Chatterbox (aka Timothy Noah) is going after the NRA for failing to comment substantively on the new weapon ownership regulations issued by the Coalition in Iraq. Then Best of the Web fired back, comparing Chatterbox to a crank caller like

a woman distraught over the pounding Dan Quayle, Vice President Bush's running mate, was receiving in the media. We [BotW] listened patiently and commiserated, but then the conversation took a really strange turn, as the woman explained to us how concerned she was that Jews were buying up all the real estate in Northern Virginia.

I think that BotW overstates the case. Surely it would be easy for the NRA to put out a bland response of the form suggested, to wit : “The NRA is concerned with the Constitutional right to bear arms in the United States. It has no position on gun control policy in an occupied country”. Further, as far as I know the NRA has never advocated private posession of the weapons now outlawed in Iraq which is essential heavy arms (roughly weapons that require a crew or a mount and automatic weapons). Why Chatterbox thinks that accepting those kind of restrictions in a foreign, occupied country would cost the NRA points with its political base is unclear to me.

I was actually originally concerned about the ban (which in initial reports was far stricter). A strong ban would leave guns only in the hands of those opposed to the US and/or allied with the Ba'ath. The hard core gunnies (like former Ba'ath enforcers or Caliphascists imported from Iran) would benefit greatly from a strong ban as it would have little effect on them while disarming the average citizen. I think that the ban is just right. It restricts weapons that the gunnie would need to actually oppose US forces or inflict heavy casualties while leaving the general citizenry the means to protect themselves from intimidation by the gunnies. I hope that in the longer term the Iraqis adopt a provision in their Constitution that is modeled directly on our Second Admendment.