Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Gun Bans Kill

Liberal Democrat Carolyn McCarthy has introduced a bill in Congress that would ban many millions of guns. This includes "assault weapons," semi-auto shotguns, detachable magazine semi-auto rifles, and many more. Read the entire NRA alert.

This is an attack on freedom. How much support this gets will say a lot about Democrats' positions on gun rights.

Gun bans kill people. This is particularly true in Uganda, where government forces are slaughtering citizens in the name of enforcing a gun ban. There is no better reason why guns are needed.

For months now, Ugandan army troops have been garrisoned in the northeast part of the country under orders to disarm the local populace—pastoral, cattle-herding tribes known as the Karamojong. The army is attempting, and failing, to quash an uprising which was caused by a prior attempt to disarm the same tribes.

But in its effort to "disarm," the Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have been turned into refugees. Human rights scholar Ben Knighton has used the term “ethnocide” to describe the army's campaign.

This is not the first time the central government in Kampala, Uganda, has persecuted the Karamojong. During the Idi Amin regime, the Karamojong were selected as special targets for genocide. Against Amin's armies, their traditional bows and arrows were futile. So it's understandable why they'd be reluctant to voluntarily lay down their weapons.

This time, the pretext for the "disarmament" of the Karamojong is United Nations gun control. The Ugandan military is trying to round up every last firearm in Karamoja, supposedly for the Karamojong's own good.

The procedure is euphemistically called “forcible disarmament.” It works something like this: The misnamed Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) will torture and rape Karamajong, after which some Karamojong might then disclose the location of some hidden guns. Or the army will burn down a village, after which it might find some guns in the ash left behind.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, let me get this straight... Gun bans will kill people in America because people in Uganda are fighting with each other?

Next are we going to call for a bombing of China because England has tea time?

Anonymous said...

I disagree with the tone the anonymous above takes, but I think he makes at least one good point.

The article above points out problems associated with gun bans ONLY in Uganda. It does NOT prove that gun bans are always bad.

For example, there are very strict gun laws in England, and that has not resulted in any serious problems that I know of.

Just because a gun law was abused in Uganda, of all places, does not mean that all forms of gun legislation are bad.

I think the main problem in Uganda is a harsh despotic regime that has no respect for human rights, not the gun laws.

A.J. said...

Agreed.

Dan said...

When only the police have guns, then it is a police state.

Anonymous said...

Would you call Japan a police state?

And if you are against a gun ban because the government might someday turn on its citizens, then shouldn't we also not restrict access to tanks and missiles? We would need those to effectively fight the government.

Anonymous said...

This is confusing! There are 2 different "anoymous's" comenting on this post!