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http://www.boulderweekly.com/waynesword.html

“One man packs, another attacks
A leading anti-gunner attacks Shariar Ghalam
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by Wayne Laugesen ([email protected])

Shariar Ghalam, a gun-toting activist, fought a war and smuggled his
family
from tyranny to freedom. He’s seen people hang for their beliefs. He
thought
he’d seen it all, until last week.

Ghalam-locked and loaded with a Sig Sauer 9mm semi automatic-was
attacked by
a peace protester while awaiting a Charlton Heston speech.

Get this: The aggressor was Robert Howell, vice president of the Boulder
Chapter of the Bell Campaign, which lobbies for gun laws and peace.

Perhaps Howell, 55, thought Ghalam was a Neanderthal loser, as the
anti-gunners like to view their opponents. He’s not. Ghalam, 36, is
successful and smart. He speaks five languages fluently-Persian,
English,
French, Kurdish and Arabic.

At age 18, Ghalam flew F-5 fighter jets solo into combat, dropping a
half
dozen 1,500-pound bombs a day on Iraqi targets and shooting down enemy
fighters.

He’s competent, having started his own construction business in Boulder
from
scratch. His company, SMG Construction, was widely acclaimed for
renovating
a church parsonage into a home for the Boulder County AIDS Project in
record
time.

Ghalam fought hard to be here, smuggling his dad from an Iranian prison
to
save him from execution by Hezboallah (“Party of God”) guards who served
the
Ayatollah Khomeini. Ghalam is clearly above average, and was able to
rise
above tyranny in a quest for freedom. He represents everything this
country
is about.

Yet today, he stands charged with brawling and has been deprived of his
right to legally conceal a gun. That’s because Ghalam was slugged, then
chased down by Howell.

It all began shortly after Ghalam and Howell showed up in front of Macky
Auditorium the early evening of March 21. Heston, president of the
National
Rifle Association, was to give a speech that night that Ghalam wanted to
hear. Upon his arrival at Macky, one of several pro-gun protesters
handed
him a sign and bullhorn. Howell, along with at least 100 others, arrived
with signs opposing guns.

———————————————

A “dirty Arab”
One peace protester told Ghalam he looked like “a dirty Arab.” A small
group
of peace protesters also antagonized Ghalam, saying he looked like a
Middle
Eastern terrorist. Ghalam, who is Kurdish, ignored them.

Ghalam had a bullhorn and was chanting pro-gun, pro-freedom slogans.
Howell
says Ghalam came too close to him with the bullhorn, and refused polite
requests to move along.

“I gently pushed the horn sideways,” Howell says. “Then he steps back
and
rams the bullhorn into the side of my head. So I threw a punch and hit
him
in the nose.”

Apparently, nobody in the crowd-including Howell’s friend and fellow
protester-saw Ghalam hit Howell with a bullhorn. They did see Howell
slug
Ghalam, and dozens of cameras recorded the blood.

“My witness, Ann Coakley with the Bell Campaign, did not see him hit me,
which is a bit puzzling,” Howell says. “All I can say is she must have
looked away. I’m just hoping some of the kids who were there with other
anti-gun groups saw it.”

Ghalam says nobody saw it, because it didn’t happen.

“We’re carrying our signs and this man comes up to me and says take your
bullhorn away,” Ghalam says. “He calls me something like a ‘filthy
Arab.’ I
said I was doing what he was, and exercising my right to free speech and
peaceable assembly. He got closer, and closer, and pushed the bullhorn
into
my face. I shoved him, and repeatedly said ‘don’t touch me please,’ as I
continuously backed away.”

Whatever happened in the first few moments of the fight remains in
dispute.
It’s an established fact, however, that Ghalam walked away, trying to
end
the dispute. Channel 4 News has it on tape. Witnesses, including police,
saw
it.

“I’m walking away, and he’s chasing me down hitting me as I try to get
away,” Ghalam says.

Even Howell doesn’t contest that. “After I slugged him, I went after
him,”
Howell told me. “He was backing up, and I proceeded toward him. This
went on
for about 10 feet.”

It went on until University of Colorado police officer Paul Davis
tackled
Howell and held him to the ground. “Officer Davis went after the man who
he
thought was the aggressor,” says Sgt. Brett Brough, of the CU Police
Department.

The police report, written by CU Police Officer Michael Lowry, also
reveals
which party was more aggressive after police intervened.

Of pro-gunner Ghalam, Lowry wrote: “He was cooperative, and said he did
not
wish to fight.”

