Asif and Abhijeet on CNN-IBN

Asif (a fellow member at indiansforguns.com) and I, were interviewed by CNN-IBN on the 16th of this month. The topic was gun control and why Indian citizens need to have a right to keep and bear arms (RKBA)!

The interview was aired the same evening, you can read a short text transcript on below:

Trigger happy: 40 mn guns in India
Shailesh Rai
CNN-IBN
Posted Friday , September 15, 2006 at 20:44
Updated Friday , September 15, 2006 at 21:06

New Delhi: Abhijeet Singh is a software professional who works with Open Source Programs – a software that’s open to everyone to use without restrictions.

He’s also part of a growing group which wants the same freedom to extend to something totally different – guns.

“If you’re mugged on a street, will you tell the muggers – ‘Wait, let me just call the police’ – and then go to them and continue getting mugged?” Singh asks.

“Criminals are already armed. Why should someone who wants to protect his family be denied that choice?” he adds.

But it isn’t that easy to lock and load in India. To own a gun, you first have to apply for a firearm license.

You then have to go for an interview with the local Deputy Commissioner of Police of licensing, where you’ll have to prove a tangible threat.

Gun use in India is regulated by the Arms Act of 1959, which ensures that a person can own a gun only after a very stringent process.

Yet, the United Nations puts the total number of guns in the country at around 40 million.

“There’s a very small line between legal and illegal arms. Guns get lost, stolen and end up in the black market,” says Vice-President of Control Arms Foundation of India, Anuradha Chenoy.

But the debate is also a moral one. Abhijeet is the moderator of a web group called indiansforguns.com.

One of it’s members, Asif Ali, says most gun owners are responsible citizens.

“Just because you have a gun doesn’t make you a maniac,” he explains.

But there’s also a different point of view. “The mere possession of a gun can convince a person to use it,” argues Anuradha.

The Government will be under the gun next month, when it has the chance to sign an arms trade treaty in the UN General Assembly. It’s a vote that could be an indicator of things to come.

If bandwidth is not an issue you can see the archived (low res) video on their site here >>

10 thoughts on “Asif and Abhijeet on CNN-IBN”

lovely! now shoot me for saying…… your accent is fantabulous! lol!

ASIF AND YOU DID MANAGE TO PUT A POINT ACROSS..BUT THE LADY WAS AT HER BEST DEFYING YOUR VIEWS ..

Its nice article and interesting coverage….

Interesting Article…….

Good job there.

One good reply to that ladys comments would be.

Just because a man has a Di*(*( it does not mean that he goes around raping everyone.

I’ve enjoyed reading your site. I found it through a link from a poster at littlegreenfootballs, where we’ve been following the terrorist attacks continuously. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

I’m glad to hear you enjoyed reading the material here and thank you for your kind words 🙂

Cheers!
Abhijeet

I am absolutely with Abhijeet…To protect oneself and one’s own property is a fundamental and democratical right… and depending upon the government for protection only makes a person helpless and frustrated.. This is the time… INDIA has no choice but to allow possesion of arms by its citizenry. Period!

Contemporary Indian Govt. is the continuation of British raj, with all its beauracratic machinery, and it still holds Indian citizens as members to be ruled and controlled, not responsible or mature enough to decide their own fate.. this mindset has to be abolished… Democracy is rule by people and what they want must decide the national agenda… if 51% of the population wants something the, other 49% have no choice but to accept it as they are in minority…If people overwhelmingly are in favour of Gun laws, the rest of minority should shut up and accept the majority decision… that I think is Democracy.. Bureaucracy or politicians are NOT there to decide right or wrong for the population, but to carry on its will…

Some quotes from prominent sources on gun laws:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. — in “Commonplace Book,” 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion. Enlighten the people generally and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The general (federal) government will tend to monarchy, which will fortify itself from day to day, instead of working its own cures.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny., Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778).