From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Discussions on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Post Reply
User avatar
mundaire
We post a lot
We post a lot
Posts: 5404
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 5:53 pm
Location: New Delhi, India
Contact:

From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by mundaire » Mon May 01, 2017 11:27 am

An open minded (Indian origin) outsider's look at guns and why people own them at the NRA Convention.


http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/28/world ... onvention/
From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention
By Moni Basu, CNN

Updated 1457 GMT (2257 HKT) April 29, 2017

Image
The author, an Indian-American, visiting her first NRA convention on Friday.

Atlanta (CNN)Guns are not a part of the culture of my homeland, except perhaps for the occasional Bollywood movie in which the bad guy meets his demise staring down the wrong end of a barrel. My childhood in India was steeped in ahimsa, the tenet of nonviolence toward all living things. The Indians may have succeeded in ousting the British, but we won with Gandhian-style civil disobedience, not a revolutionary war.

I grew up not knowing a single gun owner, and even today India has one of the strictest gun laws on the planet. Few Indians buy and keep firearms at home, and gun violence is nowhere near the problem it is in the United States. An American is 12 times more likely than an Indian to be killed by a firearm, according to a recent study.

It's no wonder then that every time I visit India, my friends and family want to know more about America's "love affair" with guns.
I get the same questions when I visit my brother in Canada or on my business travels to other countries, where many people remain perplexed, maybe even downright mystified, by Americans' defense of gun rights.

I admit I do not fully understand it myself, despite having become an American citizen nearly a decade ago. So when I learn the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention here in Atlanta, right next to the CNN Center, I decide to go and find out more.

My eyes open wide inside the vast and cavernous Georgia World Congress Center. I take in countless exhibits by the firearms industry and even check out a few guns. Among them are the Mossberg Blaze .22 semiautomatic Rimfire Rifle and an FN 509 semi-automatic 9mm pistol.

I've never had the desire to own a gun. I try hard to experience the excitement of others who are admiring these products.

Around me are 80,000 of America's fiercest patriots and defenders of guns. Many are wearing American flag attire and T-shirts with slogans like: "Veterans before refugees" and "God loves guns."

Few people here look like me. Most appear to be white and male. Many view the media, including my employer, with disdain -- and they do not hesitate to let me know.

I walk around with some trepidation, but I'm determined to strike up conversations. I begin with this question: "Why do you want to own an object that can kill another human being?"

The answers are varied, but they center on three main themes: freedom, self-defense and sport. The first type of response is rooted in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which allows for the ownership of more than 300 million guns in America. How many other countries have the right to bear arms written into their very foundation? It's unique and because of that, foreigners often have trouble grasping it.

I meet Chris Styskal at a booth set up by the NRA Wine Club. Yes, a wine club for the almost 5 million members of the organization. "Eat, sleep, go fishing. Drink, sleep, go shooting. In that order," Styskal jokes.

But then we get into serious talk. Gun ownership, he tells me, has its roots in the birth of this country. "George Washington's army fought off the British with rifles," he says. "They overthrew an oppressive government."

His statement gives me pause. The gun laws in India stem from colonial rule, when the British aimed to quell their subjects by disarming them. Perhaps my Indian compatriots should consider the right to own guns from this perspective.

Styskal, 41, earned a degree in psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and tells me the prevailing belief that gun owners are not educated is simply wrong. He owns a collection of rifles and pistols at his home in Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, and last year he fired 100 rounds every week at a shooting range.

He says the Second Amendment is about much more than the right to bear arms. It's about freedom. "We don't want any government telling us what we can and cannot do."

It's a thought echoed by Brickell "Brooke" Clark, otherwise known as the American Gun Chic. She has a website by that name and also a YouTube channel. Both are bathed in hues of pink and dedicated to her recently formed passion for guns.

I introduce myself to Clark as we await President Donald Trump's arrival at the convention. The darkened room is booming with NRA clips bashing everyone from Hillary Clinton to George Clooney.

