[lit-ideas] Re: Nigerian gun control as an example for us

I did read it.  It wasn't to the point of our discussion on gun-control.
Nigeria had and has very stringent gun control laws.  The article doesn't
counter that.  My argument was that gun control doesn't work.  Make all the
laws you want and guns aren't going to go away.  Some of my notes discussed
how easy it was to get or even make a gun.  Mike thought his Draconian
$50,000 fine for gun possession would do the trick. I used Nigeria as an
example of a nation with very stringent gun control.  It hasn't worked.
Guns will always be available from some place.  Make them illegal and you'll
have an illegal gun trade.  The fact that guns are floating around from all
their civil wars and border incursions is interesting, but isn't to the
point.  Those guns are perhaps equivalent to the guns in America floating
around because we've had guns forever.  Guns aren't going away in either
place, but a Nigerian citizen without ready access to the underworld may
have difficulty getting one of these illegal weapons in Nigeria.  So too the
youth gangs that prey upon the undefended.  

One of the Nigerian reps was a Hausa Muslim.  The other was a Catholic from
the south.  I can't recall his clan, but it was in the minority.  He was the
one who wanted to buy a .380 semi-automatic from me.  He described the sort
of robberies that were occurring where he lived.  My point of describing
that was to illustrate that even if these gangs aren't well armed or well
trained, they will use whatever weapons that come to hand and prey upon the
weak and undefended.  Not having guns won't inhibit them from preying upon
the defenseless.  That's what they were doing in my friend's neighborhood.
The fact that Nigeria had lots of guns floating around is a given.  Guns are
floating around everywhere in the world.  But even if someone doesn't have
guns, as in Mike's fantasy future, teen-aged-gangs will take up spears,
clubs, and knives and go about their nefarious business as usual.

Lawrence

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2007 9:24 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Nigerian gun control as an example for us

Lawrence, I know you read a lot, but you seem never to have read
Robert's post on this.  I excerpt

***************
Many experts say Nigeria's problems with small arms and light
weapons
date back to the country's 1967-1970 civil war, during which the
southeast made a failed attempt to secede.

"Many of the small arms used in that war, especially on the rebel
Biafran side, weren't mopped up at the end of hostilities," said
Patrick Oraeke, a security consultant. He said the war created a
generation of people who had trained in the use of weapons but
were
not under the discipline and control of any of the armed forces.
As a
result, they easily resorted to banditry. "The surge in armed
robberies and violent crimes in Nigeria that followed the civil
war is
yet to abate," he added.
***********

obviously political structure and political culture are important
(as well as
specific pieces of legislation, that is -- I agree with Paul on
this);
the UK was probably pretty gun-awash at the end of WWII, the Home
Guard, an overt
organisation, was armed, so was the (covert)
Resistance-in-Waiting.
(For new work on the Home Guard see

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/16/nguard16.xml
)

and some people, probably, many, retained their weapons
afterwards.  But that has not been a
problem.  So, there may be something peculiar about the US's
political culture
(when compared with other liberal democracies) that makes for the
violence
and the political attachment to guns and the propensity to use
them. Here's what
George Saunders (usually, in Guardian Weekend, relaxed and witty
on the
differences between our countries) has to say

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2065967,00.html

LH> I puzzled over this comment: "Last year the police carried
out a dawn raid
> on Orilowo-Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb, and arrested three men after
seizing a
> cache of arms that was sufficient to outfit a 20-man army."
Was this cache
> from the homeowners who wished to defend themselves?  Perhaps.
A cache that
> could outfit a 20-man army doesn't sound terribly large by San
Jacinto
> standards, but it apparently seemed large to the Nigerian
authorities.

perhaps Nigeria's more civilised?

LH>Nigeria is a nation that has attempted draconian gun-control l
ike you want, Mike.  It hasn't worked.


not surprisingly (civil war, aftermath, political
instability...); does that mean it
wouldn't work in the US? perhaps -- cf my musings above -- it
would not work
in the US, but not, because Nigeria hasn't been able to implement
it.
After all, Iraq hasn't managed to implement a liberal democracy
but the US
has (so we are told).  Weird, yes?

Judy Evans, Cardiff
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