Mumbai's Harsh Lesson on Gun Control

[Mack The Knife]

Of course, on the other hand If ones life is on the line and if one was armed.. And if one didnt have any other choice.. Then ofcourse things should be different.

Jonah, as far as I am concerned that's the only reason for having RKBA.

[Mack The Knife]

Rusty,the system isnt so bad,agreed that there are issues that can be better addressed by the licencing authorities,but it does work in most geneuine cases.

Sanjay, for me 'the system' doesn't end at just getting an arms licence but goes beyond:

1) A licencing system needs to be fair and objective rather than based on the whims of a one or two senior police officers.

2) Guns and ammo have to be of good functional quality and affordable for the average citizen.

3) People must be trained in safe gun handling, marksmanship and basic gun maintenance and must be encouraged to practice frequently.

[art_collector]

A tight licensing regime combined with the high price of acquiring a legal gun has meant that very few Indians own weapons.

....... There never was a clearer real life example of how gun control takes guns out of the hands of decent law-abiding folk and puts them right into the hands of criminals.


I have never been able to figure about this policy of tight licensing policy...giving a licence atleast insures of some verification on the part of police.Some check....and a determined guy wanting to own a fire arms might simply end up with a katta /or a locally made gun. The city might be full of it since these are easily available and cheap in the towns surrounding the capital .Numerous of these illegal firearms/kattas get recovered from criminals Its only that we have closed our eyes to it and think nothing is wrong ...and a law abiding citizen is questioned as to WHY he needs a licence. Most stupid questions are asked .....I don't think Mumbai attacks would make even an iota of change .You can wake up a sleeping man but how do you wake up someone who is already awake...

[TenX]

Sanjay, for me 'the system' doesn't end at just getting an arms licence but goes beyond:

1) A licencing system needs to be fair and objective rather than based on the whims of a one or two senior police officers.

2) Guns and ammo have to be of good functional quality and affordable for the average citizen.

3) People must be trained in safe gun handling, marksmanship and basic gun maintenance and must be encouraged to practice frequently.

.. Can we add allowing import too

[mundaire]

Jonah,

Your points have been adequately covered by Gabe Suarez (of Suarez International) - a renowned tactical shooting & self defence trainer. I'm going to take the liberty of quoting his take on this incident here:

1). On what to do - Some folks think we are advocating running into the fight screaming with a knife in one hand and a snubby in the other. I'm not sure where that comes from, as it has never been suggested and is quite silly when you think about it.

Still, an aggressive counter attack at the outset of the incident seems to be a better option than hiding and hoping to go undetected once the bad guys have consolidated their forces. I do think that if you are unarmed (why would anyone do that today?), your options are very limited.

Additionally, if you are not at the point of contact, going to the fight may not be smart as you don't have any more info other than shots have been fired.
Going out in a blaze of glory is not on anyone's "to do" list here - at least I don't think so. But hiding helplessly and calling for help is not on it either.

If you can't do anything about the event, I am all for getting the "foxtrot" out of dodge. As far as evidence gathering - or getting intel out - or helping the police identify the bad guys, etc. Why is that your problem?

2). If you are armed (as well you should be), and know what is happening beyond a shadow of a doubt (its not the DEA in a firefight with a drug dealer that you are now intervening in), and in a position to shoot the bad guys - well - what do you think you should do?

911? Nope - not for me. Someone else can do that.

Call someone else ? Not at that point - not for me.

I am either engaging, or getting out. Once I am out, I may call, but when in the fire, you either fight, fly, or fry.

3). Before considering engaging the bad guys, consider who is with you. For example, endangering your family to save someone else may be seen by some as the epitome of selflessness, but I see it as the epitome of stupidity. I got a chance to speak with a Deputy whose daughter was killed by an armed robber because he chose to put another's property and safety above that of his own family. Bad choice - very bad choice.

If I am in a Mumbai-esque situation with them, my job is to use my skills to get them out. Those who did not prepare are on their own until I get them to, what I consider, safety. If fifty unarmed peacenik liberals get slaughtered because I chose the safety of my tribe and family first, oh well - they made their bed, now they can bleed in it.

Now, having said that, if any tangos are in your way as you egress, you bet you should shoot your exit right through them. If I am alone, I may do something different, but family and tribe comes before anyone and anything else - so should yours.

