[rrpjr]

Yes, I take the position -- in as much as I don't really understand the dialectic.

First, I don't believe the US has formed a position on "gun control" in Iraq -- except perhaps that the wholesale removal of munitions from the hands of terrorists is a good idea. If there is spillover into the civilian "non-terrorist" community of our efforts to confiscate weapons, this would seem understandable given the wartime conditions. It seems safer to err on the side of unconditional confiscation for now. Do we have a policy to remove weapons from law-abiding civilians in Iraq? Do we even know who these civilians are yet, without a doubt?

Further, I'm not clear how any comparison can be made between the conditions in Iraq (or any nation) during a war and the debate over gun control and its efficacy in our country. The cultural and historical differences could not be greater. The analogy seems more like an attempt to ascribe some kind of hypocritical double standard to a pro-gun administration trying to impose order on a country awash with both guns and non-uniformed combatants trying to lay hold of those guns to kill our soldiers.

As a postscript, how the the prima facie preposterousness of "gun control" is not grasped more easily and by more escapes me. The most crime-ridden city in America, Washington, DC, also boasts the strictest "gun control." This basic formula follows more or less in almost every other city. As for Europe, recent and dramatic spikes in violent crime are being seen all over Europe, consistent with its ever stricter gun control laws.