Should Guns Be Freely Available?

On one hand I feel that guns, or any other fire arm, shouldn’t be freely available, and on the other hand, I think one should be able to obtain a gun easily, given the kind of times we live in. The problem in India is, all the shady elements of the society can easily get country-made or imported guns (depends on the capability) but for a normal citizen it’s very difficult, almost impossible, to procure a gun even for urgent protection. Read the whole article.

Update (April 30, 2007): The Pioneer today has published an article titled America’s fetish for guns. The opposition to guns is backed by some strongly documented data:

Britain has one of the world’s lowest gun homicide rates - 0.04 slayings per 100,000 people, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey for 2004. That puts it on par with Japan, where the rate is 0.03 per 100,000.

By contrast, the US has a rate roughly 100 times higher: 3.42 gun murders per 100,000 people, according to the Geneva group. The US ranked 13th highest out of 112 countries in a 2006 study by the Small Arms/Firearms Education and Research Network in Canada.

I think in America the problem is not with guns, but with society. There is no family bonding, there is lots alienation, there is lots of peer pressure, and consumerism there is maniacal. Students actually look down upon those who study. My niece, who lives in Canada, once told me that her friends think only those kids study hard who don’t have a life.

Crimes cannot be attributed to an easy availability of guns. The most heinous of crimes happen in India (Nithari, for instance) and we here have very strict gun laws. Crimes are a sociological problem, a mental problem. As a psychopath, if someone wants to kill say 20 people, he or she will kill them, gun or no gun. Yes, it’ll be difficult without a gun (the gun basically automates the exercise), but he or she will find a way. Remember Jack the Ripper? He never carried a gun.