06 January 10 - 11:46SUMMARY OF WHAT THE HOME MINISTRY SEEKS TO DO

SUMMARY OF WHAT THE HOME MINISTRY SEEKS TO DO THROUGH THE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE ARMS ACT


1. Negating the constitutional right of every citizen to protect his/ her life and property by denying them the tools to do so

2. Glossing over & trying to divert attention from the ineptitude of the State in combating lawlessness by targeting law abiding citizens who are Arms License Holders/ License Seekers by equating them with common criminals and anti-national elements, in spite of the fact that the statistics published Home Ministry prove that an insignificant number of crimes are committed by Arms License Holders. Overwhelming majority of crime committed using other arms or illegal arms – as criminals & anti-national elements DO NOT bother to apply for Arms Licenses

3. Creating a class of haves & have nots by providing exemptions for VIPs & VVIPs, in effect recognising and institutionalising a class system under the law, which is supposed to apply to all persons equally without fear or favour

4. The Right to Keep & Bear Arms promised to all Indians as a Fundamental Right as per the (All Party) Nehru Report of 1928, as well as by the 1931 Karachi resolution adopted by the Congress. Finally enshrined as a Legal Right as per the Arms Act 1959, which can be ascertained by the objectives of the Act. Proposed amendments seek to completely undermine this right, in effect leaving common citizens at the mercy of all manner of criminals & anti-national elements

5. Hon'able courts have recognised this as a right, by equating the right to keep & bear arms to Article 21 of the Indian Constitution

6. All India Arms License Endorsement to be made almost impossible for the average citizen, in effect curtailing a citizens Fundamental Right to protect life, liberty & property AS WELL as Fundamental Right to freedom of movement

7. Multiple proposals within the proposed amendments will lead to increased harassment of honest law abiding citizens and eventually promote corruption

8. Proposed centralised database of all Arms License holders, nothing but a cleverly veiled attempt at undermining individual State's authority by encroaching on the state subject of Law & Order, AS WELL as treating all Arms Licensees as potential criminals and terrorists, effectively crushing their personal privacy and opening them up to constant harassment & needless government surveillance

9. Completely ignores demands by the public to make arms licensing easier, as considering the current security environment in the country, anyone anywhere can become the victim of random acts of violence or terror. Did the victims of 26/11 in Mumbai have any premonition of what was going to happen? Did they not have a right to be arms and prepared? Could they not have better defended themselves, instead of waiting for security forces that took hours to arrive?

10. Strict licensing for semi-auto rifles & shotguns is a backward looking policy, considering that criminals & anti-national forces have easy & cheap access to fully automatic firearms in the black market and they are NOT lining up to get licenses for the same

11. Arms Licensing process should be made free & fair based on transparent objective criteria and not made stricter, as citizens today face more threats than they did 50 years ago

12. Indians found it easier to procure Arms Licenses as slaves under the British Empire than they do today, it is a national shame that our democratically elected government of the people, by the people and for the people DOES NOT TRUST THE PEOPLE!

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02 January 10 - 13:46Draconian new amendments - request for action

As some of you are aware the Ministry of Home Affairs is planning on amending the existing Arms policy and this will make things worse than they already are for all of us who love guns & shooting and who wish to live in a truly free country! In case you are unaware of the proposed changes, kindly take a look at the document titled "Proposed Arms and Ammo Policy" which is available at http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/DAAM-PolicyIndividuals-211209.pdf

There is a prepared text below addressed to Shri S.K Malhotra. The same text is also available as downloadable files in various formats (to suit everyone's tastes and to make it easier to print/ copy/ paste/ edit etc.), which can be downloaded from:

http://www.indiansforguns.com/draft_objections.pdf (Acrobat PDF document format)
http://www.indiansforguns.com/draft_objections.rtf (Rich Text Format, editable in most office programs)
http://www.indiansforguns.com/draft_objections.txt (plain text format, editable in any text editor)
http://www.indiansforguns.com/draft_objections.odt (Open Office document format, editable)

You can send in the prepared text as it is, or use it as a base to prepare your own individual objections. Irrespective of what you choose to do, PLEASE DO send in your objections without fail. This is not any one individuals battle, but in stead a matter which AFFECTS ALL OF US, do not take this lightly.

