Improved Clinch

American Cultural Hegemony in Action, Eastern Style

I do not know many Indians personally, but those I have crossed paths with in my life have been wonderful people. Seemingly self reliant, interested in life, and polite.

It appears that Indians’ interest in the freedoms of the West; and yes, I know Western freedoms are under constant assail in Western countries; now is being directed at private ownership of guns.

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…

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…

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.

I wish the Indians success, but they should bear in mind the following, regarding gun ownership, as stated by Billy Beck.

I have more principled reasons for my stand on owning firearms, and I don’t care one whit in the world for the Second Amendment. It means nothing to me. My rights have nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution, and when it dawns on people that it has finally been erased—the principal danger of all political premises posed as “social contracts”—my rights will still validly exist, even if I die defending them. I own firearms because I have a right to private property. That is the First Thing.

New groups mobilize as Indians embrace the right to bear arms

Link to Washington Post article via Bill St. Clair.

UPDATE: Inadvertantly omitted quote of Billy Beck.

Posted by on 02/01 at 04:25 PM