Iranian Massacres: Where Gun Control Leads, By John Steele
The events unfolding in Iran since late December 2025 represent one of the most severe challenges to the Islamic Republic in decades. Sparked by crushing economic hardship — hyperinflation, a collapsing rial, and widespread poverty — the protests have spread to all 31 provinces, evolving into explicit calls against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the regime itself, and demands for fundamental change. Security forces have responded with lethal force: live ammunition, close-range shootings, pellet guns aimed at eyes and faces, and overwhelming crackdowns that have left hospitals swamped and families searching morgues for loved ones.
Reliable estimates of the death toll vary due to the regime's near-total internet blackout (imposed around January 8, 2026), restrictions on communication, and direct efforts to obscure evidence, such as moving bodies away from hospitals or pressuring families. Established human rights organisations provide the most grounded figures:
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has confirmed over 500 protester deaths (with figures around 544 as of January 11, including children, and hundreds more cases under review), plus dozens of security personnel killed, and over 10,600 arrests.
Other groups like Iran Human Rights (Norway-based) have reported similar or slightly higher verified numbers in the 500–650 range, while warning that unverified reports suggest far more.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented at least 28 killings in the early days (late December 2025 to early January 2026) but have not issued updated nationwide totals amid the blackout.
Higher claims — such as the Time Magazine article citing an informal expatriate network's estimate of up to 6,000 deaths through a recent Saturday, or opposition sources like Iran International suggesting 2,000 in a 48-hour window — appear to stem from extrapolations based on overwhelmed Tehran hospitals, morgue footage (e.g., bodies in black bags at Kahrizak Forensic Center), eyewitness accounts of mass casualties, and the regime's own intimidating broadcasts of morgue scenes. These dramatic figures capture the horror and scale of the repression, but remain unverified and likely inflated compared to methodical tallies from rights monitors. Even so, the confirmed deaths number in the hundreds, with many more injured, blinded, or detained — a staggering toll for largely peaceful demonstrations against economic despair and authoritarian rule.
What stands out starkly is the asymmetry of power. Protesters are overwhelmingly unarmed, facing an entrenched state monopoly on violence: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Basij militias, police, and sometimes foreign proxies. Witnesses describe security forces firing indiscriminately into crowds, using truck-mounted weapons on residential streets, and conducting triage in hospitals where only those "likeliest to survive" gunshot wounds receive priority care. The regime labels victims as "rioters," "terrorists," or foreign-hired agents (sometimes invoking ISIS), justifies lethal force as necessary, and broadcasts images of body bags to sow terror and deter further action. Protesters themselves express desperation, texting journalists that "we are being murdered by our own government" and hoping for external intervention because domestic resistance alone cannot prevail against such firepower.
This dynamic exposes a core, often overlooked flaw in arguments for widespread civilian disarmament: the assumption that the state remains a reliable, perpetual guardian of public safety and will never devolve into an oppressor. Gun control advocates frequently frame restrictions as a net gain for security—reducing crime, suicides, accidents, and impulsive violence—while positing that democratic institutions, police, and military exist to protect citizens from harm. In stable democracies with strong rule of law, this view holds weight for many. But it falters catastrophically when regimes face existential threats to their power, as in Iran today.
History is replete with examples where civilian disarmament preceded or enabled mass repression:
In the lead-up to authoritarian takeovers or consolidations, governments often tighten firearm laws to eliminate potential armed resistance (e.g., pre-WWII Germany targeting specific groups, or various 20th-century dictatorships).
During crises, even ostensibly democratic states have abused emergency powers, but an armed populace can serve as a deterrent or last-resort backstop.
In Iran under the Islamic Republic, private gun ownership has long been severely restricted — mostly limited to licensed hunting shotguns, with handguns and rifles effectively banned for civilians — ensuring the state holds an absolute monopoly on armed force.
When that state turns guns on its own people — declaring peaceful dissent a crime against God, punishable by death — disarmed citizens have no means to defend themselves, raise the cost of tyranny, or force meaningful restraint. They cannot match armoured vehicles, snipers, or machine guns with chants and stones. The result is one-sided slaughter: protesters gunned down in streets, hospitals overflowing with the dying, morgues used as intimidation tools. The vulnerability is not hypothetical; it is playing out in real time.
The Iranian tragedy does not argue for unrestricted arsenals or vigilante justice. It does underscore a fundamental truth: trusting that "it can't happen here" — that institutions will forever remain benevolent and accountable — ignores too many precedents where they did not. When governments prioritise regime survival over human rights, a disarmed population becomes defenceless precisely when defense is most urgently needed.
An armed citizenry is no panacea and carries its own risks, but the complete removal of that capacity leaves people at the mercy of those who hold all the guns. Iran's streets, soaked in blood despite the protesters' courage, stand as a grim reminder of that reality.
https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/thousands-of-protesters-in-iran-are
