At weddings, football matches and other special events, some Iraqi men like to fire salvos of celebratory gunfire into the sky, worrying
little about where the bullets might fall.
For some Iraqis, the tradition has been devastating, as have random bullets from sporadic gun battles in a society still awash with weapons after decades of war and turmoil. Iraq, a country of 43 million, endured wars under former dictator Saddam Hussein, the 2003 US-led invasion, and the sectarian conflict and jihadist insurgencies that followed.
Months later, he remains mostly bedridden, the projectile still lodged in his shoulder after doctors advised against surgery because of a pre-existing medical condition.Abbas voiced fury at those who fire off celebratory rounds when “a football team wins, during a wedding or an engagement party”.He decried the rampant gun ownership and said that “weapons should be exclusively in the hands of the state”.
In recent years, their collections have been swelled by the “huge quantities” of firearms left behind by the Iraqi army during the US-led invasion, he said.“Our main problem is not small arms but medium and large weapons,” Miri said, referring to military-issue assault rifles and other powerful guns.
He too decried how even a simple argument “between children or at a football game” can quickly lead to someone squeezing a trigger, with those paying the price often “innocent bystanders”.Before flagging, please keep in mind that Disqus does not moderate communities. Your username will be shown to the moderator, so you should only flag this comment for one of the reasons listed above.
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