The Gun Geek

New groups mobilize as Indians embrace the right to bear arms
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 1, 2010

In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian gun owners are coming out of the shadows for the first time to mobilize, U.S.-style, against proposed new curbs on bearing arms.

When gunmen attacked 10 sites in Mumbai in November 2008, including two five-star hotels and a train station, Mumbai resident Kumar Verma sat at home glued to the television, feeling outraged and unsafe.

Before the end of December, Verma and his friends had applied for gun licenses. He read up on India's gun laws and joined the Web forum Indians for Guns. When he got his license seven months later, he bought a black, secondhand, snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver with a walnut grip.

"I feel safe wearing it in my ankle holster every day," said Verma, 27, who runs a family business selling fire-protection systems. "I have a right to self-protection, because random street crime and terrorism have increased. The police cannot be there for everybody all the time. Now I am a believer in the right to keep and bear arms."

Verma said he plans to join the recently formed National Association for Gun Rights India to lobby against new gun controls that the government has proposed, blaming the proliferation of both licensed and illegal weapons for a rise in crime.

Although India's 1959 Arms Act gives citizens the legal right to own and carry guns, it is not a right enshrined in the country's constitution. Getting a license is a cumbersome process, and guns cannot be bought over the counter -- requirements that gun owners describe as hangovers from the colonial past, when the British rulers disarmed their Indian subjects to head off rebellion.

In December, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed several amendments to the Arms Act that would make it even harder to acquire a gun license, restrict the number of people eligible for nationwide licenses and curtail the amount of ammunition a gun owner can amass.


An official said that the ministry has called for public input. But in the meantime, the proposals have given rise to a nascent gun rights movement modeled on the strategies of the United States' National Rifle Association and echoing its rhetoric of civil rights, dignity and self-protection.

"We are outraged. We are not murderers. Instead of going after real criminals, the government is indulging in window dressing by bringing in gun control laws that target law-abiding citizens who have licensed guns," said Abhijeet Singh, 37, a software engineer who started Indians for Guns and is the coordinator of the new gun rights association.

"We want to remove the stigma on licensed gun owners," Singh said. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 87 percent of murders by firearms in India in 2007 involved illegally held guns.

There is no official tally of legal gun owners, but Singh cited a rough estimate of 4 million to 5 million.

Last week, the National Association for Gun Rights India began meeting with lawmakers and consulting lawyers in a bid to stall the proposals. The group's president is a 39-year-old lawmaker, Naveen Jindal, who studied at the University of Texas business school in Dallas. Inspired by American students' displays of patriotism, Jindal earlier launched a successful campaign for Indians' right to display the national flag outside their homes and offices.

Indian security experts appear dismissive of the group's efforts. "There is no place for a gun rights movement in India," said Julius Ribeiro, a former police officer who comments on security issues. "That kind of debate may work in America, but it will not work here, because laws are misused and guns can easily fall into the wrong hands. It can get dangerous in India."

Gun rights advocates respond -- using language familiar to Americans -- that guns are a deterrent to crime.

"An armed society is a polite society," said Rahoul Rai, a member of the campaign. He said the movement also reflects the rise of an Indian middle class that can "voice its fears about rising crime, interpret the constitution to articulate their rights to self-protection and bring like-minded people together through technology."

Shahid Ahmad, who runs a Web site called TGG , said the process of getting a gun license in India is so burdensome that it encourages corruption. To hasten the process, he said, many applicants ask politicians to put in a word in their favor, or attempt to bribe officials and police officers.

To illustrate the point, gun advocates refer to a 2008 incident in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The clamor for gun licenses was so high, according to news media, that officials tried to induce men with large families to participate in a vasectomy program by promising a license in return.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02079.html Read full article

DRAFTED BY ABHIJEET SINGH, he is the official communications co-ordinator for NAGRI

Please spread far & wide amongst those who are sensitive to our cause, including posting this information on respective forums.

