Learning The Wrong Lessons From India’s Disarmed Citizens

By Cam Edwards

AP Photo/R S Iyer

I’ve seen a lot of weak arguments in favor of gun control recently, but this one trumps them all. At the Telegraph newspaper in India, writer Nitin Sangwan makes the astounding claim that India’s history of keeping people disarmed offers a lesson for the United States.

Unlike the US where the Constitution gives citizens the right to own a gun, in India gun ownership is a difficult proposition. Consequently, while the US has 120 guns per 100 persons, the figure is merely 5 per 100 persons in India. Furthermore, only a limited class of weapons is permitted for individual ownership here. One of the fallouts of such a provision is that an American citizen is 12 times more likely to be killed by a gun than an Indian.

The situation in India can be traced back to a colonial gun control legislation, the Indian Arms Act of 1878, which prohibited Indians, but not Europeans, from possessing, manufacturing and selling arms without license. The original intention of the colonial rulers was to discourage arms ownership in the background of the 1857 Revolt to prevent the recurrence of a similar event. At that time, Indians had vehemently opposed …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms