At this stage, a big factor is going to be the relative strength of the

Iraqi populace vs. the remnants of Saddam’s secret police. It’s little use

for an anti-Saddam Iraqi to know that the Coalition forces are three blocks

away if he also knows there are a couple of armed secret police in his own

apartment block, with absolutely nothing to lose. Can he do anything about

them? Only if he himself is armed. So how armed is the general Iraqi

populace? I heard a TV commentator say that everyone in Baghdad has a gun.

If that is right, it disproves the main argument in support of the Second

Amendment–that an armed populace will not endure a dictatorship. I feel

sure that in fact it cannot be right. Yesterday Iraqi TV showed some

customers happily buying weapons at a gun store in Baghdad, but goodness

knows how authentic that was, or who the customers were. Anybody got hard

facts here?