Under ISIL Threat, Erbil Residents Snap Up Black Market Guns

What do you do when psychotic fanatics with
a
taste for beheading people who piss them off close in on your
home and threaten the lives of yourself, your loved ones, and your
friends? If you’re an unfortunate resident of Iraq, you stock up on
guns and ammunition—either to arm yourself to join the local
defense forces or just to take care of home and hearth. CCTV
America (run by state-owned China Central Television) has an

interesting report on a firearms bazaar outside the city of
Erbil. Customers include Kurdistan’s organized Peshmerga as well as
private citizens.

The offerings range from World War 2 surplus to lots and lots of
AK variants to pistols of all description. There’s plenty of
ammunition, too, and business is apparently brisk as the threat of
ISIL hovers not too far away. (Lufthansa
resumed flights to the city a few days ago, but U.S. forces
were
blasting ISIL positions near there not long ago.)

Interestingly, special restrictions apparently apply to American
sourced weapons—so shoppers have to buy those in the parking
lot.

Iraq’s firearms black market is nothing new. It’s a
long-established sector of the economy where prices (as always)

vary with demand. And demand varies with the immediacy of the
threats faced by people who might need to defend themselves.