4). If I am at ground zero, when the bad guys begin shooting, and I am alone, I will attack. Not because it is the best thing to do, but because it is the only thing to do. What other option do you have? I suggest you do likewise. And understand the tactical implications of "ATTACK". It doesn't mean running into their midst with a knife in one hand and a Glock in the other screaming "Wolverines". If that is what you think attacking means- dude! - you need to come to class and get updated. How many times have I made an issue of shooting from long range in the Terrorist Interdiction Course?? Attack means you get your sights on the terrorist (his head if possible) and you smoke him in cold blood. This is vastly different from a typical civilian CCW self-defense shooting. There is no need for warning - no requirement to do anything, nor any chance given for surrender.

Perhaps AMBUSH is a better word.

5). I do not see the advantage in hunkering down and allowing the event to consolidate itself while you, the good witness, gather and pass information. That may be what the authorities want you to do as it benefits their mission. But YOUR mission is different.

I see what goes on in the Al Qaeda Training Video, and what has taken place in nearly every event where there have been organized terrorist active shooters. They have a plan and once they are able to consolidate their forces your options get very very limited.

An example - they know you are hiding in a covered area - and they will notice once they either stumble upon you in their security sweeps, or when you fire at one of them. They order you to come out. You tell them to go suck bacon. They grab a little girl and blow her brains out right there in front of you and her mother. As she falls, they grab another one. The mother is no longer screaming as she has been butt stroked into unconsciousness. Then they tell you again to come out as they grab up her sister and put the muzzle of an AK in her mouth. This is right out of their play books.

6). Some guys are assuming the bad guys will be using AKs. I think in Mumbai they used AKs because that was what they could get in Pakistan. One of my contacts - a man who should know, advises the rifles they used were Pakistani military AKs. If G3s would have been available, they may have used those.

Some think the AK will always mark you with the image of "the bad guy". I think having ANY rifle in your hands may do that in these cases. Some interesting things in this area. I have asked several police guys about this and the truth is they can't readily distinguish between a FAL and an SKS. A rifle is a rifle and a pistol is a pistol. That is usually as far as it gets.

Another case in point - The Beltway terrorists Malvo and Mohammed, they used an AR-15.

Interestingly enough, there has been a fair bit of off the schedule training of cops with AKs. Agencies that allow their people to buy their own stuff are seeing more and more AKs in service. Specially the Arsenal SLRs in 223.

7). If the event is a typical psycho-lone gunman type thing like Trolley Square, Tacoma Mall, et al, you can expect a reasonably quick police response (still in the realm of several minutes at best). So the idea of picking up one of the bad guy's rifles may not be either needed, nor wise. If you find yourself in this, you will be fighting with your pistol, not with the bad guy's rifle, nor your personal rifle. Time to go get it, you will not have.

In a Mumbai/Beslan type event you can bet the tangos will have set up something to delay the police. Whether it is explosives, or outside shooters (which you may need to deal with as you egress anyway), or something. In such an event, picking up the bad guy's weapons is an option. An option, but not one without risks. It gives you a better capability to engage and drop tangos than your CCW pistol, but in these events, anyone with a rifle may still be mistaken as a bad guy.

8 ). I have heard a great deal of discussion about whether Mumbai was a practice run or not. This attitude is usually seen in very US-centric thinkers. Not everything that happens around the world has anything to do with us. This was as much a practice run as Pearl Harbor was a practice run for the invasion of the Philippines.

Terror is seen as a tool by the terrorists, and not usually as an end in itself. There was a reason for Beslan, The Twin Towers, Madrid, etc. Terror creates fear and the realization that the authority in power cannot protect anyone. This will either bring a solidarity against the evil, as has been seen in Israel, or the desire to appease the evil, as has been seen in Europe. Terror hopes to appeal to that appeasement mentality who wants to give in to the terrorist so the terror will stop.

It also appeals to man's natural hatred. In this case, it appeals to the Indians who will say - "See what happens when we make friends with Americans and Jews".
It will also appeal to those who will say, "See you cannot trust Pakistan. Pakistan is and always has been, our enemy".

The fomenting of those sentiments and their cultivation and development, which may be strategically seen as an advantage by the terrorist masterminds, is what Mumbai was about.

Still, one cannot ignore that many victims there did not give a flying fornication about US Foreign Policy, India's Alliances, or Islam's Expansion, but they were still tortured and killed, specially if they were Jews or Americans.