Vikram's excellent article (which I would suggest everyone attach as an enclosure), continues to be freely downloadable at:
http://www.indiansforguns.com/right_to_protection.pdf

All of the above can be freely downloaded by members/ non-members.

Please e-mail this along with the attached Right To Protection document to S.K. Malhotra at:

sudhir.malhotra@nic.in

Also, please CC the same e-mail to:

P. Chidamabaram: hm@nic.in
Sonia Gandhi: soniagandhi@sansad.nic.in
Arun Jaitley: ajaitley@sansad.nic.in
Sushma Swaraj: sushmaswaraj@hotmail.com

You should also copy the prepared text to the Prime Minister at manmohan@sansad.nic.in (more)

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30 September 09 - 20:11Right to Protection

A close friend and moderator at www.indiansforguns.com, Vikram Kona, has written an excellent essay titled:
Right to Protection - A Fundamental Responsibility & Failure of the Indian State.

Vikram takes Indian crime statistics over the past several decades and other government government published data, to completely expose the failure of the Indian state in it's duty to protect citizens. To add insult to injury, neither will the state allow citizens the means to protect themselves! A must read, you can either download the article in PDF format from here >>> OR see the complete discussion on www.indiansforguns.com.

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10 December 08 - 09:22Mumbai's Harsh Lesson on Gun Control

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 cafe, 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? (more)

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02 December 08 - 00:52Back in the stone age?

Image courtesy Oleg Volk - www.olegvolk.net

As per this news report bystanders at Nariman House in Mumbai tried to thwart the terrorists attacking the Jewish centre by throwing rocks at them. Rocks!! Rocks versus AK-47's and grenades? Yet people still debate whether armed citizens could have meant a substantially lower body count??!! If just one or two of those bystanders had a handgun or a semi-auto rifle in stead of just rocks, the rabbi and many others who died at that location may still be alive today...

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02 December 08 - 00:35I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera!

"I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera!" These were the words of the Mumbai based news photographer who clicked the photo of one of the terrorists, while they attacked the CST railway station. You can read more of what he had to say here here >>

Disturbingly he had this to say about the armed railway police charged with guarding the railway station - "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything..." This simply underlines the need for more private citizens to be armed and prepared to defend themselves, we should not and cannot depend on the police to come save us in such situations.

Image courtesy Oleg Volk - www.olegvolk.net

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02 December 08 - 00:17If only we had guns!

Image courtesy Oleg Volk - www.olegvolk.net

The dastardly terrorist attack on Mumbai last week (once again) exposed how strict gun control laws directly help criminals target law abiding citizens with impunity. The terrorists came to Mumbai armed not only with AK-47's, grenades and bombs, but also with the knowledge that they could safely expect no armed resistance from the citizens of Mumbai! (more)

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13 October 06 - 09:30Pistol found in unclaimed bank locker

A pistol gifted by a Raja to a British officer in 1920s found in an unclaimed locker of State Bank of India.

The Times of India reports that an antique (sic) pistol supposedly gifted to Lt A B Greenwood, sometime in the 1920s by an unknown Raja was found (along with 261 rounds of ammo) in an unclaimed locker of the State Bank of India's head office at Fort, Mumbai.

An interesting aside - as per receipts found with the pistol, the (highly engraved) custom made gun is supposed to have cost Rs. 300 at the time while the ammunition recovered is supposed to have cost Rs. 200. By the same measure, 261 rounds of .32 cal IOF (KF brand) ammo would cost less than Rs. 9,000 today... of course these days, there is little chance of purchasing any kind of pistol for a proportionate amount of around Rs. 13-14,000!!

Read the full article here >>

Cheers!
Abhijeet

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