International Journal of Research in Social Sciences
Year : 2016, Volume : 6, Issue : 10
First page : ( 291) Last page : ( 303)
Online ISSN : 2249-2496.

Arms regulation in India: Perception To-wards the implications of relaxed Gun Norms in India

Ahlawat Amarpal Singh, Dhiman Anshul, Singh Atharv

Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

Online published on 19 November, 2016.

Abstract

The Indian system of gun licensing is a comprehensive one as compared to some other countries like United States of America. The task of attaining a license in India is cumbersome and most gun license applications don't qualify. At this time of crime and victims being unarmed and easy preys, like in the case of women, does it make sense to carry a gun or is it another one of the hundreds of things that will only increase crime and embolden the criminals? In the wake of this question, what also remains a mystery is whether our country is mature enough to handle a popu-lation carrying guns, and furthermore, do the citizens have enough understanding of the true pur-pose of a firearm? A huge disadvantage of the current licensing system is the flurry of black market guns. A large number of homemade guns are flooding the market. India's strict licensing requirements are undermined by easy access to guns smuggled into the country through porous border areas in the north[9]. Four million guns in India are privately owned, of which only about 15 percent are registered (in the number of privately owned guns, India stands second). This pa-per is an attempt in learning about the people's perception about arms and safety. A structured questionnaire has been used to gauge and analyse the responses of the 100 respondents. The find-ing of the study is that people believe that although crime rates have been on the rise, the solu-tion is not to relax gun-laws. The Western concept of guns being a sign of democracy does not hold here. Thus the society is safer without relaxed gun norms.

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Keywords

Arms Regulation India Safety Guns Homicide.

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