"What would you tell my friends in India who say Americans are infatuated with guns?"
"I wouldn't say Americans have an obsession with guns," Clark says. "We have an obsession with being free."

I ask what the Second Amendment means to her.
"It means I can live my life without anyone overpowering me," she says. "It makes me equal with everyone else."

The great equalizer. I never thought of the Second Amendment in that way.

Self-protection, I discover, is a huge reason many Americans own firearms.

Take Chloe Morris. She was born in Atlanta to Filipino parents; on this day, she's brought her mother along to hear Trump, the first sitting President to speak at an NRA convention since Ronald Reagan.

Morris is 35, petite and soft-spoken, but she's fierce about her opinions on guns.
"I'm 5 feet tall and 100 pounds," she tells me. "I cannot wait for a cop to come save me when I am threatened with rape or death."

Morris was once opposed to guns. "Extremely opposed," she says.

She earned a master's degree in criminal justice from Georgia State University. "I know the law," she says. "For me guns were not the answer."
But a few years ago, a dear friend was assaulted in her own home in an upscale Atlanta subdivision. The incident struck fear in Morris. She would never let herself become a victim.

She took shooting classes and became a Glock instructor. "I teach for free. I want women to be safe.

"I own 10 guns. I have a 14-year-old son. I started teaching him to shoot when he was 5. I'm a lifetime member of the NRA."

She pauses, and her next sentence surprises me.

"I don't think I can even kill another person -- except when my life is in danger."

In a way, I understand her position. My first real exposure to guns came after I embedded with the US Army and Marines to report the Iraq War. As a journalist I never carried a weapon, though soldiers coaxed me to learn how to shoot an M16. My conversation with Morris reminded me of a night when we came under threat, and the platoon sergeant placed a 9mm pistol on my Humvee seat. I refused to take it but knew instantly what he was trying to tell me. What if I were the last one alive? How would I save myself?

Luckily, we were safe that night. But I've always wondered how I might have acted under a dreadful scenario.

Other NRA members I speak with also tell me they don't trust the police to arrive in time when they are in danger. Scott Long, 55, lives out in the country in Piketon, Ohio -- 25 miles away from the county sheriff.

"The police can't be there all the time," he says, looking at his wife, DeeDee, and their three young children, whom he's brought along to the convention for a mini family vacation. Their son Brody, 9, has been shooting at the pellet range and is excited about his first 20-gauge shotgun.

"Where we live, we can shoot in our backyard," says Long, who owns 25 guns and is enjoying checking out all the shiny new weapons exhibited here.
Such remoteness, too, is alien to me. I grew up in a city that now brims with some 16 million people on a working day. Firing guns in my grandfather's garden would not have been a good thing. I think about all the space we have in America. So many of us live far from other human beings. Like the Long family. Perhaps isolation adds to the need to own guns.

I move forward in my quest to know more.

I hear gun proponents express a dislike for big government. They stress individual liberties over the collective. For people who live in more socialist countries, it's another obstacle to understanding American gun culture.

Near a stairway emblazoned with a giant Beretta, I speak with Derrick Adams. He's a 32-year-old electric lineman from Nottingham, Pennsylvania. He describes himself as part black, part Puerto Rican and part Caucasian.

"How many guns do you own?" I ask.

"Not enough," he replies.

He picked up his first Glock when he was 22, and his first shot shattered a whole bunch of stereotypes.

"People look at guns as this evil tool whose job it is to kill," he says. "They're not at all that. They are about protection."

Adams believes that if all law-abiding citizens were armed, crime would drastically go down. He tells me that Chicago would not have such a high gun homicide rate if good folks in the inner cities were armed to fight "thugs and gangs."

"Stop looking to government to help us. They are not our parents," Adams says.

Liberals in America who want more gun control, says Adams, want to keep minorities and poor people dependent on government. Gun control started after slavery ended and was a way to keep black people disarmed, he says.

