Law is a very serious thing. It is the protection for every individual. Today, especially in socialist India, the law is but naked coercion, offering zero protection.
Now, talking about protection, it is an inescapable truth that ordinary, law-abiding folks in our country need their own private guns to protect themselves. They cannot depend on the mercenary and predatory apparatus of the State Police to defend them: “A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.”
Thus, it is horrifying to read that our The Chacha State is drawing up plans to make legitimate gun ownership even more difficult for us. Abhijeet Singh of Indians For Guns, a society of which I am an old member, in his recent blog post, addresses the issue. There is also an excellent article by Vikram Kona titled “Right to Protection: A Fundamental Responsibility and Failure of the Indian State” to be found here. Abhijeet says that today is the LAST DAY for citizens to petition The Chacha State against this tyranny. So, if you care for your own safety, do your bit.
Note that Aristotle thus defined the difference between a monarch and a tyrant: the monarch protects his people; the tyrant has to protect himself from them.
Indians For Guns are calling for a “partnership” between civilians and the State. Vikram Kona says:
Whenever the State found itself with insufficient resources to deal with the problem at hand or expedient to its goals, the State did recruit the help of civilians in various forms. Post 1962 Indo-China War, the government initiated Civil Defence Training programmes, providing arms training around the country to raise a last line of defence. Even today, the Sashastra Seema Bal regularly provides arms training to villagers at the borders to fight and harass the enemy soldiers in case of an invasion. At different times, governments in Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir armed citizens with government supplied guns and ammunition to fight terrorists! Right at this moment, the government of Chhattisgarh actively supports, arms and equips a counter insurgency movement called Salwa Judum. These examples make it evident that civilians can be trusted to bear arms, be proficient in their use, help preserve peace and security, protect the country, and still remain law abiding.
The prescription is as follows:
The Government must realise that empowering law abiding citizens is not detrimental to peace, stability and security of the country. Au contraire, such proactive measures would fill in the lacunae in governance effectively and efficiently. No one advocates an unregulated, free-for-all arms market. Criminals must be prevented from acquiring firearms but on the other hand, if a person is eligible to vote, has no criminal back ground and is mentally stable, that person should be eligible to get a firearm license without having to go through the bureaucratic rigmarole designed to deny and disarm rather than empower and enable the law abiding. The Government must define the licensing procedures clearly and implement them speedily, fairly, and transparently, without fear or favour. Private initiative should be encouraged in the firearms industry, to introduce an element of competition that is essential to counter the evils of monopoly. This will enhance the quality of products available to consumers and ensure that they are available at reasonable prices. Ban on imports of firearms for civilian use should be lifted for the same reasons and also to make high quality self-defence tools available.
Note that a “private law society,” the subject of my column in Mint today, fits in neatly with private guns, for the citizenry to effectively protect themselves and their properties.
Onwards to a brave new India.
[PS: I was not on a holiday the last week. My computer was down, and it was the engineers who were on chutti. Rukawat ke liye khed hai – if you remember your Doordarshan - and a happy new year >:)]
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