Gabe Suarez

Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to
send peace on earth: I came not to send peace,
but a sword.

[mundaire]

Bloody ridiculous! Write to your MLA and make your feelings known.

Rusty,the system isnt so bad,agreed that there are issues that can be better addressed by the licencing authorities,but it does work in most geneuine cases.The problem is that most wannabes are looking for short cuts,and generally end up abusing the system.I have personally never had a problem dealing with the concerned department,am sure you havent either.

Sanjay,

Any system that relies on the final discretion of bureaucrats/ police in terms of whom to issue and whom not to issue a permit is doomed to corruption and miscarriage of justice. The law should ideally provide for a verification of antecedents (no criminal record/ history of mental illness) and residence. Post which the license should be automatically issued - no discretion, no strings and no corruption!

As to safe handling, a compulsory safety/ gun handling course can be mandated. But it should be the responsibility of the state machinery to provide facilities for this. The cost can be included in the license fees. It should not be difficult, as almost every district has at least a rifle range, run by the police etc.

Secondly ammo purchase limits are ridiculous to say the very least. How is one supposed to achieve and maintain competency in handling their firearms if they have no ammo and no place to shoot?

Lastly, availability of quality products. As all of us know (too well), the market offers little choice in terms of quality arms & ammo. When one purchases a firearm for self-defence (worldwide the most common reason for gun ownership), the last thing that one would want is that it fails in a crunch situation - whether the reason of failure is due to poor quality ammo or a poor quality/ ill maintained/ defective firearm is immaterial.

Will things ever change? I don't know the answer to that one, but it is incumbent on us to at least try...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[jonahpach]

Abhijeet,

Nice read you got there and I'll say you took the words right out of my mouth! Anyway I was actually expecting more reaction on the idea to collect data of incidents/stories promoting RKBA. Those Anti's have a big purse and lots of data that they conveniently misrepresent to promote their own interests.
We have to think about fighting back!

Jonah

[mundaire]

You are right Jonah, the antis are a well funded bunch, and also enjoy the sympathetic ear of many in the government. That said, I see no reason why we cannot effectively counter them if we organise ourselves better and take this offline in a well thought out manner.

But it would need a lot more involvement from members/ like minded people, this is not a battle that any one person can fight alone...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[penpusher]

Pandit Motilal Nehru drafted what became known as the Nehru Report on the Constitution of free India and this incorporated the right to keep arms in the list of fundamental rights of the proposed constitution. The Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress held in March, 1931 adopted the Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic policy including the right to keep arms.The resolution was moved by Mahatma Gandhi.Jawahar Lal Nehru played a pivotal role in getting this resolution adopted.

It is in-conceivable that neither Motilal Nehru nor Jawahar Lal Nehru were aware of what this entailed.It is also not conceivable that Mahatma Gandhi did not read the list of rights that the resolution sought to grant to the citizens of a free and sovereign India or did not agree with the list 'including' the right to keep arms.

[Rottmeister]

All that we are seeing here is people talking and talking; why not transform it to an action? We all are aware of the legitimate relationship between a law-abiding citizen and arms and reading the same stuff over and over again shall perhaps be beneficial to insomniacs, but not to those who are losing their sleep on seriously gaining back their rights.

[mundaire]

Interesting cartoon http://comicstripclub.com/?p=15

[Chengy]

https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... un_co.html

Mumbai's Harsh Lesson on Gun Control
By Abhijeet Singh

People across the globe watched in shock as the terror attack on Mumbai unfolded on television screens everywhere. The meticulous planning and the sheer audacity of the attacks stunned the world and, in the final analysis, set the stage for a pure human tragedy: 195 lives lost, many times that number seriously injured, and hundreds of families scarred forever.

The terrorists targeted iconic landmarks like the busy CST railway terminus, two luxury hotels, a local Jewish outreach centre, a café, and a hospital. They placed bombs in taxis and other locations. All of these attacks occurred almost simultaneously, compounding the confusion and completely exposing the inept emergency services.

