The ongoing love affair

“A gun is a man’s jewelry.” So says an old Arabic proverb. Traditionally, a father would buy his son a gun when he is born in the same way a girl would receive a pair of gold earrings. In Lebanon, this tradition is all but dead, but the Lebanese still love their guns. In fact, the country is loaded with them. It is estimated that there are over 1 million weapons in private circulation. A significant percentage of them are sporting guns and rifles. Despite a nine-year-old ban on hunting some 30,000 rifles and shotguns – costing between $300 (for a mass produced Turkish 12-bore) to $100,000 for the top of the range Purdeys – are sold in Lebanon every year. There are over a dozen importers and some 50 medium to large distributors operating in a market with a worth of up to $2 million a year. With the