Gun for Them
The Pioneer
More death - accidental or premeditated - occur in India with licensed arms than with the unlicensed ones. The up and coming gun culture has beset the rich and the happening with the arms they carry with so much aplomb often landing them in the mortuary of the prison.
NIDHI MITTAL tells you why it is important to regulate the growing possession of arms among common people
It was supposed to be a casual display of his prized possession which went horribly wrong. Thirtyeight-year-old Bharat Mishra went to his friend Rosina's party in Goregaon, Mumbai, excitedly as he had just got a gift from his father -a licenced revolver that his family owns since 1998. With great pride Mishra started hurling it at friends around, who were getting nervous as a loaded arm could hurt someone. So, Mishra unloaded the revolver but did not realise there was one bullet left inside it. He then mockingly held it to his temple and fired a shot. The bullet got lodged in his head leaving him lying in a pool of blood, critically injured.
A 42-year-old builder allegedly shot himself dead in West Delhi, depressed over problems in business. Rajinder, a contractor with National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC), used a licenced pistol to end his life, leaving behind a family of four.
Surinder Jakhar, IFFCO chairman and son of former Lok Sabha Speaker Balram Jakhar, died of a gunshot at his farmhouse at Abohar, about 120 km from Ferozepur. The 56-year-old was fatally wounded while allegedly fiddling around with his own pistol in the night.
A steep increase in the number of incidents due to gun related violence has once again triggered the debate whether the relationship between guns and commoners can ever be non-violent. Many believe the answer lies in negative. "Where there is a gun, violence can't be far behind", says Bina Laxmi, founding member of the Control Arms Foundation of India (CAFI), which lobbies for tighter gun control. Proliferation of illegal weapons in the country has always been a major cause of concern but recently many shocking incidents have also brought the issue of handling licensed arms to the forefront.
Cut to December 2007. A little known Gurgaon school, Euro International, suddenly attracted headlines. A 14-year-old student Abhishek Tyagi was shot dead by his classmate with a licenced pistol inside the campus. It was only after a year that the police could nab the owner of the gun, Raj Singh Dalal. He had left the licenced weapon in the custody of his friend who couldn't have been more careless.
He kept it all accessible to his adolescent son.
The shocking case of shooting inside a school brought the issue of privately owned weapons and their misuse into focus. Until then the gun related violence in the country was mostly attributed to only the availability of illegal weapons.
Critics believe that the problem stems from a rise in the number of guns, both licenced and unlicenced, flooding the Indian market.
"Availability of both unlicenced and licenced guns is a problem, that's how crime rate increases. Enforcement is what we need to work on," says Bina Laxmi. She adds that though India has guidelines but it is not very difficult to tweak the system and acquire arms, which is a major concern.
Another shocking incident which talks about the gravity of the issue is when a 17year-old girl shot herself in the head with her father's licenced revolver in East Delhi in May 2008. The girl was unable to come to terms with the refusal of her marriage proposal by a friend. The victim, a student of a private school in Noida, shot herself in her father Virender Morya's Skoda car. The father is an affluent property dealer. In this case as well the worrying factor is how easily she could access the weapon. "Now you see, cases like these prove that it is all about the easy availability of arms. If one has access to a gun, he or she is more likely to use it during weaker times," Bina Laxmi remarks.
There are no set figures for the number of licenced firearms available in India. But data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows the number in comparison with the illegal firearms use. In 2004, 7,593 crimes using illegal firearms and 807 using licenced guns were reported. The number had fallen to 4,988 with illegal guns and 587 using legal firearms by 2006. In 2007, the number of crimes due to illegal arms was 4,240 and using licenced arms was recorded at 597. In the year 2008, though the overall number of such crimes with illegal weapons stood way lesser at 3,527, the number using licenced arms was 574.
Many researchers around the globe have pointed that it is the mere presence of a weapon which has clear relation with the tendency of it being used in a violent manner.
Around the world several studies have examined the correlations between gun ownership and gun related homicides and suicide rates.
Swiss criminologist Martin Killias, in a 1993 study covering 21 countries, found that there was a weak correlation between gun ownership and total homicide rates. In 2001, Killias' another study reported that there was a strong correlation between gun related homicide of women and gun related assaults against women. In 2006, he deduced that more than 300 people are killed guns. The study revealed that private guns and army weapons were used in 36 per cent of domestic murders. The majority 60 per cent of murders outside the home, on the other hand, involved illegal weapons. However, army weapons were used in more than two-thirds (68 per cent) of suicides.
