19Nov04

On weapons handling in the Mideast, from a friend in Country:

"Gun handling, safety, and storage, as practiced by locals, is horr ifying. Armed Iraqi nationals, Iraqi National Guard, and Iraqi police are all incompetent an utterly unsafe. We never go anywhere near them. Muzzle disc ipline does not exist. Fingers are always inside trigger guards and in contact wi th triggers. Manual safeties on AKs are always 'off.' Collap sible stocks are never extended, and fixed stocks are often cut off ('style points, ' apparently). NDs are more or less continuous. People here are shot by acc ident all the time. No one cares.

All deliberate firing is full-auto, of course. I've never seen anyo ne actually aim a shot. Thus, many more people here are shot by accident than are ever shot on purpose.

Marksmanship is a lost art. Sights are never used. In most cases, locals really don't want to hit the other combatant. Therefore, they shoot over t he adversary, hoping he will return the favor. In a gunfight (over a parking place) just outside my hotel two weeks ago, I saw and heard over a hundred AK rounds fired between two angry drivers at a distance of ten meters. Neithe r antagonist was hit, but both cars were totaled!

Carrying of handguns is also scary. Casually stuffed in waistbands, belts,

pockets, they fall out constantly. What holsters there are are crap. G19s,

Browning HPs, CZs, and Makarovs. Some are loaded. Some aren't. No one ev er seems to be sure. Ammo is shot up as fast as we give it to them in =80 happy fire.' Consequently, most local cops are only given five rounds at any one time. "

Comment: Fox News coverage of Arafat's funeral showed many "mourners " firing their AKs into the air. Malfunctions, born of poor maintenance, wer e legion. What AK that didn't experience stoppages were shot dry, all full-auto. In every case, the puzzled shooter just stands there and looks at his nonfunctioning rifle in disbelief. At some point, he starts dithering hesi tantly, paying no attention to what is going on around him. Some finally remove th e magazine, insert another, and resume firing. They get a handful of rounds off, and then the whole confused process is repeated.

These people are no match for professional gunmen. We must therefore continue to widen the gap between them and us. We can hardly make them mor e incompetent, but we can surely strive to assure that none of us fall into t he same category!

/John