"You idiots," Adams says, referring to all people of color. "It was invented to suppress you."

He looks at me as though to say: You should know better.

Again, I think of colonialism in my homeland and how the British passed strict gun control to keep Indians from rising up.

Fighting tyranny and oppression is something Jaasiel Rubeck considers, too. The 29-year-old wife and mother from Columbus, Ohio, immigrated to this country from her native Venezuela when she was 6. People who live under authoritarian regimes should all understand the need to own a gun, she tells me.

Rubeck's words remind me of a friend from Iraq who wished she could own a gun during Saddam Hussein's rule. After he was overthrown, she slept with an AK-47 under her pillow at the height of the insurgency. She has always spoken of her love-hate relationship with guns. She wants to protect her family, but she is tired of the eternal violence plaguing her land. She wishes now that every gun would disappear from Iraq.

What I hear from speakers at the NRA convention, though, is that a peaceful world is a utopian fantasy -- and that the need for guns will always exist.
"The NRA saved the soul of America," says Chris Cox, the executive director of the organization.

I leave the convention trying to reconcile what I've gathered on this day with the philosophy of nonviolence with which I was raised. I am not certain that vast cultural differences can be bridged in a few hours, but I am glad I got a glimpse into the world of guns. I have much to consider.
Like & share IndiansForGuns Facebook Page
Follow IndiansForGuns on Twitter

FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS - JOIN NAGRI NOW!

www.gunowners.in

"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." -- Robert Heinlein

For Advertising mail webmaster
I Like Pie
Learning the ropes
Learning the ropes
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2017 3:39 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by I Like Pie » Mon May 01, 2017 1:30 pm

I read this article yesterday. While I can't make any claim to the veracity of the author's personal experience I do feel it is important to point out a few errors-or at least inconsistencies within her piece.

First, as an outsider looking in, I have always been under the impression that Gandhi's use of non-violence was less about ahimsa than its comparative tactical advantage as employed against India's colonial masters. Indeed, there is a thread floating somewhere on this board right now with an article pointing out that Gandhi was petitioning the British government on giving Indians the right to bear arms (among several other rights) as early as 1931. Without an armed populace any fool could see that there would be no advantage in fomenting an armed insurrection against the (at the time) most powerful nation on earth. Non violent disobedience and protest served India's revolution far better than the alternative, given the circumstances.

Second. Comparing India to the United States is a ridiculous and pointless exercise. One, the statistics used in the study she refers to, indicating Americans are 12 times more likely to die by a firearm than an Indian, include suicides.
Two thirds of all gun related deaths in the US are suicides, so unless you are suicidal, your chances of being killed by a gun in the US have just been dramatically reduced. Two, India may very well have restrictive gun laws, but it also only second behind the USA in the total number of guns in private hands. Here's the kicker, some 40 million of those guns are illegal.
I have a hard time believing that Indians don't like guns knowing they are willing to own so many illegally. Indeed, there is ample evidence that Indians have martial traditions across multiple and varied regions of the subcontinent.
The author might believe she's never met anyone who owns a gun, but I am willing to bet she has and just didn't know it.
Three, There are vast differences between USA and India, both culturally and politically. Comparing rates and types of violence between the two is nonsensical.

Third. I believe the author is trying to be open minded, but I also believe she is filtering her objectivity through Western anti-gun Liberalism. She states her first question to start a conversation is: "Why do you want to own an object that can kill another human being?". She's not talking about knives or automobiles or rocks or clubs, all of which have lots of dead human beings to their credit, yet are probably perfectly fine to own in her opinion. It is a question designed to provoke.
She also feels the need to point out that there is no one at the NRA convention that looks like her. Seriously, are we to believe Indians think this way? It would be like me (an American white guy) going to a fashion convention in Delhi featuring the latest saris and wondering why there are no white American men there. (Actually I would go if my wife wanted me to, but she is from Kerala and I don't think she likes the Northern styles so much).