Of peace protester Howell, Lowry wrote: “I turned towards Officer Davis,
and
saw he was on the ground with his subject, later identified as Robert
Howell. Officer Davis was telling the subject to calm down.”

But Howell did not obey, the report states, and continued to struggle
with
Officer Davis.

“I released Shariar Ghalam and went to assist Officer Davis,” Lowry
wrote.
“Officer Davis eventually talked Mr. Howell into calming down.”

Which fortifies a sociological theory: An armed society is a polite
society.

During the altercation, Howell was hostile; Ghalam was polite. And
Ghalam-the polite one-was very much armed.

———————————————

Locked and loaded
“The gun was loaded, with a round in the chamber,” Officer Lowry wrote
in
his report.

Which doesn’t seem to alarm CU police. Right away, after police
intervened,
Ghalam told them he had a concealed weapon and a permit to carry it.
Police
thanked him for his professional demeanor. Boulder County Sheriff George
Epp
has suspended the permit until the case is resolved. Although police
clearly
viewed Howell as the aggressor, both men were ticketed for brawling-a
standard procedure when police break up fights.

Ghalam’s actions teach us that concealed weapons permits are a sound
form of
gun control. Here’s a man so responsible that he wouldn’t think of
breaking
a gun law, so he went through a rigorous process to obtain special
permission from the sheriff to carry his weapon responsibly. Ghalam is
so
oriented toward peace that he chooses not to defend himself, and not to
fight, unless it’s a matter of life or death.

The peace protester, by contrast, bloodied another man, chased him down,
and
later struggled with police.

Ghalam, like most of the pro-gun protesters last week, believes private
gun
ownership is essential to peace. In Iran, under the tyrant Shah,
citizens
were allowed no guns. When the oppression became too much, citizens
stormed
military arsenals, armed themselves, and overthrew the Shah.

“The revolution began with fists in the air,” Ghalam says. “It ended
with
citizens taking up arms to overthrow the government.”

At first, new leader Ayatollah Khomeini asked nicely that all the guns
be
turned in. The revolution is over, Khomeini argued, and I’m a nice man-a
God-fearing, responsible leader who wants nothing but freedom and peace.

“The next step from Khomeini was to tell people if they wanted peace
they
needed to turn in any of their neighbors who still had weapons,” Ghalam
says. Next, guns were taken forcefully, at gun point, by Khomeini’s
soldiers.

“I remember an entire family being machine gunned down because one of
Khomeini’s good citizens reported them for having military weapons,”
Ghalam
says. “It was a lot like Waco (Texas), only the government didn’t bother
with spin.”

Once the guns were gone, oppression and enslavement ensued. The nice man
with the white beard became a tyrant, and made it illegal to belong to
any
party other than Hezboallah.

———————————————

Public hangings
“People were killed for their beliefs,” Ghalam says. “The government
would
tie four or five people by their necks to an I-beam, then hang them from
a
crane. If you went to the supermarket, it was common to see people
hanging
in the parking lot. And the people had no weapons to overthrow this
government.”

Ghalam’s father, a former general suspected of plotting a coup, was
captured
for execution. Ghalam, fighting in the Iran/Iraq war, paid an insider
and
professional smuggler to help his dad escape. Ultimately, Ghalam, his
three
brothers, his mother and father ended up in France.

Ghalam came to the United States in 1989, because as a teenager he had
read
and memorized our Constitution-a violation of law for which he could
have
been imprisoned.

“It was in a Boy Scout manual, which I carry with me to this day,”
Ghalam
says. “I remember the first time I read the Second Amendment. I said
there
is no way this can be true. There is no such thing as a country that
would
write into its constitution a law that would allow people to have
weapons to
protect themselves against tyranny. I said ‘This is too good to be
true.’ I
made it my mission in life to someday live in the country that was so
devoted to freedom that it allowed its people the tools necessary to
overthrow a government.”

Howell doesn’t get it. He sees no reason for people to have guns, other
than
to hunt.

“It’s very unlikely what happened in Iran will ever happen here,” says
Howell. “This country is very different from Iran. We have a tremendous
government, a constitution and a Bill of Rights.”

Exactly. And the second “right” is the freedom to own a gun. Why? To
limit
government power, just like everything else in the document. Guns are
why
America seems different. Guns are why suburban housewives shop at
Safeway
without seeing bloody corpses hanging from cranes. Guns, which killed
federal agents at Waco, are why the government has taken time off from
attacking religious groups. Guns are why people can confront each other
with
signs and bullhorns in public. Shariar Ghalam is living proof.