Falling bullets an issue in Iraqi town

[onehandle]

Feb. 16, 2004  |  SAMAWAH, Iraq (AP) -- Eight-year-old Zehra Kadhum was outside near her family's garage playing, when she saw her parents kneel to pray. As she bent down to join them, she felt a sharp pain.

snips...

It's easy to get a gun in Samawah.

Like many places throughout Iraq, there is a gun in virtually every household in this desert city, some 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. The sound of weapons -- from AK-47 rifles to small-caliber pistols -- is as much a part of the evening din as is the chanting of the daily prayers.

"Among Arabs, we believe that if a person owns a gun nobody will harm him," he said. "Looters will stay away, troublemakers will stay away."

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/02/16/bullets/index.html

Boy, Iraq is NRA paradise. I see a clear parallel with our own gun-happy crazies and/or fundies.

[mn9driver]

1. Firing weapons indiscriminately into the air

seems to be a common way to punctuate emotions in that part of the world.

In populated areas, it's obviously a very bad idea.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. It's not just in Iraq

http://phoenix.gov/NEWSREL/shanlaw.html

In Arizona we have "Shannon's Law," which makes the discharge of a weapon into the air in a populated area a crime. The law is named for a teen-ager who was killed as she stood in her backyard and a bullet from a random shot fell and struck her in the head.

Several years ago a young boy was killed by similar random into-the-air fire while his father and other relatives were "celebrating" a wedding.

In my neighborhood -- modest homes on 1-acre lots -- in the western Phoenix suburbs, I have to call the police every New Year's Eve (yes, I did it this year, too) and Fourth of July to report random gunfire.

[w4rma]

3. It's probably much easier to obtain real bullets in Iraq than blanks (n/t)