Overall, it's a fair article. I do think it would be more interesting if the writer were less Americanized in their perspective, however.

User avatar
Woods
One of Us (Nirvana)
One of Us (Nirvana)
Posts: 299
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Woods » Mon May 01, 2017 1:53 pm

Nice post . But she has not done home work before talking .
She must be in her tender years when in India that's why and woman generally don't come to know about "the gun" in the house . Americans own firearms legitimately but India has the largest stockpile of illegal arms owned personally . Also , Indians have the largest number of guns after US .
She is also faltering in estimating that gun violence in India is something very rare . Perhaps india is the place where there are many chances of getting shot inadvertently - where shooter nor shot knew it to happen , let the marriage season come . She told them India safe :mrgreen:
Great men are not born great , they grow great .

User avatar
Alab Arsalan
Learning the ropes
Learning the ropes
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:53 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Alab Arsalan » Mon May 01, 2017 3:04 pm

she didn't did here home works at all !
Brits left India to Slave as Slave, which is still to date. :x

User avatar
Woods
One of Us (Nirvana)
One of Us (Nirvana)
Posts: 299
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Woods » Mon May 01, 2017 5:45 pm

I Like Pie wrote:I read this article yesterday. While I can't make any claim to the veracity of the author's personal experience I do feel it is important to point out a few errors-or at least inconsistencies within her piece.

First, as an outsider looking in, I have always been under the impression that Gandhi's use of non-violence was less about ahimsa than its comparative tactical advantage as employed against India's colonial masters. Indeed, there is a thread floating somewhere on this board right now with an article pointing out that Gandhi was petitioning the British government on giving Indians the right to bear arms (among several other rights) as early as 1931. Without an armed populace any fool could see that there would be no advantage in fomenting an armed insurrection against the (at the time) most powerful nation on earth. Non violent disobedience and protest served India's revolution far better than the alternative, given the circumstances.

Second. Comparing India to the United States is a ridiculous and pointless exercise. One, the statistics used in the study she refers to, indicating Americans are 12 times more likely to die by a firearm than an Indian, include suicides.
Two thirds of all gun related deaths in the US are suicides, so unless you are suicidal, your chances of being killed by a gun in the US have just been dramatically reduced. Two, India may very well have restrictive gun laws, but it also only second behind the USA in the total number of guns in private hands. Here's the kicker, some 40 million of those guns are illegal.
I have a hard time believing that Indians don't like guns knowing they are willing to own so many illegally. Indeed, there is ample evidence that Indians have martial traditions across multiple and varied regions of the subcontinent.
The author might believe she's never met anyone who owns a gun, but I am willing to bet she has and just didn't know it.
Three, There are vast differences between USA and India, both culturally and politically. Comparing rates and types of violence between the two is nonsensical.

Third. I believe the author is trying to be open minded, but I also believe she is filtering her objectivity through Western anti-gun Liberalism. She states her first question to start a conversation is: "Why do you want to own an object that can kill another human being?". She's not talking about knives or automobiles or rocks or clubs, all of which have lots of dead human beings to their credit, yet are probably perfectly fine to own in her opinion. It is a question designed to provoke.
She also feels the need to point out that there is no one at the NRA convention that looks like her. Seriously, are we to believe Indians think this way? It would be like me (an American white guy) going to a fashion convention in Delhi featuring the latest saris and wondering why there are no white American men there. (Actually I would go if my wife wanted me to, but she is from Kerala and I don't think she likes the Northern styles so much).

Overall, it's a fair article. I do think it would be more interesting if the writer were less Americanized in their perspective, however.
Can't agree more .
Everything you pointed out is 100%correct .
Also 'npn-violance ' is useful only against a democratic /civilized society .
Great men are not born great , they grow great .

