Ban Guns.
Say no to guns.
Its time someone brought a law for gun control.
These
are just three examples of demands that come up hysterically whenever
there is a shootout in public place or school in USA. These incidents
are happening at an alarming rate there, and have had horrific
outcomes. The most prominent in our memory in recent times are the
Columbine school massacre (1999), the Virginia Tech massacre (2008), the
Aurora cinema hall shooting (2012) and the Newtown, Connecticut school
shooting (2012), the very last being the most horrific in the writer’s
opinion as the victims were children who had barely lived the first five
years of their lives.
The
popular media will have us believe that all these are the result of
violent video games or violent films, but school shootings have been
going on in United States since the early 1800’s.
The second amendment, stated in the Bill of Rights of United States of America proclaims:- A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
In
simple words, it is the right to arms for the citizen. The powerful gun
lobby thrives by it, and since the days of the war of independence,
armed citizenry has been a permanent part of the American life. And no
politician who wants to be on the scenario for a long time dares oppose
it , or the gun lobby brings him down without delay. As the popular
saying goes, America doesn’t go to war because it wants to, it goes to
war because it has to. The arms manufacturers like Colt who produces ,
among others the standard issue M-16 rifle for the American forces (the
same is available in semi-automatic version as AR-15 for the civilians)
to the ones like Boeing and Lockheed Martin that produce F-16 and F-18,
war is a required industry. If conflicts don’t exist, they have to be
invented, so that, in addition to increasing the sales of the weapons ,
it will also establish regimes that are friendly enough to be called as
allies as they will facilitate American interests in the region and
provide cheap oil and allow permanent military bases, which are mostly
manned by enlisters who mainly come from the lower middle class or
working class, for whom, in these times of recession a stint in the army
is the only way out, that of becoming another cog in the war machine
and a test user for the weaponry, and for the CIA to run drugs in the
area, arming the criminals and other nefarious elements who are eager to
become allies to the cause, so what if two decades later, they become
the biggest enemies of freedom according to Uncle Sam. Such is life. The
mighty have their own rules.
But
then, is banning firearms the solution? Sure, the odds are
overwhelming, with over 100000 people killed in United States in gun
crimes in little over a decade,or that of Pakistan, where thanks to the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and American aid to counter it has
resulted in a scenario where there is one Kalashnikov per nine
individuals, where in areas like Darra Adam Khel , it is easier for a
teenager to make an exact copy of a Beretta or a Kalashnikov on a lathe
machine than reading a paragraph. Their terrorist network formed against
India has now turned on them, imploding the country. Divine justice,
isn’t it?
Banning
guns to stem crime is like banning fornication to control rapes. There
were some other scum like the Westboro Baptist Church which used this
opportunity to proclaim that the shooting in the Connecticut school was
god’s will because god was being removed from school everyday. The
writer prays to gods that he please send an army of crazed shooters to
the homes of these biped swine as they don’t deserve to exist in a civilized society.
A rifle is just a tool. It is a hard heart that kills (Full Metal Jacket, 1989)
The
writer has just one answer to give to the ban supporters : Criminals
will always be armed. Those who are going to commit crimes will always
manage to lay their hands on a firearm.
If
there are countless examples of madmen shooting in public places, there
are countless examples of many robbery and murder attempts thwarted by
armed citizens. A place full of people with guns is much better than a
place where unarmed, lame duck citizens are abused and raped at will by
armed criminals. Admiral Yamamoto during WWII said that the empire of
Japan could never invade United States because “there would be a rifle
behind every blade of glass”. The very reason that the mighty Americans
are finding it difficult to put and end to Iraq war is because the
civilians are armed to the teeth. Three decades ago, the Soviets found
out the same when they invaded the villages of the mujahideen armed by
Uncle Sam.
Dictators
start their regimes by the careful disarmament of the general populace,
so that they can be sure of no dissent against their rule. This is true
for everyone, from Stalin to Mao .
The
de arming of the general populace in India started with the Mughals,
who de armed as many Hindus as they could. This practice was continued
by the British, and has been continued in independent India. The results
are for all of us to see, where any criminal is free to molest any
woman on the street, any robber is free to loot anyone’s house and kill
the inhabitants and hence the common man has to live all his life being a
insect to be crushed because forget about a firearm, he is not even
allowed to carry a 10 cm blade knife for his protection. Thats why all
these calls of asking the common man to fight terrorism are cruelly
laughable, because the only way a defenceless common man can fight
terrorism is by getting shot by a terrorist or by blowing into
smithereens by a bomb, thereby becoming a statistic to be discussed by
so called eminent personalities in some talk show of a so called news
channel.
If
guns are always going to end up in the wrong hands, shouldn’t there be
provisions that they can end up in the right hands as well? Those who
still say that the pen is mightier than the sword should really try
fighting an armed assailant with a fountain pen.
Imagine
for a moment if even three people in the vicinity of a terrorist in
event of an attack like the 26/11 in Mumbai have guns, wouldn’t that
create a chance to gun him down before he kills 50 more people? Or if
half the villagers have atleast a country made firearm, can the local
“bahubali”’s goons threaten them? Or would a ruffian on the street dare
to molest a woman if he had the slightest doubt that she might be
carrying a weapon underneath her veil?
After
all, if live and live let had been practical in real life, lions and
antelopes would have been babysitting each other’s offspring.
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