Yemen needs an NRA.

Countries that don’t have a strong tradition of individualism often find themselves at odds, since their rights depend on what the majority wants.

Like most Yemeni men, Mahmoud Shahra owns a gun and has known how to use it since childhood, although the 25-year-old activist used to leave his weapons at home. But since the politically motivated kidnapping of one of his close friends earlier this year, Shahra has carried a gun at nearly all times.

He seems at ease with his AK-47, but his demeanor hides internal disquiet. “Even if I feel safer and more confident, I feel like I’m betraying my values when I carry a gun,” he says. “Still, the current security environment has forced me to do so.”

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/1109/Gun-toting-Yemenis-wish-they-could-lay-down-their-arms

No, you’re betraying your values when you don’t carry a gun. If you value life, if you value self-reliance and independence, you carry a gun.

“In early 2011, a cousin of mine advised me to carry a weapon, and I haven’t left the house without my pistol or my rifle since,” says Haykel Bafana, a Sanaa-based lawyer. “I’ve never shot anyone with either, and hopefully never will. Still, I think they’ve played a key role in my protecting me – even on the symbolic level alone. In the current environment, I’d be foolish to leave it up to the government to guarantee the safety of myself and my family.”

 

Although many consider the decision to carry to be justified, the proliferation of weapons in urban areas has raised alarm. Many in Sanaa see the frequent sight of armed men as a troubling sign of a breakdown in law and order. Some have gone as far as to tie it to a string of assassinations targeting security officials across the country, arguing that the normality of armed men has allowed nefarious elements to take advantage.

 

 

Really? I’m far more afraid of German and British soccer fans. Israel has plenty of people walking around with guns. It’s no big deal.

The government has tried to reduce the number of guns on the streets of the capital, largely through upping the presence of security forces. But their attempts have done little to quell anxiety. Sanaa residents complain that crackdowns on unlicensed weapons have only netted a handful of guns and say that an increase in the number of checkpoints has done little more than increase gridlock.

“I want guns off the streets,” said Mohamed, a cab driver, passing through a police checkpoint in central Sanaa. “But, even more than this, I want a government that could actually make that happen.”

 

Looks to me like Sanaa residents are discovering why big government doesn’t work, why it’s such a big disappointment, why everything they touch turns to crap. As for Mohamed, he’s a fool if he thinks the government is going to confiscate all guns and disarm everybody. “Guns off the streets,” what a tired old mantra, as if one can only be a criminal or murder somebody with a gun. As if the gun made the criminal.

There was an old TV show called Friday the 13th, about a man who inherits an antique store full of evil objects that made people do evil things. That’s TV, this is real life. The gun doesn’t control you, you control the gun. Crime shouldn’t control you, but you can control how you react to crime. Fight of flee, courage or cowardice, those are your choices.