Weapons for Cash Means Cash for Weapons

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

From the Tucson Citizen:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi announced plans yesterday to extend a cash-for-weapons program for Shiite fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City to cities nationwide in an attempt to disarm the country.

The government launched the program in Sadr City as part of a deal to end weeks of fighting in the Shiite district of Baghdad and has twice extended the deadline for fighters to hand in their weapons.

Yesterday, Allawi told the National Council, a government oversight body, that the program is going so well he wants to extend it to the rest of Iraq.

It failed miserably here in the U.S. and will most likely fail in Iraq. A program that offers money in exchange for weapons is going to do one thing and one thing only: give allowances to terrorists who sellback their defunct weapons so they can take that money and buy more expensive ones.

Gun policy is nothing more than a cheap, sustenance-free option for lawmakers too lazy to come up with a real solution to solving crime and violence. In Iraq, the only real solution is to root out terrorism by destroying terrorists, not by giving them cash in exchange for weapons they never planned on using anyway.