Article 27 of the Iraqi Weapons Act says that any person smuggling or dealing in illegal arms may face the death penalty. Recently there have been calls by parliamentarians to reduce this penalty to life imprisonment. However, whatever the law says, it does not seem to have deterred weapons dealers in the country.
Additionally, new legislation passed in early May this year stated that each Iraqi household may possess one firearm on the condition that the gun has been registered at the nearest police station.
And like most other Iraqi cities, where illegal weapons markets are common, Karbala has its fair share of arms dealers. Some of them are following in the footsteps of their male relatives – Iraq has a long tradition of personal gun ownership - while others have entered the business because, despite the penalties, it’s a profitable market that has only grown larger over the past year.
The demand for guns is a reflection of the locals’ desires to protect themselves, one of Karbala’s arms dealers, Abbas Bustum, told NIQASH – especially when they feel that Iraq’s own security forces are unable to protect them.
“In fact, most of the people who own guns are engineers, doctors, high ranking officials and merchants,” he explained.
Most of the weapons on the black market are either stolen from the security forces themselves or remnants of the former Iraqi government’s security forces, when the country was led by Saddam Hussein, he said.
And just as cities in the north of Iraq have, cities in central and southern Iraq have also seen an increase in the prices of black market weapons over the past months. There’s been an increase in demand, especially in the western provinces like Anbar, which neighbour Syria.
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