Preying On Our Real Rights

If there is to be a government, if we are to pay taxes to a State, then this small organization within a vast, free society MUST protect our lives and our properties. This is what all the great classical liberal political economists, from Adam Smith to Bastiat to Ludwig von Mises, believed. They also added that this government must NOT exceed this "negative obligation."

Our Socialist State thinks otherwise. It wants to make steel, run hotels and airlines, and so on. It wants to plan the economy. And when it comes to protecting our lives and properties, this State is always a predator. I have written many posts on Property. Today, let me comment on the fact that this State cares nothing for our lives.

Abhijeet Singh of Indians For Guns has circulated a note that says that the Union Home Ministry, which looks after matters pertaining to policing, is playing a very dirty game with our right to defend ourselves - to keep and bear arms. He writes:

We wish to bring to your kind notice that, in the guise of moving a minor amendment to the Arms Act, ostensibly to make police verification mandatory, the Ministry of Home Affairs has quietly moved to change other important aspects of the the law with the goal of undermining every citizen's legal right to keep and bear arms. Even though the Arms Act does not allow it to do so, the Ministry has formulated an "Arms Policy" which has in effect changed the law and how it is implemented, without seeking parliamentary approval or following proper procedures. The Ministry has sent a circular to all State/ UT Home Deptt.'s ordering that this new policy be followed strictly with immediate effect.

1) It is IMPORTANT to NOTE that while the Arms Act gives the Central Govt. the power to make rules, which MUST then be approved by parliament within a stipulated time period - there is NO provision for making policy without parliamentary approval. Why is it that the Ministry has not made the changes it seeks to make a part of this Amendment to the Arms Act? Is it because the Ministry fears that the parliament would not approve the changes it wishes to make and so an attempt to bypass parliament is being made?

2) 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” – what is not made clear is how the Ministry has arrived at this 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 the lakhs of honest law-abiding citizens who keep and bear arms responsibly, by equating them with common criminals.

3) The new Arms Policy requires a citizen to prove grave and imminent threat to life prior to grant of arms license. This 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. Also, proving grave and imminent threat is impossible for an ordinary citizen and will lead to large scale corruption as well as denying honest middle class citizens the only means with which to protect themselves. This despite the Arms Act 1959 stating as one of it's primary objectives to make it easier for law abiding citizens to own arms for self-defence and sport. The arms license application criteria should be objective and any citizen who is not disqualified should be automatically approved. This is the only way to ensure the process is free of fear or favour.

4) The new Arms Policy directly changes the existing Arms Rules 1962, without following proper procedure – (a) by changing the relevant authority for issuing All India Validity arms licenses, which was previously the State Govt. and has now for all (non VIP) cases been made the MHA, Govt. of India. (b) by introducing a new class system within the law, by allowing State Govt.'s to continue to issue All India Validity arms licenses ONLY for a select ruling elite. Besides everything else, this sort of discriminatory policy is against the very spirit of the Arms Act as well as the Indian Constitution.

There is a need to go into the proper depth of causes or solutions this new Amendment to the Arms Act and Arms Policy aim to address. We strongly request that the proposed Arms Amendment Bill and the Ministry's Arms Policy be immediately referred to the Home Committee for detailed study, comments and suggestions.

Think about it: What this means is that if someone in Manipur or Kerala feels a threat to his life and wants to buy a gun to protect himself, he must go to New Delhi to apply for the license! The only people exempted from this are the VIPs. And all this is being done surreptitiously, behind closed doors, bypassing Parliament. Note that the minister in charge is a socialist lawyer. (The minister in charge of "miseducation" is also a socialist lawyer.) So, just as socialist economists are playing dangerous games with the economy, socialist lawyers are playing dangerous games with the law.

What should a law that really protects all of us look like? Very simple: We have a right to defend ourselves and our properties. It is this right that becomes the law - the Constitution - and the State thereby established protects these rights. This is precisely how the US Constitution goes. According to the socialist lawyer heading the Union Home Ministry, only its personnel possess this right - and they will operate a MONOPOLY in providing security to all. And all this from New Delhi. Actually, this goes against the spirit of our Constitution, by which Law & Order is a subject of the states that make up the federation.

Thus, this socialist lawyer who is the Central State Police minister is preying on our rights. In the meanwhile, they are doling out completely useless rights - such as the "right to work" and the "right to food." Note that these useless rights transfer vast resources to bureaucRATS.

Who do the State Police protect? If you live in New Delhi, you quickly realize that the only people the State Police "work" for are the VIPs. They are always well guarded. Traffic is cleared for them. In the meanwhile, pedestrians are killed every day on the unsafe streets. It is this State Police that is hassling BlackBerry in order to spy on us - see my recent post on this. I also have another post defending our right to bear arms. They are supposedly "security agencies." The real question is: Whose security? Not ours, surely.

As Bastiat said:

The law is no longer the refuge of the oppressed, but the arm of the oppressor! The law is no longer a shield, but a sword! The law no longer holds a balance in its august hands, but false weights and false keys! And you want society to be well ordered!

Who will benefit from this Arms Policy? Obviously, only the bureaucRATS in the MHA - power crazy tax parasites. It is their intention that is evil and anti-people. This is harsh reality indeed.

Well, Bastiat also said something noteworthy on bureaucRATS:

I am a firm believer in the ideas of Malthus when it comes to bureaucrats. For their expansion in numbers and projects is fixed precisely by Malthus' principle that the size of the population is determined by the amount of available food. If we vote 800 million francs for government services, the bureaucrats will devour 800 million; if we give them two billion, they will immediately expand themselves and their projects up to the full amount.

Today, we have "public choice theory" that says bureaucRATS are "budget-maximizers." They are also "turf-maximizers." Public choice theory has tellingly proved that bureaucracy is not benevolent.

We in India have always placed full faith and confidence in our elite bureaucrats. This has been our biggest mistake. If we desire progress, if we desire security, if we desire knowledge of truth and justice - then vast acres of this gigantic bureaucracy must be shut down; summarily sacked.