keep looking - I can't find any listing of laws. Apparently, one of their laws is that they don't have to publish the laws they make.

 

[CZ-75]

Most Iraqi laws are "gun" laws, in that should you violate them, you end up in front of a gun.

 

[gun-fucious]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-10-30-urban-war-usat_x.htm

Saddam also has not armed his civilian population, intelligence experts say, for fear that the population would turn on his regime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26394-2003Feb4.html

Iraq Arms Civilians As Second Line of Defense Against U.S.

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 5, 2003; Page A01


MOSUL, Iraq, Feb. 4 -- Semira Ahmed, a schoolteacher, keeps her battered AK-47 assault rifle in her bedroom closet, next to her dresses, shoes, jewelry and cosmetics. Abbas Mahmood, a shopkeeper, displays his in the living room, on a shelf with pictures of his children. Mohammed Abdullah, a farmer, totes his wherever he goes, because he wants to be ready "to fight at any time."

From dusty villages to the bustling streets of Baghdad, guns are omnipresent in Iraq. They are, as people here are fond of saying, more common than telephones or cars, and perhaps even portraits of President Saddam Hussein. "Everyone has one," Abdullah said. "And some people have two or three."

Over the past two years, Hussein's government says it has trained 1 million civilians in the basics of armed combat and given many of them firearms to keep at home. With Iraq now facing a possible U.S. military invasion, Iraqi leaders are encouraging -- and counting on -- those people to act as a last line of defense in cities and towns across the country.

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