User avatar
xl_target
Old Timer
Old Timer
Posts: 3488
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 7:47 am
Location: USA

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by xl_target » Thu May 04, 2017 3:41 am

I walk around with some trepidation, but I'm determined to strike up conversations. I begin with this question: "Why do you want to own an object that can kill another human being?"
A rather thoughtless question.
A lot of things that most people own can kill another human beings; automobiles, baseball/cricket bats, kitchen knives, hammers, garden tools, ...the list could go on forever.
Here's the kicker, some 40 million of those guns are illegal.
I have a hard time believing that Indians don't like guns knowing they are willing to own so many illegally.
Granted that there are most likely a lot of illegally owned guns in India.
However, the 40 million guns owned by Indians is a totally bogus number. The whole thing was made up.
We have discussed that here many times.
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense” — Winston Churchill, Oct 29, 1941

goodboy_mentor
Old Timer
Old Timer
Posts: 2928
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:35 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by goodboy_mentor » Thu May 04, 2017 7:27 pm

I Like Pie wrote:First, as an outsider looking in, I have always been under the impression that Gandhi's use of non-violence was less about ahimsa than its comparative tactical advantage as employed against India's colonial masters.
It appears he and his colleagues were great con artists excelling in chicanery. He was not against non violence per se. Whenever it served his interest, he supported violence, whenever it served his interest he supported non violence. Moreover it appears he was serving a hidden agenda of deception on behalf of some socio political forces. Following should illustrate his hypocrisy -
The discernible British administrators, aware of Gandhi’s support to the British during the Boar War, serving as a recruiting sergeant during the First World War, (when Home Rule Movement was at its peak)for which he was awarded Kaisar-i-Hind Medal, and his propensity to contain revolutionary terrorism and otherwise localise the impact of various movements, lionised Gandhi and never posed a serious challenge to his prestige and leadership in India. They rather helped to build him up. Gandhi’s leadership of the national movement permitted the British to canalise it to the channels they wanted it to progress, and the end-results were not disappointing to them.

We shall revert later to the tactical nature of Gandhi’s concept of non-violence in practice and see how he graduated into connivance and later approval of violence, though for obvious reasons he did not admit it. He came to practise hypocrisy on a vast scale at the national level. We have already taken note of his support to the British during the Boar war, and his serving as recruiting sergeant during the First World War.


In the previous chapter, we noticed how Gandhi felt ill at ease at his analysis of the assertion of Sikh national identity during the Akali movement and sought to asphyxiate it by at first suggesting arbitration between the forces of good and evil which he knew were outside the purview of arbitration, and then making a plea for postponement of the Gurdwara reform movement till the Indian independence when he hoped to deal with them in his own way, and from a position of strength. Since the Akalis did not fall prey to his chicanery, he openly came out against the Sikh aspirations during the Jaito agitation - and sought to cause them harm by casting aspersions on the non-violent character of the Akali movement, to the glee of British administrators. Despite the enactment of Gurdwara reform legislation, Gandhi was not reconciled to their emergence as an independent entity; he was out to subvert the Sikh position.
Source Chapter The Sikhs And Indian Independence (1925-1947) in the book - Sikhs in History by Dr. Sangat Singh. This book is available for free download on the internet, you may download and read it
On this, Maulana Azad wrote, “But when I met Gandhiji again, I received the greatestshock of my life, for I found that he too had changed .. What surprised and shocked me even more was that he began to repeat the arguments which Sardar Patel had already used. For over two hours I pleaded with him but could make no impression on him. In despondency I said at last, ‘If even you have now adopted these views, I see no hope of saving India from catastrophe.”
Source Chapter Azad and the Sikhs stunned and betrayed in the book - India Commits Suicide by Dr. G. S. Dhillon. This book is also available for free download on the internet, you may download and read it.
I Like Pie wrote:Indeed, there is a thread floating somewhere on this board right now with an article pointing out that Gandhi was petitioning the British government on giving Indians the right to bear arms (among several other rights) as early as 1931.
It was all drama by Gandhi, why would a colonial power allow right to keep and bear arms?
I Like Pie wrote:Without an armed populace any fool could see that there would be no advantage in fomenting an armed insurrection against the (at the time) most powerful nation on earth. Non violent disobedience and protest served India's revolution far better than the alternative, given the circumstances.
Non violent disobedience or protest did not compel the British to leave India. Such fanciful ideas are a biggest lie propagated by those to whom British transferred the political power in 1947. It was due to Mr. Adolf Hitler and his allies who had drained the British blood and treasure in Second World War, all the colonies of British became a liability. Around 1947 they vacated around 40 colonies along with India. So it was nothing special about them leaving India.

