As happens sometimes, conventional thinking leads to absurdity, even without realization. Same applies to the proponents of gun control. What they say, and most believe is that in a country where people have easy access to guns, there presumably will be widespread violence, killings, and disruption of social order. This however, is a canard. We'll see why.
In India, people were prevented from bearing arms by the British through the arms act of 1878. This was enforced after the mutiny of 1857. After independence, the Arms act (1959) was put in place. The big question here is - did they serve the primary purpose for which they were enacted and enforced? Did they help reducing the crime rate? Were they able to prevent 26/11? What if Nirbhaya had a gun that day? For the past 39 years, Mumbai nurse, Aruna Shanbaug has been lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state, brain dead, unable to speak, and recognize faces. What if she too had a gun to defend herself? If rapes can really be graded, brutal rapes in India are the gravest of issues this country faces. It resonates with peoples' life at a much basic, primal level. If there's anything which helps prevent it to any extent, how rational is it to enforce a ban against the same? Even Gandhi said in his autobiography: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of its arms as the blackest."
It's no big surprise. A gun control massacre brings out the gun-control crowd which demands gun control to be enforced immediately, as if it would have prevented the Connecticut school shootings. Politicians who're into obfuscations and equivocalness will argue that gun rights will produce more number of criminals. Let's examine this fad. A criminal by definition is a person who violates law. To assume that such a violator will obey gun control laws is a sham. One who intends to murder won't say - 'Woop! I don't have a gun, so I won't kill you.' He will either try to steal one, or bang you with a sledgehammer. Those who comply with gun laws are peaceful, law abiding ilks that are now denied the right to defend themselves. Why do these law abiding citizens obey gun control laws which murderers don't? Because the former don't want to be convicted felons, while the latter don't care. So why this bum rap?
The other thing to consider is that gun control laws won't eliminate guns from society, any more than drug laws have eliminated drugs from society. Given the millions of guns already in use, along with continued manufacturing, what gun control laws will do is to gradually transform this business into a black-market enterprise marked by gun gangs, bank robberies, muggings, and everything else. If you like the war on drugs, you will love the war on guns.
Let's now look at some statistical figures. There are an estimated 70 million handguns privately owned handguns in the United States that are used for self defense, hunting, sharpshooting, and other legitimate purposes. Since Washington enacted a ban on handguns, homicide rates rose to 200%. Switzerland, where at least one in every three of its less than eight million inhabitants owns a gun, has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Anti-gun activists who're making news recently have an argument about UK. It is often held that gun control is the reason for low crime rate in UK. This faulty assumption can be challenged by looking at the crime rate before the hand gun ban. It was extremely low even then.
As the gun control debate gets heated up after 20 school children died, the laws which we adhere to most conscientiously must be re-looked and challenged pragmatically. India is the country with one of the strictest gun laws in the world. It is, however also the country where a rape is reported every 20 minutes!
Much is to be pondered over.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hinan_Ali
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