Now as the citizens of Mumbai go about the business of rebuilding their burnt out landmarks and trying to heal shattered lives, the emotions of a nation turn from horror to anger at being let down by those very people whose duty it was to protect them. But instead of playing the blame game it is time for the citizens of India to pause and try to understand why was it that these merchants of terror succeeded so well in their dastardly enterprise and how culpable are we for creating the circumstances which multiplied the magnitude of this tragedy many fold. After all, this was only a group of ten terrorists and those ten were mostly split into teams of two each, to enable them to cover several locations simultaneously. Why were they not stopped sooner? Did so many people really have to die?

The entire blame cannot be squarely placed at the door of the low-paid, inept, corrupt, and ill-equipped police force. If you rely solely on the authorities to protect you and ensure your safety, you are rather naive. It is impossible for even the best trained and best equipped police force in the world to be everywhere all at once and to guarantee every single citizen complete protection. But forget about the best police force in the world. In the present case, even though armed policemen were present at the CST railway terminus, no solid attempt was made to even pin down the two terrorists who attacked CST.

Sebastian D'Souza a news photographer who witnessed the entire scene, and also took the photos that were flashed in most newspapers around the world, had this to say:

There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything. At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, "Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!" but they just didn't shoot back. I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.

"I only wish I had a gun," a statement that echoes one of the biggest failures of Indian democracy. The state has actively prevented law-abiding citizens from owning the tools with which to protect their lives!

It wasn't supposed to be this way, in fact throughout the freedom struggle our leaders actively campaigned for gun rights, including M.K. Gandhi himself. In it's 1931 Karachi session the Congress party, which was at the forefront of our freedom struggle, adopted a 20-point resolution on fundamental rights, this included the right to keep and bear arms. However, when India finally became independent in 1947, this right was missing from the new constitution that was finally adopted.

Instead the Indian parliament made noises about weapon "regulation" and eventually replaced the British time Arms Act with the new Arms Act of 1959, which boldly promised to make it easier for citizens to own guns, but in essence was a rehash of the old legislation.

But the Indian government has not merely used legislation and licensing to keep guns out of the hands of civilians. It has also used state policy to ensure that firearms and ammunition prices are probably some of the highest in the world. Domestic production of rifled firearms is a state monopoly, churning out crude products that are priced at 7 (or more) times their cost of production. Similarly domestic production of ammunition is a state monopoly with inconsistent supplies, poor quality, and very high prices. This combined with the fact that imports have been virtually banned since 1986 means that an ordinary snub nosed .357 Colt revolver will sell (legally) for a mind boggling US $20,000 or more.

A tight licensing regime combined with the high price of acquiring a legal gun has meant that very few Indians own weapons. Unsurprisingly these restrictions have also meant that there is a thriving black market for arms and ammunition, ensuring a steady supply to all manner of criminals -- people who don't bother about the niceties of remaining within the purview of the law.

Citizens must jump through several hoops to get an arms license and then pay crazy prices for ordinary products. But black market firearms are available at a small fraction of the cost of legal firearms. A country-made single shot handgun can cost as little as US $ 20, imported handguns go for US $ 500- $1,000, and AK-47's (like the ones that were used in this attack) cost about US$ 1,500 or thereabouts on the black market. There never was a clearer real life example of how gun control takes guns out of the hands of decent law-abiding folk and puts them right into the hands of criminals.

At the Jewish outreach centre, bystanders pelted the terrorists with stones in a vain attempt to ward off the attack, but had to retreat when the terrorists opened fire with automatic rifles. Our citizens were trying to ward off the terrorists with stones! I cannot think of a more extreme example of how helpless the government has rendered it's own citizens. In the absence of guns, and thus incapable of offering any resistance, they were simply like lambs to the slaughter. On that fateful day, this was a story repeated again and again all over Mumbai: unarmed civilians, slow & inept emergency services, and mindless slaughter of innocents.

But we live in a democracy; hence at the end of the day it is each one of us who is to blame. It is we the people who must ask our representatives hard questions; it is we who must bring the right to bear arms to the forefront of the political agenda. We have the power to effect change through our votes and with elections just a few months away, let us not forget the lessons of Mumbai, let us not forget those that lost their lives there, many of who could have been saved if just a few of us were armed.

As citizens it is incumbent on us to make sure we don't allow another tragedy like Mumbai to take place. As free men and women it is our responsibility to take measures to protect ourselves as best we can, using the best available tools and it's high time we demanded them as a right!

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... z66VJBesO7
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[Vikram]

True then, truer now!

[Hammerhead]

Bravo -- for god's sake when you need one, you really need one !