NYT: Sectarian Strife Fuels Gun Sales In Baghdad

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/world/middleeast/03guns.html?ei=5094&en=91d59523b4e9fd73&hp=&ex=1144036800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1144037107-dFVLg2sP5LIhmRGDejP6lQ

Sectarian Strife Fuels Gun Sales in Baghdad
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29

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Akram Abdulzahra now keeps his revolver handy at his job in an Internet cafe. Haidar Hussein, a Baghdad bookseller, just bought a fully automatic assault rifle and has been teaching his wife how to shoot.

Iraq has long been awash in guns. But after the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, sectarian tensions exploded, and more Iraqis than ever have been buying, carrying and stockpiling weapons, adding an unnerving level of firepower to Baghdad's streets.

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After (Saddam) was toppled, security evaporated, opening the floodgates for looters, carjackers, kidnappers and thieves. Baghdad became a place where the good guys wore masks and the bad guys wore police uniforms; at least that was how it often looked as officers covered their faces to protect their identities and kidnappers posed as police officers. In response, many civilians bought guns, and a frontier mentality set in.

"Maybe I'm kidding myself," said Haidar Hussein, the bookseller who is teaching his wife to shoot. "But having a gun makes me feel safer."

L. Paul Bremer III, the former top American administrator in Iraq, did not step between Iraqis and their guns. He issued an order that essentially upheld Iraqi law: everyone 25 and older with a "good reputation and character" could own one firearm, including an AK-47, the world's most popular killing machine.

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