Despite being most powerful nation on earth at that time, they were certainly spooked by fears of rebellion because a number of times they had faced considerable threats to their empire. Following should illustrate the point -
The British now found themselves in a grave position. The British were without food or water through the night. Cunningham who was present in the battle gives a graphic description of the battle scene, “Darkness, and the obstinacy of the contest, threw the English into confusion; men of all regiments and arms were mixed together: generals were doubtful of the fact or of the extent of their own success and colonels knew not what had become of the regiments they commanded or of the army of which they formed a part”. The future of the British Empire remained in the balance.

Diary of Sir Robert Cust, who was present in the battle states, ‘December 22nd. News came from the Governor General that our attack of yesterday had failed, that affairs were desperate, that all State papers were to be destroyed, and that if the morning attack failed, all would be over; this was kept secret by Mr. Currie and we were concerting measures to make an unconditional surrender to save the wounded, the part of the news that grieved me the most.’ General Sir Hope Grant who was also present stated ‘Sir Henry Hardinge thought it was all up and gave his sword, a present from the Duke of Wellington and which once belonged to Napoleon-and his Star of the Bath to his son, with directions to proceed to Ferozepur remarking that if the day were lost, he must fall.
Source http://www.anglosikhwars.com/battle-of- ... c-21-1845/
In 1879 just before the Anglo-Zulu war, officers of the HM 24th Regiment drank a toast, looking forward to the 30th anniversary of the battle of Chillianwala on January 13, 1849 when the regiment had fought a disastrous battle against the Sikh Army in India having been ordered to charge a Sikh artillery battery at bayonet point and had been shot to pieces; losing 500 officers and men. The colours — the focus of regimental pride and symbol of their allegiance to the Queen — were lost on the battlefield. “They drank to Chillianwala - that they may never again, get into such a mess”.
[....]
At Ferozeshahr, the British suffered terrible casualties. Every single member of the Governor General's staff was either killed or wounded. That frosty night “The fate of British India trembled in the balance”. Sir Hope Grant, one of the British General bloodied in the Anglo-Sikh Wars recorded: “Truly the night was one of gloom and foreboding and perhaps never in the annals of warfare has a British Army on so large a scale been nearer to a defeat which would have involved annihilation”. Lord Harding sent back his sword and instructions, that the situation being so desperate, if the morning attack failed the British planned to burn all papers and be ready for an unconditional surrender. However, in the morning, both Lal Singh and Tej Singh treacherously withdrew their forces, thereby betraying their soldiers.
Source http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020113/edit.htm#1 It may be noted that both Lal Singh and Tej Singh were Mishra brothers from present day Uttar Pradesh, a state in India, were the agents of British. They had no loyalty for Punjab and had "converted" their religion as a matter of deception to infiltrate and betray.
At Chillianwala a British Army which had a high European troop component large number Sepoy (regiments), sufficient artillery, two heavy cavalry brigades to ensure that no one could surprise the British army, excellent logistics, little campaign exhaustion having fought no major battle since assumption of hostilities, winter weather negating the possibility of heatstroke and cholera the worst killers of white soldiers in India,failed to defeat the Sikhs. Chillianwala thus stands out as a battle which changed Indian perceptions about British military effectiveness and had a direct link with the “Great Sepoy Rebellion” or “The Indian War of Independence” of 1857.
Source http://www.defencejournal.com/2000/july ... anwala.htm

