Weapons Of ISIS: We Must Stop ISIS From Getting American Guns
The difficulty is to keep from restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens.
In order to stop the threat of ISIS in Southeast Asia, the U.S. government must take measures to cut off ISIS’ access to firearms from the United States.
A major portion of ISIS’ growth in recent years has occurred in the Philippines, where it has become more active and caused chaos culminating in a recent attack on Marawi. One of the reasons it has done more damage is its ability to acquire more powerful weapons and deliver them to militias through its supply lines.
The island of Mindanao, which is in the southern Philippines, is where ISIS has made most of its moves in the nation. Considering the strife that has been occurring on that island for decades, it was a natural target.
Mindanao is home to the Moors, a group of Muslims who have fought fiercely for independence against other nations as well as independence from the rest of the Philippines. They don’t just fight against others, though, as the group also deals with frequent infighting, leading to the creation of different factions.
The battle of Zamboanga in 2014 was a significant factor in ISIS’ expansion in the Philippines. Zamboanga is in Mindanao, and the battle started because one faction of Moors was negotiating peace with Manila, which angered another faction. It resulted in the deaths of 51 insurgents, and 70,000 people had to flee their homes.
Those peace talks reached an impasse with all the fighting, and that led to many Moor factions allying themselves with ISIS. This includes the Abu Sayyaf militia, led by Isnilon Hapilon, who rose to leader of ISIS in the Philippines by April of 2016.
As ISIS numbers have continued to swell in the Philippines, violence has quickly followed. There have been battles between ISIS militias and the Philippine army. Abu Sayyaf has taken many hostages and even decapitated two of them. Not only does ISIS contribute to unrest in the Philippines, it also gives members a place where they can build their combat experience before they move on to other targets in Asia or elsewhere.
After a January 2016 attack in Jakarta, Indonesia, that left four civilians dead, Greg Barton, who serves as Deakin University’s chair in global Islamic politics, made a statement that would turn out to be prophetic. He said that next time the militants would be using assault rifles instead of pistols.
In May, ISIS Militants stormed Marawi, a city in Mindanao, carrying rifles and raising black ISIS flags throughout the city. Civilians first ran into their homes and then fled the city by car. The Philippine army went into the city to fight the militants, and although 61 militants died, the incident also resulted in the deaths of 11 members of the Philippine military, four police officers and 19 civilians.
With its militias more heavily armed, ISIS can take over more areas and inflict more casualties in firefights with police officers and the military. It has several ways to get firearms.
How ISIS Obtains Its Guns
Since ISIS operates in many different areas, it uses different tactics to obtain guns, depending on the location.
In the Middle East, ISIS controls a significant amount of territory around Iraq and Syria. It has supply lines that it uses to transport weapons and other supplies. These supply lines travel into Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, all areas where Syria and Iraq can’t send their air support. From there, ISIS has a network that expands further into North Africa and Eastern Europe.
The United States is well-known for having more guns available than most other nations, with the most well-armed military and civilian population in the world, and ISIS is fully aware of that. In fact, ISIS runs a propaganda magazine called Rumiyah, and in one issue of the magazine it even broke down several methods for militants in the United States to obtain guns.
Some of these methods were illegal, such as breaking into a hunting shop when it closes or surveying a gun shop and then ambushing staff members. But the magazine also mentioned that legally acquiring guns in the United States is a “very easy matter,” and specifically recommended purchasing guns online through private dealers or at gun shows. Federal law doesn’t require a background check for firearm purchases through either of those methods, although some states do.
Of course, if a militant or extremist has a clean record, there’s also the option of buying a gun at a store. The typical gun store has a wide selection of pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles available. The AR-15 rifle has a long and storied history in the United States, having been extensively used by both civilians and the military (as the M4A1 carbine).
It’s also a weapon of choice for ISIS, having been used in the Marawi attacks abroad and in incidents of domestic terror such as the Orlando nightclub shooting. Its ubiquity and affordability make it easy to buy off-the-shelf variants of the AR-15, some costing less than $500 for a fully functional weapon.
Easy access to these types of weapons at low prices can often have disastrous results. Although the United States hasn’t seen any full-scale assaults by an ISIS militia like the Philippines has, extremists who are loyal to ISIS have done considerable damage.
Recent Terror Attacks in the United States
San Bernardino was the site of the deadliest terror attack in the United States since 9/11, when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik carried out a shooting at the city’s Inland Regional Center on December 2, 2015. There was a training event for the county’s Department of Public Health in one room and a Christmas party in another. The attack left 14 dead and 22 injured.
