Divijay Singh attacks Home Ministry

[ebenezer]

Divijay Singh attacks Home Ministry for amendments to Arms Act

New Delhi, Aug 18: After attacking Home Minister P Chidambaram on the handling of Naxal issue, Congress leader Digvijay Singh has now trained his guns on the Home Ministry for bringing in amendments to the Arms Act alleging that it undermines the citizen's right to keep weapons.

Singh, who is patron-in-chief of the National Association for Gun Rights India, today led a delegation of MPs belonging to Congress, BJP and SP, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and opposed the changes.

The delegation included Jaswant Singh, S S Ahluwalia and Shahnawaz Hussain (BJP), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh (SP), Naveen Jindal, Anil Lad, Sanjay Singh, Fransisco Sardinhia, Manish Tewari and Rakesh Singh (all Congress).

In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, it alleged that in the guise of moving a minor amendment to the Arms Act, ostensibly to make police verification mandatory and creating a database, the Home Ministry has quietly moved to change other important aspects of the law with the "goal of undermining every citizen's legal right to keep and bear arms".

"The ministry through its new policy has in effect changed the law and how it is implemented, without seeking parliamentary approval or following proper procedures," the memorandum said.

It claimed the very basis of the new arms policy is the flawed assumption that "the proliferation of arms, whether licensed or illegal, vitiates the law and order situation" and added that it was not clear how the ministry arrived at such conclusion.

"In fact the ministry has admitted in Parliament that it has conducted no study/assessment linking firearms to rise in crime rate. Such statements are also a direct insult to lakhs of honest law abiding citizens who keep and bear arms responsibly, by equating them to common criminals," the memorandum added.

Criticising other changes brought in the law, the delegation said the new arms policy requires a citizen to prove grave and imminent threat to life prior to the grant of arms license.

It is an "attempt to illegally amend the relevant sections of the Arms Act" which clearly outline conditions under which arms license applications are to be approved or denied", the delegation said in the memorandum.

"Proving grave and imminent threat" is impossible for an ordinary citizen and will lead to large scale corruption and deny honest middle class citizens the only means with which to protect themselves, it said.

The memorandum was also critical of the changes for issuing all India validity arms license. Earlier it was the respective state government who was the license issuing authority and now the Ministry of Home Affairs will issue licenses in all (non VIP) cases. Source: Press Trust of India

[Virendra S Rathore]

Thanks ebenezer

Media references :-
http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?690749
http://www.zeenews.com/news649150.html
http://news.rediff.com/report/2010/aug/ ... me-min.htm

[ruger_rugged]

Good Job NAGRI!

[Nitro Express]

kb100

Take a hint from Virendra S Rathore.Flaring up in the forum will not get us anywhere.

What we need to do, is find out ways and means to back up our people in the Parliament supporting our cause.

Nitro Express

[Anand]

. Honestly I am thrilled that Sri Digvijay Singh and the delegation of Honourable MPs even though from different parties had the "gall" to tackle this issue head on by taking it up with the PM. I never thought this would happen so quickly either .

Even Sri Rahul Gandhi is/was a "shooter"; to my best recollection he was admitted to his college in Delhi(can't remember which one) under the sports quota as a target shooter or something like that.

I have seen this bias against firearms even amongst family members of licensees (yours truly included )
The only way this wrong perception can be changed is if the mainstream media is given the correct information/statistics and Law itself. I know its the responsibility of the Media itself to conduct its own honest and unbiased research to arrive at the correct conclusion but this has not been the case so far and I am afraid it will not be in the future either, unless we change this.
Regards,
Anand

[Virendra S Rathore]

We need to create a may be small but strong support lobby in media. Its a kind of vicious circle, so once the debate triggers on a large scale, this media lobbying will help keep the MPs fueled too. Thats how I think of it

[Nitro Express]

We need to create a may be small but strong support lobby in media. Its a kind of vicious circle, so once the debate triggers on a large scale, this media lobbying will help keep the MPs fueled too. Thats how I think of it

Garnering support of both print and TV media is an excellent idea.I think we should get our counterparts in Delhi to organise a press meet on the issue.Such meets can also be organised at state level.Once this is done a debate on the issue needs to organised where people from the Minsitry can also be invited.

Nitro Express

[saahil]

http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/news/nationa ... 57142.html

[kanwar76]

Awesome news!!

Now its feel like we are living in Democracy. I hope something good comes out after all this.
BRAVO MP’s and BRAVO NAGRI

-Inder

[Devender]

Bravo!!!!! Great step ahead...

[saahil]

long live diggi raja,long live nagri.concrats to all my bothers in arms.

[nagarifle]

great work by all, well done

[Biren]

Great.. it also on August 19 HT delhi edition on page no 8. The news contents are same across. Lets write to various new papers detailing the harm caused by proposed new amemdments. For HT its [email protected]

Cheers
Biren

[Nitro Express]

All IFG members who have any sort of links with MPs need to communicate with the MPs explaining to them the situation and what needs to be done.This would be the easiest way to back our supporters in the Parliament.

Nitro Express

-- Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:40 --

I think the following dailies are doing a good job.

Check out the links -

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100819/j ... 828493.jsp

http://www.asianage.com/india/diggy-las ... ms-act-621

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Now-Digvi ... 88687.aspx

What needs to done know is feed these dailies with the right content.

Nitro Express

[anuvind]

it is indeed a positive step ahead...but as said expresses earlier by Virendra Sinh Rathore (IFGian) a strong followup by the media is obviously needed..cheers anyway....