Lord of War, Arms Trade and the UN?

[MeekAndMild]

Rotton Tomatoes review page

Lord of War starring Nicholas Gage is a movie which appears to be trying to add emotional appeal to the idea of some huge international body being given the force of legal enforcement to stop the trade of quasi-legal arms. It is a thinly disguised historical documentary about gunrunning, revolution and death in the third world, with much of its emotional impact derived from graphic scenes of violence.

One would hope its impact might be more to educate people in the futility of progressively harsh gun control laws. It demonstrates the problem that often the people who are not allowed to buy legal arms are the ones who need to defend themselves. It mentions the crying need that the poor people of Africa have for means of self defence and the inequity of opportunity for life which is endemic in regions of the world which are run by dictatorships.

Would anyone have any other opinion about the movie, sufficiently political in nature to keep this thread open in L&P?

 

[marlboroman84]

I liked that movie alot and my friend and I had a long discussion after watching it about gun control. We both conceded that the movie should be a definite tool to show that if you want something bad enough and are willing to pay for it, you can get it. While I certainly don't condone Nicholas Cage's character's actions in the movie, he proved a point very efficiently. problem is most people who see that movie will not notice the facts that most of us here will. They will see that guns are used to kill people en masse' and guns are the problem with the world. What everyone seems to forget is people used to do the same amount of killing if not more with swords,axes,spears,maces,flails,knives,etc. The Romans didn't have guns and they did a pretty good job of taking over Europe if I remember History 101 at all. If they outlaw guns completely then all that will do is make joe gangsta brush up on his sword fighting and knife throwing skills.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Joe Gangsta won't need to brush up on anything. He'll still have his guns.

Joe Citizen, though? Well, that's another story.
Rich

 

[marlboroman84]

Joe Gangsta won't need to brush up on anything. He'll still have his guns.

Too true Rich,too true. Well i'll rephrase I can brush up on my sword skills lol. I used to be a fairly decent fencer, but I think I only thought i was because I'd watched The count of Monte Cristo a hundred times.

 

[Redworm]

If they outlaw guns completely then all that will do is make joe gangsta brush up on his sword fighting and knife throwing skills.

One of my biggest hurdles with antigunners is their idea that if guns are outlawed worldwide then they'll just disappear. They believe that if the half billion firearms in the world are melted down into scrap that no one will build anymore. They can't fathom the idea that guns used to be made by hand. They don't understand that to completely rid the world of guns we'd have to ban the knowledge of internal combustion.

They don't understand that it's no easier to uninvent the gun than it is to unfry an egg.

 

[garand_shooter]

They don't understand that it's no easier to uninvent the gun than it is to unfry an egg.

Nice analogy, Redworm. Mind if I use that...?

 

[MeekAndMild]

While I certainly don't condone Nicholas Cage's character's actions in the movie, he proved a point very efficiently

I like his characterizations a lot better than Clint Eastwood's. He played the part well and the character was more likeable to me than Dirty Harry. At times the character took on aspects of martyrdom and sacrifice.

If they outlaw guns completely

I don't think we need to wait until the theoretical future to see the negative impact of arms prohibition. Look at the former Yugoslavian wars of the 1990's to see what happens when the UN gets involved in "peacekeeping missions" and arms embargo.

Persepctives:

The Serbs have been aided by the arms embargo on Yugoslavia imposed by the U.N. in 1991. The arms embargo allowed the 80,000 man-Bosnian Serb militia, armed and supported by neighboring Serbia, to retain control of the territory that it has conquered, roughly 70 percent of Bosnia, in large part due to a near monopoly of heavy weapons. The Bosnian government can mobilize up to 200,000 men but has been unable to arm them because of the embargo.

Heritage Foundation article

While the President was calling on our allies to pressure Iran, and while the President and the Clinton administration were calling the Iranian terrorists, quote, `the main source of international terrorism,' and while publicly condemning Iran's shipment of arms to the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Bill Clinton was secretly and simultaneously conniving an even bigger Iranian arms shipments to Bosnia.

1996 comments by Congressman Cox

I certainly--and I am sure most of my colleagues--would much rather have seen the arms embargo lifted and the arms supplied to the Bosnian Government by the United States or other friendly countries other than Iran. It is clear to me--it was then--that the Bosnian Government would have preferred that outcome, but just as a drowning person cannot be particular about who has thrown him a life jacket, a dying nation, a nation under death siege, as Bosnia was at that time, cannot be particular about who gives it arms.

1996 comments by Senator Lieberman