Pro-gun Libertarians decry Bush administration’s efforts in Iraq

Remember the other day when I noted the irony of the Bush administration’s strict new gun policies in Iraq? With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I wondered whether “pro-gun conservatives” would “conclude that Iraqis can never truly be free unless and until the Bush administration’s totalitarian gun control measures are undone.”

Of course, I was kidding. No one would really argue this, right? Wrong.

The Libertarian Party, which has never hidden its fervent support for unlimited access to firearms, has announced its opposition to the Bush gun control plan for Iraq, saying the plan will “victimize innocent civilians.”

“An allied military plan to confiscate weapons in Iraq may destabilize the nation further by giving the green light to street thugs and Ba’ath Party loyalists who are terrorizing innocent civilians,” George Getz, the Party’s communications director, said in a press release.

Geoffrey Neale, the Libertarian Party’s chairman, said, “Imposing this gun grab is like declaring war on Iraq for a second time. How many innocent men, women and children will be kidnapped, robbed or murdered because their U.S. ‘protectors’ turned self-defense into a crime?” He added, “Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if Iraqis who survived the horrors of Saddam Hussein became casualties of the U.S. government’s gun grab?”

Who needs parodies when real life is so funny?