Indians For Guns

In the wake of the recent shootout of a Punjabi singer by miscreants, there have been a lot of articles in various media- newspaper, TV debates, social media et al seeking to curtail gun rights and enforce stricter gun laws in India. Herewith my contradictory views on the same-
1. For those who seek stricter licencing, fewer licences and tougher gun laws are unaware of the ground reality in India. Indian gun laws are draconian and a remnant of the colonial past where the colonial rulers wanted to disarm the nation against any possible armed rebellions. Despite there being grounds to apply for an Arms Licence in India- such as Self Protection, Crop Protection and Sports, licences are mostly rejected on a plethora of absurd grounds that the bureaucracy comes up with from time-to-time through distorted interpretation of the Arms Act and Rules.
2. Fewer Licenced Guns are used in gun related crimes in India. That's absolutely right!
Those intending to commit a crime using a gun are not going through the tedious process of getting a licence and also the high probability of conviction using a Fire arm licenced in their name.
3. Guns crimes are predominantly from unlicensed and illegal fire arms that are either smuggled in from porous borders or manufactured illegally.
4. Stopping civilians from owning guns will not stop gun crimes. In fact, it makes it impossible for a law abiding citizen to defend himself in the face of threats, extortion and the like in the absence of a licensed fire arm.
5. The Objects and reasons of the Arms Act, 1959 while trying to regulate gun ownership also recognises the importance of Civilian Marksmen in times of man-animal conflict, external threats to the country and such like.
6. Guns do not kill people, people kill people. Most anti-gun activists forget to factor in the aspect of criminal intent or mens rea as used in the Indian jurisprudence. To blame guns for crimes committed by people is akin to blaming motor vehicles for causing accidents.

What India needs is a more transparent Arms Licencing mechanism for law abiding citizens, better Safety training among Gun owners, proper guidelines to the bureaucracy in dealing with Arms Licence applications and finally higher conviction rate in offenses involving unlicensed/illegal firearms.

Regards,
Praveen S Reddy
Advocate

Pran, if I may, I'd like to restate and reinforce your well-written and well thought-out points here:

People are quite ready to propose solutions to problems that don't personally impact them. They will state over and over how their solutions are "reasonable" and "common sense," which are true from their own perspective and opinion. But from society-as-a-whole's perspective, where the rights and interests of all must be considered, this is no more that a Gobbels repetition of a "big lie." As it is repeated often enough by news sources, politicians, and leaders of various segments, it is no more than a blatant attempt to shove such bunkum down the public's throat as a solution to gun violence.

Of course, criminals are not going to acquire guns legally to acquire them for illegal purposes. Of course, there are so many guns "floating about" now that one or more can be obtained by someone determined to have one. Of course, a sufficient amount of "home-built" guns can fill in the gaps of supply and demand for whatever "needs" can't be met by existing manufacture. These points go unaddressed by the anti-gun crowd, but this suits their purpose, as there will always be enough guns and enough outrages to supply them with even more reason to demand even more stringent gun control measures.

One wonders what the plan will be, when they achieve a total gun-free situation (which we know cannot happen), but this underestimates the power of those who desire and demand the power to run the intimate details of everyone's lives to come up with more obfuscation and invention when designing the next excuse for the imposition of their schemes (which include the suspension of someone else's rights).

The problem, which is often categorized by these people as the mere access to guns, is one that is unpleasant to many people, one that most conceptually is unacceptable to them: it is summarized by that statement, almost cliche now, "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Yes, the problem is that people are willing to use violent means to get what they want, whether it be possessions, attention, or whatever. It is a sickness of human nature that is exacerbated by the values of society. Some societies, like Switzerland and Finland, have lots of guns, yet crime is relatively low. People have a societally shared value of peaceful interaction, rather than violence, in these places, so the proliferation of violent crime in nations and peoples is not something that is caused by the presence and possession of guns. The problem is caused by people.

Those who would wield power over us either reject this dark aspect of human nature, or recognize that they don't have the means to do something about it. This second type don't really care about solving people's problems, anyway. All they want is power, and whatever expedient rubbish they can spew forth that is sufficient to gain them that power is adequate to their purpose.

Meanwhile, what of the poor sap who has to deal with threats to person and property, which these grasping politicians and pie-in-the-sky do-gooders ignore?

I have read that Ramachandra Guha's view on society is that it exists to mediate and settle social conflicts. This view seems to represent much of the concerns of ancient wisdom literature that I've read, where various ideas of administering justice to interpersonal disputes are detailed. Being able to defend one's self from violence and attack is a given, except in the eyes of these anti-gunners: they deny the access to tools that allow us to defend ourselves, usually pointing to the police as the proper solution, yet they do not provide such a capable and uncorrupted entity to protect us. They also ignore that police cannot be everywhere at once (though, in some nations, the "seeing eye" of authority is increasingly present in everyone's lives) in order to assure protection of innocent citizens.

Now, the new fads in "gun control" (so-called) are the state establishing mental competency for arms ownership (which many pro-gun advocates unfortunately also propose -- at least, for now) and "red flag" measures, in which anyone who is uncomfortable with another's gun ownership can request the police to confiscate that person's weapon(s).

One could laugh at these two silly notions, if the examples of Hitler's Nazis and Stalin's Bolsheviks were not so recent. Both regimes used the excuse of mental health to deprive innocent citizens of their rights, property, and lives on a mass scale, and both relied on denunciations of neighbors to accomplish the same ends.

Are we really ready so soon after these calamitous regimes have passed to establish a society on medical quackery and petty suspicions and backstabbing, rather than relying on the rule of law and due process? Will we again condemn people and groups of people based on whims and petty prejudices, rather than insisting on facts and data?

Sadly, many seem to be ready to do so to establish their idea of utopia. It is of this type we must especially beware.