KRG to tighten gun laws, but can’t promise to end black market: minister

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) plans to tighten its gun control laws, but cannot promise a complete end to gun markets, the interior minister told parliament on Tuesday as lawmakers discussed an increase in gun violence, murders, and domestic violence.

“We cannot promise that we will put a complete end to the gun market in the Kurdistan Region, for even in the most democratic countries, there is no complete control of the gun market,” Minister of Interior Rebar Ahmed said in the parliament.

“There are households that have heavy weaponry, none of which is necessary for those families on a daily basis,” Ahmed said. “However, it is no secret that there is a mindset within our community that believes that one day they might need to use those weapons, whether to defend a tribe, a political party, or to defend Kurdistan.”

2020 saw an increase in reported gun violence across the Kurdistan Region, a Sulaimani police spokesperson told Rudaw English in November. And this year, the numbers appear to be even higher.

Gun-related deaths in the Kurdistan Region have “increased 50 percent compared to last year,” Shakhawan Rauf Bag, head of the parliament’s Peshmerga, Interior, Security, and Local Councils Committee said in late April. Twelve people were killed between April 1 and April 27, while a total of 25 were killed over the course of last year.

The KRG has struggled to bring gun ownership under control and decrease the number of privately-owned weapons. Firearms, including sniper rifles and machine guns, can be purchased on the black market.

According to unofficial data compiled by Kurdistan Region’s independent human rights commission, 70 percent of households have a weapon. 

“The reason unlicensed guns have increased is because we have made the process of obtaining a license harder,” Ahmed said, adding that his ministry plans to raise the minimum age for gun ownership.

“We will change the legal age for owning a gun. This is not the right to education and university, or any normal right. Why should the legal age be 18,” Ahmed said. 

“The punishment for holding illegal guns will be increased,” he added. 

According to Article 6 of the 1993 weapons ownership law, persons over 18 who are permanent residents of the Kurdistan Region, and have no criminal record or mental illness can carry a weapon.