Shoot to kill — guns

Control of small arms has become an imperative, even in India

The Virginia Tech shooting that claimed 32 lives has revived the gun debate. But even as those arguing for gun-control get louder, the pro-gun lobby makes the outrageous claim that the tragedy wouldn’t have happened if the students had been armed. To support its views, the gun lobby quotes the Small Arms Survey 2004, which shows that gun-related homicides in North America are 3.5 per 1,00,000 — almost equal to the world average of 3.1 and much lower than the 15.5 of Latin America and the Caribbean, where fewer guns are available. So convinced is the pro-gun lobby of their case, they even argue that the absence of guns could not stop the massacre of millions in Rwanda. They forget, of course, that had Rwandans access to guns, the death toll would have been even higher.

How effective gun-control is, can be seen from the Australian experience. In 1996, after the massacre of 35 in Port Arthur, Tasmania, gun-control was introduced in a phased manner. The government bought back 7 lakh guns at market prices from its citizens and destroyed them. Result: by 2001, Australia’s gun-related homicide rate of 0.25 per 1,00,000 was the lowest in 50 years and one of the lowest in the world. From 1996 to 2002, firearm-related deaths declined from 521 to 229. And mass killings? Well, in the10 years prior to 1996, 100 persons died in 11 shootings involving five or more deaths but, in the subsequent eight years, not a single mass shooting took place.

There are good reasons for gun control in the US. First, although the gun-related homicides (which includes murders, accidents and suicides) in the US is about the same as the world average, it’s much higher than the 0.4 homicides per 1,00,000 people in western Europe, where gun control is in force. Second, the country has a very high number of civilian weapons (240 million). Third, easy availability to guns makes law-enforcement more difficult.

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However, gun-control is meaningless if not it’s not enforced strictly. Take India. Although gun-related murders were low at 0.7 per 1,00,000 in 2004, 89 per cent of them were committed through illegal weapons and 72 per cent were reported from only two states, UP and Bihar. When you consider that in UP, 81 per cent of murders are committed by firearms against the national average of 24 per cent, you realise that the key to preventing murders here is to choke the availability of illegal firearms.

Some affluent Indians consider access to licensed guns a status symbol and some of them have even got caught for using them to kill wildlife. There is also the tradition in certain regions to celebrate weddings by firing guns in the air. We need to understand that guns are neither glamourous nor useful in addressing problems of violence. The Virginia Tech tragedy is a reminder that the easy availability of guns makes a society more, not less, violent.

The writer is an IPS officer. Views are personal