The gun culture is haunting America. The country is running out of superlatives to describe its frequent massacres. In the latest outrage at Parkland High School in Florida, 17 people were killed and many more were injured.
It was America’s deadliest school shooting in the past five years. The police identified the gunman as Nicholas Cruzz, a former student of the school.
He was expelled last year on disciplinary grounds. This was, according to the Gun Violence Archive, America’s 18th school shooting this year and the country’s 1607 mass shooting since the massacre of 20 children at Sandy Hook School in Connecticut in 2012.
This time around, the mayhem in Florida has deeply stirred the conscience of America. Angry students, who survived the attack, have called for a march to Washington to demand changes in US gun laws.
President Trump is also under increasing pressure to impose stringent conditions for purchase and possession of guns.
The National Rifle Association in America (NRA) is a powerful organisation which spends millions of dollars every year lobbying for easy access of all Americans to all sorts of weaponry and ammunition.
It stoutly defends the Second Amendment ~ the right to carry arms. It is said to have contributed $ 30 million to Trump’s election campaign. Predictably, the US President’s initial response was somewhat tepid.
He had promised strong background checks of those who bought arms and had even suggested that some teachers and school staff should carry concealed weapons to fight back the intruders.
But the proposal to weaponize the teachers sounds naive and somewhat absurd. The US public school system has more than 3 million teachers and to arm even a small percentage of them will create a teacher militia. This will entail training and substantial expenditure.
The NRA and many other champions of the Second Amendment have attributed the problem to the poor state of the people’s mental health. This, however, is a fallacious proposition.
The hard fact cannot be overlooked that the toll of gun violence in other affluent countries with comparable health indicators is far less in comparison.
The two affluent democratic countries, Japan and United Kingdom, have very low crime and murder rates and both countries have imposed strict control on firearms.
In Japan possession of firearms is a privilege and the number of those who hold licences is limited. In America, easy availability of fire arms is at the core of the problem.
The country has less than five per cent of the world’s population and almost half of the world’s firearms, owned by civilians. According to Chris Nuttal, former Director of Research, Home Office, UK, the argument of the gun lobby that it is the people, and not the guns, who kill people is not valid The availability of guns enhances the risk of wounding or killing in every case, including brawls in a pub or at home.
Background checks before purchase of guns are a cursory exercise. One can buy assault rifles such as the AR-15 model used by the assailant in Florida. It can pierce the steel helmet without virtually any background-check or enquiry.
According to The Economist (April 21-27, 2007), ever since the killing of John F Kennedy in 1963 more Americans have died in gunfire than on foreign fields in the whole of the 20th century.
However, the Supreme Court of the USA while ruling in the case of McDonald vs. Chicago struck down a ban on the handguns.
Thus the ruling makes unconstitutional any initiative by local and state governments to restrict the right of Americans to own guns.
It seems that there are some signs of change after the outpouring of public anger and revulsion following the Florida massacre. There is a renewed and increasingly resonant call for stricter gun control.
School children across the US are staging walkouts to buttress their demand for strict action against gun violence. America has not seen this kind of action-oriented protest by students for a long time.
President Trump has now alarmed the hardline Republicans by suggesting such measures as expanding the background checks, raising the age to purchase weapons and overriding the due process, if necessary, to take guns away from dangerous people.
The NRA feels alarmed. It remains to be seen how far stricter gun control measures are promulgated and enforced in the teeth of resolute opposition from the gun lobby.
As regards the state of affairs in India, though the country does not face any serious problem of mass shootings by deranged individuals, proliferation of illegal arms and ammunition and their possession by criminals and terrorists poses menacing problems The Arms Act of 1876 was enacted by the British after the Revolt of 1857.
It was intended to disarm a subject-nation. Later, when its stringent provisions were liberalised by the Act of 1959, the benefit was reaped by dubious characters who have acquired sophisticated arms and weapons on a large scale.
The fact of the matter is that too many people possess arms licences and for every licensed firearm there are four or five unlicensed ones.
According to a former Director General of Police, UP, there are more firearms both licensed and unlicensed, with individuals in Moradabad district of UP than in the whole of UK or Japan.
Both in Bihar and UP dacoits seize weapons from the licensed holders either by threatening or on payment of money to them.
The bulk of ammunition, used in country-made unlicensed weapons comes from licence-holders as the production of ammunitions is a complicated task that requires equipment not easily available.
In many areas of northern India, the gun is a status symbol. Today Kanpur is emerging as the gun capital of India. The Arms Act (Amendment Bill), 2010 proposed amendment of the previous Arms Act in order to do away with the discretion of the licensing authority to issue a licence without a police report.
At that point in time the Congress leader, Digvijay Singh, who was then the president of the National Association for Gun Rights criticised the Home Ministry for undermining the citizens’ right to keep and bear arms.
Data prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, show that there is an upswing in the total number of cases registered under the Arms Act.
But figures and statistics do not reveal the gravity of the situation. Clandestine manufacture and sale of arms have menacingly shot up posing serious security hazards. Some firm measures are imperative.
Annual inspection of arms by the licensing and police authorities must be conducted with greater care and vigilance. The present arrangement of inspection by the police often becomes an eyewash.
The National Commission has also suggested imposition of a condition that before issuing the licence it should be specifically ascertained if the licence-holder is in a position to keep the arms in safe custody.
The writer is Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences; former Director General, National Human Rights Commission; and former Director, National Police Academy