Iraqi
Open Carry activists have spread through the country, proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and storming markets in four major cities displaying their privately held small arms. Anti-gun activists continue to state that the time has now come to confiscate all weapons and to headstamp registration numbers on ammunition. Reenactors have acquired a sizable amount of surplus military heavy equipment and are displaying it openly in the streets with celebratory parades. A printing firm making
gun-control bingo cards was mysteriously set ablaze as other activists took this time of flash mobs to declare their support for traditional marriage vows as a way to ensure the psychological well-being of youths who had difficult times relating to potential arranged marriage partners, subsequently taking their lives in
car crashes. A local branch of the
NRA in the Levant decried but apologized for their role in this activity, calling such
crowdsourcing of materiel "weird and scary", since each family in Iraq is
allowed one AK-47 type rifle.
Right to Possess Firearms
In Iraq, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law
Firearm Registration
Civilian Gun Registration
In Iraq, the law requires that a record of the acquisition, possession and transfer of each privately held firearm be retained in an official register
State-Owned Firearm Records
In Iraq, State agencies are required to maintain records of the storage and movement of all firearms and ammunition under their control
Marking and Tracing Guns and Ammunition
Firearm Marking
In Iraq, a unique identifying mark on each firearm is required by law
...However weapons registration is poor. A 2006 report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) notes that out of the 370,000 weapons turned over to the US since the fall of Saddam's regime, only 12,000 serial numbers have been recorded. The lack of proper accounting for these weapons makes the acquisition of small arms by anti governmental forces such as insurgents or sectarian militias much easier.
Rate of Homicide per 100,000 People (any method)
In Iraq, the annual rate of homicide by any means per 100,000 population is
2008: 2.05
2004: 7.346
2002: 2.90
Rate of Homicide per 100,000 People (any method)
In the United States, the annual rate of homicide by any means per 100,000 population is
2008: 5.86
2004: 5.93
2002: 6.13
Iraq is facing its gravest test since the US-led invasion more than a decade ago, after its army capitulated to Islamist insurgents who have seized four cities and pillaged military bases and banks, in a lightning campaign which seems poised to fuel a cross-border insurgency endangering the entire region.
The extent of the Iraqi army's defeat at the hands of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) became clear on Wednesday when officials in Baghdad conceded that insurgents had stripped the main army base in the northern city of Mosul of weapons, released hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails and may have seized up to $480m in banknotes from the city's banks.
Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers – roughly 30,000 men – simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq's second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting.
...Abu Abdulla, a 55-year-old who had just arrived in Irbil, said: "Suddenly the army withdrew and there was no army nor police, just the militants; we don't know where they are from; they are masked."
So many soldiers had fled Mosul that the price of firearms plummeted as troops flooded the market with their service weapons, said Shirzad, a taxi driver at the border of Iraqi Kurdistan, who had been ferrying Iraqi army deserters from the checkpoint towards Kirkuk.
Isis released footage of large numbers of weapons and armoured military vehicles being received by members in eastern Syria, confirming fears that the looted weapons would fuel the insurgency on both sides of an increasingly irrelevant border.
It was not supposed to be this way. Back in 2008, U.S. counter-insurgency commanders touted the Iraqi city of Mosul, 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, as a model success in the American “troop surge” that helped contain the Sunni-Shia civil war. But today Mosul became the de facto capital of a jihadist newcomer that is not only crumbling the authority of the Iraqi government but also overshadowing al Qaeda.
Fri Jun 13, 2014 at 1:56 PM PT: some 2012 data: http://www.dailykos.com/...