The couple each had a 9mm pistol and an AR-15. Farook’s former neighbor, Enrique Marquez Jr., legally purchased the AR-15s and gave them to Farook and Malik at some point without transferring them. The rifles were not California-legal because they had had their bullet buttons removed. The bullet button is a device that slows down how quickly a shooter can reload magazines. The shooters also used magazines with 30-round capacities, which until recently were illegal for purchase in California.
Less than a year later, on June 12, 2016, the Orlando nightclub shooting occurred. It was far deadlier than the San Bernardino attack. Omar Mateen, who had recently pledged his allegiance to ISIS, went into Pulse, a popular gay nightclub, and opened fire. Although the media initially reported that he had an AR-15, he actually used a SIG Sauer MCX rifle and a 9mm Glock 17. The attack resulted in 49 deaths, 50 counting Mateen, and left 58 people wounded.
How to Stop ISIS Militants and Extremists from Getting American Guns
The difficulty in the United States is finding a way to keep militants and extremists from getting guns, without restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Otherwise, legislation won’t get far.
Requiring background checks for all gun sales would be an excellent start. Although any licensed firearm dealer must perform a background check before it sells a gun to a customer, this is not true when it comes to unlicensed private sellers. That means that in many states an unlicensed seller can put up a classified ad and later meet a buyer in person, selling a gun without checking out the buyer at all, and it’s entirely legal.
Background checks won’t stop all gun violence. The San Bernardino shooters both had clean records and would have been able to purchase firearms legally. But it can at least help. There’s also the option of putting stricter federal gun laws in place. It’s unclear whether this would work, though, because states with the strictest gun laws often still have as much or more gun violence as states with more relaxed gun laws. California already had some of the nation’s strictest gun laws when the San Bernardino shooting took place.
Despite the efforts the United States and many other nations have made to stop ISIS, it continues to expand, and its growth in the Philippines is particularly alarming. Stopping this expansion will require damaging its supply lines and preventing it from forming new supply lines. If it can’t get weapons, food and other essential supplies to its militias, then those militias will be fighting a losing battle.
Attacks by extremists who aren’t part of any ISIS militia are often the most dangerous. That’s evident by the number of casualties in the San Bernardino and Orlando shootings. These attacks are very difficult to predict. Tightening up the process for purchasing guns in the United States could help, as well as preventing anyone on the country’s terror watch list from purchasing a gun.
There is no surefire solution for stopping extremists from obtaining guns in the United States. What’s most important is weakening and eventually defeating ISIS to stop its attacks and keep it from spreading its dangerous rhetoric.
In order to stop the threat of ISIS in Southeast Asia, the U.S. government must take measures to cut off ISIS’ access to firearms from the United States.
A major portion of ISIS’ growth in recent years has occurred in the Philippines, where it has become more active and caused chaos culminating in a recent attack on Marawi. One of the reasons it has done more damage is its ability to acquire more powerful weapons and deliver them to militias through its supply lines.
The island of Mindanao, which is in the southern Philippines, is where ISIS has made most of its moves in the nation. Considering the strife that has been occurring on that island for decades, it was a natural target.
Mindanao is home to the Moors, a group of Muslims who have fought fiercely for independence against other nations as well as independence from the rest of the Philippines. They don’t just fight against others, though, as the group also deals with frequent infighting, leading to the creation of different factions.
The battle of Zamboanga in 2014 was a significant factor in ISIS’ expansion in the Philippines. Zamboanga is in Mindanao, and the battle started because one faction of Moors was negotiating peace with Manila, which angered another faction. It resulted in the deaths of 51 insurgents, and 70,000 people had to flee their homes.
Those peace talks reached an impasse with all the fighting, and that led to many Moor factions allying themselves with ISIS. This includes the Abu Sayyaf militia, led by Isnilon Hapilon, who rose to leader of ISIS in the Philippines by April of 2016.
As ISIS numbers have continued to swell in the Philippines, violence has quickly followed. There have been battles between ISIS militias and the Philippine army. Abu Sayyaf has taken many hostages and even decapitated two of them. Not only does ISIS contribute to unrest in the Philippines, it also gives members a place where they can build their combat experience before they move on to other targets in Asia or elsewhere.
After a January 2016 attack in Jakarta, Indonesia, that left four civilians dead, Greg Barton, who serves as Deakin University’s chair in global Islamic politics, made a statement that would turn out to be prophetic. He said that next time the militants would be using assault rifles instead of pistols.
In May, ISIS Militants stormed Marawi, a city in Mindanao, carrying rifles and raising black ISIS flags throughout the city. Civilians first ran into their homes and then fled the city by car. The Philippine army went into the city to fight the militants, and although 61 militants died, the incident also resulted in the deaths of 11 members of the Philippine military, four police officers and 19 civilians.
With its militias more heavily armed, ISIS can take over more areas and inflict more casualties in firefights with police officers and the military. It has several ways to get firearms.
How ISIS Obtains Its Guns
Since ISIS operates in many different areas, it uses different tactics to obtain guns, depending on the location.
In the Middle East, ISIS controls a significant amount of territory around Iraq and Syria. It has supply lines that it uses to transport weapons and other supplies. These supply lines travel into Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, all areas where Syria and Iraq can’t send their air support. From there, ISIS has a network that expands further into North Africa and Eastern Europe.
The United States is well-known for having more guns available than most other nations, with the most well-armed military and civilian population in the world, and ISIS is fully aware of that. In fact, ISIS runs a propaganda magazine called Rumiyah, and in one issue of the magazine it even broke down several methods for militants in the United States to obtain guns.
Some of these methods were illegal, such as breaking into a hunting shop when it closes or surveying a gun shop and then ambushing staff members. But the magazine also mentioned that legally acquiring guns in the United States is a “very easy matter,” and specifically recommended purchasing guns online through private dealers or at gun shows. Federal law doesn’t require a background check for firearm purchases through either of those methods, although some states do.
Of course, if a militant or extremist has a clean record, there’s also the option of buying a gun at a store. The typical gun store has a wide selection of pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles available. The AR-15 rifle has a long and storied history in the United States, having been extensively used by both civilians and the military (as the M4A1 carbine).
It’s also a weapon of choice for ISIS, having been used in the Marawi attacks abroad and in incidents of domestic terror such as the Orlando nightclub shooting. Its ubiquity and affordability make it easy to buy off-the-shelf variants of the AR-15, some costing less than $500 for a fully functional weapon.
Easy access to these types of weapons at low prices can often have disastrous results. Although the United States hasn’t seen any full-scale assaults by an ISIS militia like the Philippines has, extremists who are loyal to ISIS have done considerable damage.
Recent Terror Attacks in the United States
San Bernardino was the site of the deadliest terror attack in the United States since 9/11, when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik carried out a shooting at the city’s Inland Regional Center on December 2, 2015. There was a training event for the county’s Department of Public Health in one room and a Christmas party in another. The attack left 14 dead and 22 injured.
The couple each had a 9mm pistol and an AR-15. Farook’s former neighbor, Enrique Marquez Jr., legally purchased the AR-15s and gave them to Farook and Malik at some point without transferring them. The rifles were not California-legal because they had had their bullet buttons removed. The bullet button is a device that slows down how quickly a shooter can reload magazines. The shooters also used magazines with 30-round capacities, which until recently were illegal for purchase in California.
Less than a year later, on June 12, 2016, the Orlando nightclub shooting occurred. It was far deadlier than the San Bernardino attack. Omar Mateen, who had recently pledged his allegiance to ISIS, went into Pulse, a popular gay nightclub, and opened fire. Although the media initially reported that he had an AR-15, he actually used a SIG Sauer MCX rifle and a 9mm Glock 17. The attack resulted in 49 deaths, 50 counting Mateen, and left 58 people wounded.
How to Stop ISIS Militants and Extremists from Getting American Guns
The difficulty in the United States is finding a way to keep militants and extremists from getting guns, without restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Otherwise, legislation won’t get far.
Requiring background checks for all gun sales would be an excellent start. Although any licensed firearm dealer must perform a background check before it sells a gun to a customer, this is not true when it comes to unlicensed private sellers. That means that in many states an unlicensed seller can put up a classified ad and later meet a buyer in person, selling a gun without checking out the buyer at all, and it’s entirely legal.
Background checks won’t stop all gun violence. The San Bernardino shooters both had clean records and would have been able to purchase firearms legally. But it can at least help. There’s also the option of putting stricter federal gun laws in place. It’s unclear whether this would work, though, because states with the strictest gun laws often still have as much or more gun violence as states with more relaxed gun laws. California already had some of the nation’s strictest gun laws when the San Bernardino shooting took place.
Despite the efforts the United States and many other nations have made to stop ISIS, it continues to expand, and its growth in the Philippines is particularly alarming. Stopping this expansion will require damaging its supply lines and preventing it from forming new supply lines. If it can’t get weapons, food and other essential supplies to its militias, then those militias will be fighting a losing battle.
Attacks by extremists who aren’t part of any ISIS militia are often the most dangerous. That’s evident by the number of casualties in the San Bernardino and Orlando shootings. These attacks are very difficult to predict. Tightening up the process for purchasing guns in the United States could help, as well as preventing anyone on the country’s terror watch list from purchasing a gun.
There is no surefire solution for stopping extremists from obtaining guns in the United States. What’s most important is weakening and eventually defeating ISIS to stop its attacks and keep it from spreading its dangerous rhetoric.
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