Experts call for stringent gun legislation in India

Close on the heels of incidents of campus shootings in various schools across the country, experts on Wednesday stressed on making the gun legislation more stringent.

“We want to make the Indian Arms Act of 1959 more stringent. Every one should not be allowed to possess arms. Those provided license for possessing weapons should be accountable for their use,” Lt Gen (retd) B S Mallik, president of Control Arms Foundation of India, an organization spearheading the movement against misuse of arms, said at a seminar in New Delhi.He said children should not be allowed to use these weapons at all.”Children should be denied access to arms,” he said at the seminar on ‘Lessons from Gurgaon school shoot-out: call for redrafting India’s gun legislation’.

The issue assumes significance in view of recent incidents of children resorting to shooting their friends in schools. A boy was shot dead by his classmates in a Gurgaon school in December last year, while another student in Satna district in Madhya Pradesh was shot dead by a fellow student last month.

Jasjit Singh, Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, said the Constitution allows somebody to defend himself, not to carry weapons.“The licenses for weapons are given for three reasons — hunting, display and protection. It shows the state is failing to provide security to its people; that is why people are opting for arms for their security,” he said.
India’s former ambassador to the US, Arundhati Ghose, emphasised on conducting research to know the details of arms use and taking up awareness programme against the misuse of arms.

(Published in Rediff news  on February 06, 2008)