Say Uncle points to this pro-gun story in the New York Times. And please note that these are the real fully automatic AK-47s, not the look-alike semi-autos that are available in America.

Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough.

As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."

A group of men armed with machine guns and grenades tries to attack a local shopkeeper, and the Times still insists on calling them insurgents. Regardless of what label you pin on these inhuman thugs, the fact remains that guns save lives.