NAGRI 1st meet

The first meeting of the National Association of Gun Rights India (NAGRI), took place on 17th January 2010 at the Habitat Centre, New Delhi. What follows is a brief summary of the meeting:

The weather gods don't heed the best laid plans, and come Sunday, Delhi saw some of the worst fog of the season. Traffic was backed up for hours and most morning trains & flights were cancelled/ delayed/ diverted. Despite this initial setback, the vast majority of our enthusiastic invitees braved the conditions and made it to the venue in time for the meet. In all 34 attendees, from more than 10 Indian States/ UTs, were present, the list (in alphabetical order):

Abhijeet Singh
Ajay Singha
Amit Kr Gupta
Anupam Kamal
Arti Singh Rao
Ashok Mittal
Barun Mitra
Biren Deep Sodhi
Col Rakesh Passi
DigVijay Singh
Gusti Noria
H S Bedi
J P Nautiyal
Jaspal Rana
Malvinder Singh Sodhi
Moraad A Khan
Naveen Jindal
Nishant Mangla
P Deepak
Rahoul Rai
Rajeev Singh
Rajpal S Kochhar
Reet Singh
Sanjay Mathur
Sanjay Saini
Shahid Ahmed
Shivashish Das
SS Sidhu
Sukhdeep P Singh
Sushil Lodhi
Vijay Soni
Vikram Bhatnagar
Vishavdev Singh Sidhu
Wg Cdr (Retd) Sarvagya Mathur

Since this was an all day conclave, besides a lunch break, there were several tea/ coffee breaks throughout the day. However for the sake of simplicity we'll divide the description into the 1st & 2nd halves of the day.

FIRST HALF
Once everyone had warmed up with piping hot tea/ coffee, the meet started out with informal discussions wherein various people voiced what they felt were immediate and long terms issues, what needed to be done to protect the interests of gun owners, etc.

The meeting was then called to order by Shri. Rajpal S Kochhar and he gave a brief presentation on the areas that need to be addressed immediately, systematically dividing each area of responsibility based on the kind of tasks to be executed & the skills that would be required. It was decided to set up volunteer committees for each one of these areas to get things moving at a fast pace. The committees formed were:

Legal & Legal Structure – Tasked with finalising the name of the organisation, putting in place the constitution, society registration etc.

Parliamentary & State Legislative Thrust – Tasked with sensitising and bringing on board MPs & MLAs, by explaining the issues to each, explaining our position, the government's position, the impact of policy changes etc. and then having them sign letters in our support, requesting them to raise starred/ unstarred questions in the house.

Dignitary Liaison – Tasked with sensitising and bringing on board public figures, retired senior Generals, IPS & other officers. Aimed towards having them publicly speak out in our favour.

Media Relations – Tasked with media management, both in terms of raising awareness & sensitising the media to our position as well as scrutinising all media reports related to areas affecting us and sending them our responses on an ongoing basis.

Internal communication – Tasked with Internal e-mail list, Website, Member Directory etc. to ease communications between the various members & committees.

Case – Tasked with building our case including preparing content for dissemination + research, this would include preparing ready-made counter arguments to dispel popular anti-gun myths, prepare a counter proposal to amend the Arms Act/ related policy in a more rational & pro-gun fashion.

Membership – Tasked with driving membership enrolment and making the organisation more representative of all demographic segments of gun owners (mass based). Also to take care of all other membership related issues.

Fund raising – Tasked with preparing short term & long term fund raising strategies


This was followed by a short talk by Abhijeet Singh, outlining the three main areas requiring legislative action.

Grant of License – towards making the process objective & fair completely free of fear or favour
Acquisition – towards repealing ammunition quotas and limits on the number of arms allowed to be owned by a private citizen.
Jurisdiction – towards simplifying jurisdiction issues and easing the grant of All India licenses

Next came the task of assigning volunteers to each committee, those present volunteered based on what areas they felt they could best contribute. It was decided that each team would work independently but in overall co-ordination of the other teams as this would allow for faster action/ reaction.

Committee Volunteers:

Legal & Legal Structure – Moraad A Khan, Sukhdeep, Abhijeet, P. Deepak, J.P. Nautiyal, Vikram Bhatnagar
Parliamentary & State Legislative Thrust – Gusti Noria, Jaspal Rana, Shahid Ahmed, Moraad A Khan
Dignitary Liaison – Wing Cmdr Mathur, Jaspal Rana, Moraad A Khan, Rahoul Rai
Media Relations – Sanjay Saini, Moraad A Khan, Arti Rao, Jaspal Rana
Internal communication – Abhijeet Singh and Team
Case – Abhijeet, P.Deepak
Membership – Anupam Kamal, Shivashish, Rajiv Sharma, Nishant Mangla
Fund raising – Rajpal Singh Kochhar, Shahid Ahmed, Sanjay Saini, Naveen Jindal, Amit Kr Gupta, Jaspal Rana

Shri. Jaspal Rana, someone who is well known not only to everyone in the shooting fraternity but also a sportsman with a huge fan following amongst the general public, stood up and volunteered to join more than one committee while also going so far as to promise to speak up on every public forum whenever requested to do so.

