First, I would like to offer a comment in support of JMM's guidance (violating neither the spirit nor letter of it). One can hold an adamant toe-the-party-line NRA position on the 2nd amendment while also believing that strict gun control is necessary in a small war abroad (or vice versa). The reason for this is that the second amendment issue in our nation is an issue pertaining to... wait for it... the United States Constitution. The United States Constitution is ours, not the Iraqis', Afghans', or XYZians'. Our approach toward interpretation of the US Constitution has nothing to do with how we should approach similar issues in areas where the US Constitution is not the law of the land. So this certainly should not degrade into some BS-ing over domestic political ideologies.

On to my more relevant two cents...

It depends. As I noted on the SWJ blog, I not only found it worthwhile to permit ownership of firearms in my sector in 2003, I found it necessary to go to great lengths to arm them because I could not provide adequate security over such a large area with such a small force, significant constraints and limitations, and competing tasks. I was trying to get a firearm in every home, but I would have preferred more because there was not a reliable means for locals to report threats to us and our response time was so long.

Two years later, we likewise found that it was right to permit every household to be armed for home protection, due to the violent situation. But we also found it necessary to limit each household to only one firearm. The reason for this was that home protection in that environment did not require more than one firearm per home. Reporting measures and our closer proximity allowed us to respond to incidents very quickly. Allowing more than one firearm would have made it easier for insurgent and terrorist organizations in the area to hide amongst the people. They could not dump 10 weapons in a home and expect us to just glance in and say, "oh well, home protection, nothing to see here." They knew that if we found a stockpile of weapons, all of the weapons were getting confiscated and some or all of the men were possibly getting detained. Limitations upon firearm ownership were one measure taken to separate our adversaries from the civilian populace in order to identify and neutralize them.