At the moment unable to recall the names, some British historians were of the view that if the British had to fight one more battle like Chillianwala within a year, then the British Empire could have collapsed. Actually the rebellion of 1857 was not the "First War of Independence" but the second, Anglo Sikh wars being the first when "The fate of British India trembled in the balance"

Now let us come to early 1900s when Kartar Singh Sarabha had planned mutiny in the Indian Army to be coincided with the start of First World War. It was planned that mutiny would be started in the Sikh regiments, and the fire of mutiny be spread to Muslim and Hindu regiments in a well co-ordinated manner. Around that time, roughly the composition of Army used to be one third Sikhs, one third Muslims(mostly Punjabis) and one third Hindus. So almost two third component of army was made of Punjabis(Sikhs and Muslims combined). Large scale co-ordinated rebellion by Indian army especially when the British Empire was troubled in first world war was a sure death certificate of British rule in India. Though Kartar Singh Sarabha and his associates were caught and hanged, the British contacted Sunder Singh Majithia to help them get recruitment of Sikhs for war on promise that they would leave Punjab as independent country after end of the war. This information reached Gandhi and Motilal Nehru, in order to sabotage the freedom of Punjab, they somehow convinced Sunder Singh Majithia to postpone the plans of independence of Punjab, if Punjab becomes independent, it will become very difficult for rest of India to become independent. To further this objective Gandhi publicly announced support for British war effort to come from every part of Indian sub continent. Thus possibility of freedom of Punjab was delayed to 1947.
I Like Pie wrote:Two, India may very well have restrictive gun laws, but it also only second behind the USA in the total number of guns in private hands. Here's the kicker, some 40 million of those guns are illegal.
This number 40 million is just a fanciful number created by anti gun rights organizations. Nobody knows the exact or real numbers because no illegal gun owner is ever going to reveal that he owns an illegal gun.
I Like Pie wrote:I have a hard time believing that Indians don't like guns knowing they are willing to own so many illegally. Indeed, there is ample evidence that Indians have martial traditions across multiple and varied regions of the subcontinent.
Almost every State has some martial traditions in one form or the other. For example Kerala has Kalaripayattu.
I Like Pie wrote:There are vast differences between USA and India, both culturally and politically. Comparing rates and types of violence between the two is nonsensical.
This is very true. Also at this point in history, the Indian subcontinent, is still for all practical purposes, composed of feudal societies.
I Like Pie wrote:Actually I would go if my wife wanted me to, but she is from Kerala and I don't think she likes the Northern styles so much
India is something like Europe, totally different people, different languages, different cultures and different histories.
"If my mother tongue is shaking the foundations of your State, it probably means that you built your State on my land" - Musa Anter, Kurdish writer, assassinated by the Turkish secret services in 1992

User avatar
Alab Arsalan
Learning the ropes
Learning the ropes
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:53 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Alab Arsalan » Fri May 05, 2017 7:24 pm

well said goodboy mentor (y) :) :agree:

Biren
Almost at nirvana
Almost at nirvana
Posts: 221
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 10:51 am
Location: delhi

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Biren » Sat May 06, 2017 10:48 am

Now when every thing/aspect getting privatize from electricity, education, water..health... Govt should privatize every private citizen security. Gov has neither will nor resources to protect citizens so it should allow those who want to get themselves armed.

Rhds
Biren

User avatar
Woods
One of Us (Nirvana)
One of Us (Nirvana)
Posts: 299
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: From Gandhi to guns: An Indian woman explores the NRA convention

Post by Woods » Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:08 am

There has never been a gun so lethal and as cheaply available than a cigarette . 2200 Indians lose their lives daily . And we are not talking about road accidents , many of which are deliberate murders .

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyl ... h-day.html
Great men are not born great , they grow great .

Post Reply