Shri. Moraad A Khan, renowned trap shooter who has represented India for many years, attended every single session and frequently contributed to the discussions taking place. He also volunteered for several committees, expressing his opinion that the time to do something positive was now or never.

Kr. Arti Rao, renowned skeet shooter who has represented India on several occasions, while promising her & her families whole hearted support, also undertook to bring more women shooters into the fold. She also happily volunteered to be a spokesperson for the organisation.

SECOND HALF
Shri. Rajpal S Kochhar, took the podium after lunch to appraise everyone of who all had volunteered for which committees. This was followed by further discussions on possible strategies.

Shri Digvijay Singh (senior Member of Parliament & President of NRAI) joined the meeting post-lunch and after being brought up to date on the discussions, spend some time expressing his views on how Parliamentarians should be approached and sensitised. He also promised the whole hearted support of NRAI towards making NAGRI and our collective cause a resounding success.

Shri Naveen Jindal (Member of Parliament), joined us during the post-lunch session. He expressed his whole hearted solidarity and promised to do everything in his power towards helping protect the basic right of every Indian citizen to own arms. While regaling everyone with some well chosen anecdotes, he brought to everyone's attention the sheer enjoyment that owning guns & shooting bring to all of us and also that while crimes are seldom committed using licensed arms, unfortunately arms licensees were being constantly harassed at every step. He promised the full support & help of his personal secretarial staff, as well as to help sensitise & bring on board as many fellow MPs as he could.

The body of members unilaterally lauded the efforts of Shri. Naveen Jindal towards the improvement of the lot of the shooting community (enthusiasts, athletes & license holders). By consensus Shri. Naveen Jindal was then elected as the president of the newly formed association and he accepted the responsibility with all humility, promising not to let down the aspirations of every Indian citizen. Once again, by consensus Shri. Digvijay Singh was elected as the Patron in Chief, and he too accepted, promising not only his support, but also that from every corner he could garner.

There were discussions on which best short term and long term strategies should be adopted. Shri Gusti Noria, Shri. Rahoul Rai, Shri. Vikram Bhatnagar, Shri. Sukhdeep P Singh, Shri. Shahid Ahmed, Shri. Vijay Soni, Shri. P. Deepak, Shri. Shivashish Das, Shri. Sanjay Saini, Shri. Anupam Kamal, Shri Barun Mitra, Shri JP Nautiyal, Shri. Ajay Singha, Col (retd) Passi and Shri. Sushil Lodhi were amongst the most vocal and active participants in these discussions and contributed hugely in arriving at the final outline that was decided to be put in action immediately.

Immediate course of action was decided as staying focussed on the current threat of the impending amendments to the Arms Act/ Rules, while long term attempts would be aimed at eventually having the laws & policy rationalised, with an eventual goal of having the right to keep & bear arms recognised as a fundamental right.

Action underway:
Team of individuals have already met up and got many MPs on board
Tabling of the amendment bill has been deferred for a few months due to the concerted efforts of many

Action to be undertaken:

Finalising name & constitution of organisation, so that membership can be opened to all ASAP

Ongoing media management & sensitisation of general public

Ongoing drive to bring on board more individuals

Increase number of signatories and gain approval of MP’s by meeting them in person and apprising them of the issue at hand and its associated legalities. Each one of should try and garner letters of support from as many MP's as we can, especially those who are part of either the Home Affairs Standing Committee or Consultative Committee

Drafting of the ‘Case’ against the amendment and drafting ‘Questions’ for parliament.

Draft letters to be sent across to all MP’s in co-ordination with Col. Passi (750)

Try to form a core support group of 200 MP’s

Identify luminaries and public figures who will act as patrons for the cause.

Form an internal group which is to meet up with: Hon'able Prime Minister / Hon'able Home Minister / Hon'able Speakers

A final summary was presented by Abhijeet Singh, after which the meeting was declared closed.

