Every once in a while one comes across an article that reflects ones own thinking so well that it’s almost spooky! This is exactly the feeling I got while reading this article by Jeff Snyder on the “American Handgunner” website. I make no bones about the fact that I am as pro-gun as one can get, BUT and this is a big BUT I simply DO NOT buy the argument that – citizens possessing guns either prevents a tyrannical government from coming to power OR helps replace that government with a better dispensation! History is littered with enough examples to disprove this argument. Just look at our own neighbourhood – Afghanistan is chock a block full of firearms in the hands of civilians, but that hasn’t helped it move anywhere close to a free and fair democratic society!
The author extensively quotes from Etienne de la Boetie’s “The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” and one cannot help but draw parallels with India’s fight for independence. It seems so much like we have exchanged one set of oppressive rulers (the British) for another (the Politician-Bureaucrat combine)! Boetie’s essay seems to have an explanation as to why we Indians have so readily accepted this new dispensation without so much as a whimper.
Why is it that so few of us are bothered by our governments repeated infringements of civil liberties? Why does the vast majority not protest the rampant corruption that ails our institutions? And why, why is no one even willing to listen (let alone act)? Boetie’s essay seems to have some pretty interesting answers. A disturbing analysis of human nature – check it out and draw your own conclusions.
hmmmphhhh!!!!!!!
the only form of a non-violent gun i can think of is an…….. UNLOADED GUN…!@#$%^%
hehehe>>>###!#
what a weak correlation of guns and ghandi???????????!@#$$
poor sod must be rolling in his grave wishing he had a gun to shoot you for writing this article!@#$
f i d a . . .
Well, before you go any further, you might want to read the following quote by Gandhi:-
“Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help…I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress…Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest….We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day be the mass of people acting as if by instinct….If they were instinctively violent the world would end in no time…It is when the mass mind is unnaturally influenced by wicked men that the mass of mankind commit violence. But they forget it as they commit it because they return to their peaceful nature immediately the evil influence of the directing mind has been removed….A government that is evil has no room for good men and women except in its prisons.”
Gandhi himself was not averse to gun ownership 🙂
Cheers!
Abhijeet
Abhijeet,
Keep up the good work. The “Democractic” Indian govt has oppressed every single inhabitant of India, unless he grabbed on to the govt guns. Became a politician, bureaucrat or other sort of govt servant. It is high time that we help stop this tyranny. What is it that Indian people cannot see? Have we missed that the police are always late, always corrupt and always too incompetent? Even our “media” has been yelling from the roof tops about this! Those people that die and keep dying every Panchawarshik yojna of terrorism in Mumbai die for nothing, simply because they are sheep enough to believe/follow the retarded socialist system.
Thank you for your kind words Pankaj 🙂 Debate with and try and convert a “non-believer” every day and you will soon see change take place. We can all make a difference – just keep believing and fighting the good fight!
Cheers!
Abhijeet