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

  • From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 17:23:49 +0100

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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