A very special thanks to Shri. Rajpal S Kochhar, without whose support we would not have come so far. The entire community of Indian gun owners, owes him a debt of gratitude for his initiative & drive in making this possible. Read full article

Friends my elder brother has won a silver medal at All India G.V. Mavlankar Championship in Big Bore at Mhow, in the open sight 300m prone.

Bhai


Dad & Bhai
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Now, getting an arms licence is no child's play
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/mumbai/Now-getting-an-arms-licence-is-no-childs-play/articleshow/4908341.cms

MUMBAI: Post-26/11, the Mumbai police have tightened the screws for issuing arms licences to the public.


While last year, from January to July, the police issued 116 arms licences, this year, the figure has gone down to 96. The police said after the terror attack, they received around 150 applications for revolvers and guns from builders, celebrities, hoteliers, politicians and security agency staff. However, they did not issue licences to all as they followed very stringent guidelines for it.

An RTI query filed by Chetan Kothari revealed that the department issued licences for 62 revolvers and 28 guns this year. "The department now conducts rigorous background checks and approves licences only if we feel it is absolutely necessary,'' said a senior police official. He added that many applications were rejected because they did not cite proper reasons.

In the last five years, 1,672 arms licences were sanctioned out of the 4,251 applications received.

The fall in the number of approvals this year can also be due to the fact that many leading private security agencies no longer rely on gun-wielding security personnel to guard banks and commercial complexes. The agencies said they now relied more on comprehensive security systems, such as CCTV cameras and alarms, which were used for surveillance and could sound a warning if an intruder broke into the building.
"Gone are the days when a security agency depended only on a man standing with a revolver or a pistol. We now have a whole range of hi-tech security gadgets that provides fool-proof protection,'' said Nilendu Mitra, vice-president, Marketing Tops security Pvt Ltd. He said registered agencies welcomed the police's decision to conduct a strict check before issuing the licences. "This will weed out fly-by -night operators,'' Mitra said.

The renewal of a licence for a year costs Rs 50 for a pistol and Rs 20 for a rifle, while rejection of a licence can be challenged in court. "The court may order the police to issue the licence if it finds that the cops had done it arbitrarily,'' said Y P Singh, former IPS officer.

He said earlier there had been reports that arms licences were up for sale, but now, the strict guidelines have brought in some transparency to the system.

The Mumbai police commissioner is the final authority to issue arms licences and during the first half of this year former police commissioner Hasan Gafoor was the final authority who passed arms licences application. Read full article

Gagan Narang creates history at World Cup Changwon, wins gold



[align=justify]15 April 2009. Gagan Narang created history today by becoming first Indian ever to win two medals in a single ISSF World Cup when he claimed gold in the men's 50 metre rifle 3 position in Changwon, Korea.

Narang, who earlier won the bronze in his pet 10 meter air rifle event, shot 395 (97,100,98,100) in prone, 382 (96,93,96,97) in standing and 389 (95,99,97,98 ) in kneeling for a total of 1166 in the qualification round. In the finals Gagan shot 98 to aggregate 1264 points.

The Hyderabad based marksman who is employed with Air India and is sponsored by the Olympic Gold Quest Foundation, has created several firsts at this World Cup. He has become the first Indian ever to win the Gold in the 50 metre rifle three position event, the first Indian to have won two medals in a single ISSF World Cup and also the first Indian to enter the finals of all the three events. He had narrowly missed a medal in the free rifle prone event finishing fourth.

Speaking to indianshooting.com, Gagan said, “after the fifth shot, I was almost leading but a 8.8 in the eighth shot landed me at only a 0.1 difference between Jinseop of Korea and me. In the last shot I saw him shooting a 7.3 and knew that I had to shoot just a 10 to win, my pulse was racing and time was running out, 75 seconds was all I had. I put my cheek to the rifle and aimed my rifle was almost jumping like crazy as I pulled the trigger with less than 10 seconds remaining and bang on came a perfect 10.0, I knew I had won the gold for my country.”

Among other Indians in the fray, Sanjeev Rajput finished 6th with 1258.7 (1160+98.7) while Sushil Ghalay finished 11th with qualification round scores of 1155. In the MQS section Imran Hasan Khan shot a score of 1151 while Surendra Sinh Rathod shot 1147.

The silver was won by Jinseop Han of Korea with a score of 1261.9 (1165+96.9) while Alexei Kamenski of Russia won the bronze with a score of 1261.7 (1167+94.7). indianshooting.com[/align] Read full article