Posted by
John Caile on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 8:08:19 AM
Uganda offers a 'gun control' paradise
by David Codrea for Examiner.com
"When I became a man, I put away my toy gun," writes
Charles Onyango-Obbo in The East
African. He's commenting on a
picture worth a thousand words:
A picture of
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni visiting mudslide victims in military
uniform and an AK-47 strapped across his chest has created quite a buzz
in the blogsphere.
The thing is, Musevni offers a
good representation of what much of the world has experienced when it
practices the goals of those who would ban private ownership of guns,
and limit their keeping and bearing to the state and its
representatives. You know, the "Only
Ones."
We saw how that worked out during Idi Amin's reign
of terror. How's it working in more recent history?
David B.
Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne D. Eisen offer
us some clues:
[I]n its effort to "disarm," the
Ugandan army, supported by tanks and helicopter gunships, is burning
down villages, sexually torturing men, raping women, and plundering what
few possessions the tribespeople own. Tens of thousands of victims have
been turned into refugees. Human rights scholar Ben Knighton has used
the term “ethnocide” to describe the army's campaign.
But
there's scant mention of such methods if we rely on the United Nations
for information on
the "programme":
Some 3,500 pieces of small arms
and light weapons were destroyed on October 5, 2009, part of activities
marking the tenth anniversary of the East African Community held in
Speke Resort in Kampala. The destruction was carried out by the National
Focal Point on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF), Uganda Police
Force (UPF), and the Ministry for East African Affairs, with support
from UNDP.
The destruction of the weapons, mainly AK-47 machine
guns and semi-automatic rifles, was initiated by President Yoweri
Museveni of Uganda and witnessed by the prime minister of Rwanda and
dignitaries including ministers from the East African community and the
UNDP Resident Representative.
Quite a success story,
eh, these fruits of the United Nations Programs of Action, the Bamako
Declaration and the Nairobi Declaration and Nairobi Protocol on SALW
(small arms and light weapons)? Hey, I'll bet all those refugees who
survived feel a lot safer now that "cattle rustlers" and other "non
state actors" have been disarmed. Not that it has stopped those
pesky rebels.
One group that shouldn't feel safer, though,
is Ugandan
gays:
Same-sex relationships are already illegal
in the country under sections 140, 141 and 143, with sentences running
from five years to life imprisonment...[T]he Anti-Homosexuality Bill
increases in scope both the definition of 'homosexual acts' and the
punishment with the death penalty for repeated offenses, those who are
HIV-positive and for same-sex acts with anyone under 18 years.
So,
what do the "human rights progressives" who demand total citizen
disarmament offer in the way of choice for those who might not want to
be imprisoned or killed? Somehow, I don't see a Ugandan chapter of Pink Pistols being one of the
options.
IANSA's Rebecca Peters will no doubt tell them to "get
another hobby."
David Codrea is an Examiner from the National Edition. You can see
David's articles at: http://www.Examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner
[For those who think our own leaders would be any different, in cities like Chicago which already have Uganda-like prohibitions on the private ownership of handguns, local politicians routinely exempt themselves, owning (and carrying) handguns regularly - and in the corrupt Chicago system, there is hell to pay for any local cops who dare to arrest the politically connected - Ed.]