Killias said it was also alarming that domestic murder happens so frequently -every second murder or attempted murder in Switzerland occurs within the family circle. "It is undeniable that keeping weapons at home causes major problems," he says, adding that threats involving army weapons should not be forgotten. For Killias, the keeping of weapons and ammunition at home cannot be justified.
"Do we want to continue accepting the deaths of almost 300 people a year by pistols, rifles and carbines to perpetuate a tradition which allegedly strengthens the will to defend oneself?" he says.
Gun control advocates argue that the strongest evidence linking availability of guns to injury and mortality rates comes in studies of domestic violence, most often referring to the series of studies by Arthur Kellermann.
Kellarmann is a US-based researcher, wellknown for his work on the epidemiology of firearm related injuries and deaths. In response to public suggestions by some advocates of firearms for home defense, that homeowners were at a high risk of injury from home invasions and would be wise to acquire a firearm for purposes of protection, Kellermann investigated the circumstances surrounding all in-home homicides in three cities of about halfa-million population each over five years, and found that the risk of a homicide was, in fact, slightly higher in homes where a handgun was present, rather than lower. From the details of homicides, he concluded that the risk of a crime of passion or other domestic disputes ending in a fatal injury was much higher when a gun was readily available (essentially all the increased risk being in homes where a handgun was kept loaded and unlocked), compared to a lower rate of fatality in domestic violence not involving a firearm.
With an estimated 46 million guns (both legal and illegal) in civilian hands making India the second-most heavily armed nation in the world after the US and a steady rise in violent crimes, the debate over gun control is heating up. Gun control advocates are pushing India to crack down on guns and sign a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that would tighten restrictions on small arms. However, there are some support groups fighting to make the country's gun laws less restrictive. A 38-year-old software engineer Abhijeet Singh has founded one similar support group. "I live in India and I am a proud firearm owner -but I am the exception, not the norm, an odd situation in a country with a proud martial heritage and a long history of firearm innovation. This is not because the people of India are averse to gun ownership, but instead due to draconian antigun legislation going back to colonial times," says Abhijeet, vehemently advocating changes in the current law on his website.
In late 2009, when the Home Ministry proposed several amendments to India's 1959 Arms Act that would make it much more difficult to get a gun licence and harder to buy ammunition, the support groups like that of Abhijeet took a sudden urgency. Already an old hand in disseminating editorials and raising petitions, Singh soon joined forces with another group -the National Association for Gun Rights India (NAGRI) -which is modeled on America's National Rifle Association and led by Haryana's MP Naveen Jindal, who studied in Texas. These support groups estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of Indians waiting for stalled gun licences or smarting over rejections.
According to NAGRI, it is already extremely difficult to get a weapon in India. The licensing bureaus are free to impose limits and deny weapons to anyone they want to.
THERE ARE STRICT PROVISIONS IN PLACE WHEN IT COMES TO LICENSING OF ARMS. TACKLING THE MISUSE OF WEAPONS IS ALSO WELL-DEFINED IN THE LAW. WHAT WE DO AS A MATTER OF PRACTICE IS TO CONDUCT A CHECKING DRIVE WHENEVER THE SITUATION DEMANDS -- MUMBAI ACP DEVAN BHARTI
India's second position on the world stage for the use of both licensed and illicit weapons has given the nation a notorious status. About 40,000 of these are in the capital, a research by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies (CAFI) has shown. There have been substantial number of crimes related to guns in the Capital over past few years but the police tends to believe that the problem is actually because of illegal arms.
The proximity of the city with other States is cited as the major cause of concern. However, many incidents have been reported in the media where licensed arms were the cause of deaths.
Many-a-times the privately owned arms have been used by teenagers or those who didn't actually own them.
The Delhi Police, however, claims that they are doing what is possible in this regard. "We have a record of people who have licensed weapons. We cannot keep a track of how the weapons are being used but as and when a complaint comes to us about a misuse, we take action which includes cancellation of the license," says ACP Rajan Bhagat, Delhi Police spokesper son.
"We have awareness material about use and misuse of weapons. We have lots of information about it on our website," he adds.
Now let us look at the financial capital of the country. With the rise in the number of cases where people with licensed guns have resorted to firing, the Mumbai police find a new problem to grapple with. In a metropolitan city like Mumbai monitoring all those who have gun licenses seems a daunting task. The police, however, understands the importance of the subject.
"There are strict provisions in place when it comes to licensing of arms. Tackling the misuse of weapons is also well-defined in the law. What we do as a matter of practice is to conduct a checking drive whenever the situation demands", says Devan Bharti, Additional Commissioner of Police, Mumbai.
She has literally copy pasted text from my website as well as from other articles - to make it seem as if she actually spoke to us and is presenting a balanced viewpoint. If this is not biased reporting then I really don't know what is...
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