From darkness to light

At the end of 2012 on examining this year's events, I some how feel that this was one of the most tragic year in recent past. I am not saying this by looking at any statistics but just by how I feel.

I think, I feel that mostly because now I am father of two young kids and I see the recent events at Newtown and in Delhi from a different perspective than before. Newtown's event also bring forth the memories of tragedies in Aurora, Wisconsin and Tucson to make the heart sink even lower. 

Incidents in Newtown, Aurora and Wisconsin are not far from home for me, and feel that it is not impossible that similar things can happen near my home. My kids are in preschool and kindergarden, I love to go to movies and have been to Gurudwara in San Jose multiple times even though I am not a Sikh, but have very close Sikh friends and some how feel Sikh faith to be part of my life. 

I think that tragedy in Delhi with the young girl cannot be far away from anybody's home too. The rape itself was tragic enough but in addition to that it is heart-wrenching that nobody came to help the girl after the incident and she was lying on the road for an eternity. After all that, New Delhi's mishandeling of it's own citizen's demonstration just added salt to those injuries.

Personally, I don't think much can be really accomplished by Indian government to bring the culprits to justice. As it is hard for me to even fathom what kind of punishment can really bring demons like these culprits to justice. People have demanded for death penalty, but I some how feel that death is an easy way out for them.

As for how the tragedy could have been prevented, I thought a lot but I could not come up with a solution myself. May be she should have carried a pepper spray or a taser or a gun but would she have been able to overcome 6 people.

I also tried to think about why incidents like these occur a lot in India, specially Northern India. I some how feel that the more conservative the society is the more there are crimes like these. 

The change in the society cannot start until change is brought to how people treat girls and women in their personal life, at home, office, schools and around.

Also until there is female infanticide there is not going to be any improvement. Female infanticide is not just crime in itself but a huge indication of mentality of a society and how they treat girls and women. Solution for this starts at everybody's home. If all the parents and elders treat girls and women at their home fairly, it will make a huge difference in next few years. And notice that I said fairly because I don't think that spoiling them will help.

Now coming to all the shooting around in the U.S.

There is already huge debate going around about gun control and unavailability of mental care in the U.S. 

In the U.S. there is vast culture of gun ownership. I believe part of that is because of per capita per sq.km. as a requirement at certain time but also as part of huge lobby for guns that is supported by gun industry and they only care about their bottom-line.

Every time somebody want to talk about gun control or solution to so many deaths and injuries by gun, gun right activists come up with following arguments:

1. Second amendment provides everybody right to own a gun
2. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. If guns are not there then people will kill using knives, cars, screwdriver and what not.
3. It is everybody's right to own a gun for self-defense.
4. Gun control is same as taking away your freedom
5. Only way to prevent gun violence is with guns

and many more like these. You just have to turn on fox news for few minutes and you can hear them all.

Few disclosures here, I am a eggetarian and do not own a gun. “Why” is a title for another blog so will leave the details out.

Now I would like to provide some counter points to the arguments about:

1. Second amendment does not specify individuals anywhere. It says "A well regulated Militia". I think this is reverse case of citizen's united verdict, which specified that corporations are people. In of District of Columbia v. Heller U.S. Supreme Court said that people are same as well regulated Militia. Also second amendment does not say anything about "guns", it says "arms". If taken to it’s word why not let everybody also own bombs, rocket launchers and other chemical and biological weapons.
2. Fact is that guns’ sole purpose is to cause harm. There is nothing else that can be done from the guns. Knives, cars, screwdrivers have some other primary purpose. Most people killed by cars are because of accidents not on purpose but most people killed by guns are on purpose. It is also true that people are issue here but why nobody talks about how to prevent these insane people from getting hands to guns?
3. I agree that every should have right to own a weapon for self defense but do you really need a machine gun for that? For me any gun which can fire more than one shot at-a-time is a machine gun.
4. Really? Making smoking weed unlawful is not curtailing freedom but controlling what kind of gun you can own is curtailing of freedom? Preventing people from carrying loading gun around in public is a shot on your freedom but stopping you from smoking in public is not a shot on your freedom? This one of the lamest argument and most persuasive for many people. Some how as soon as you tie word freedom and patriotism to anything looks like people fall head over heal without even thinking about it.
5. Fact is that, preventing guns from falling into wrong hands can only prevent gun violence. If there are more guns on street there will be more violence. Ease of availability or owning a gun makes it easy of them falling into wrong hands as it happened in case of Newtown.

Next questions that comes up is what to do?

There are two approaches I am hearing in the debates:

1. Ban on assault weapons and clips more than 10 rounds 

2. Placing armed guards at every where around or putting guns into everybody’s hands including teachers.

Can we really afford to place armed guard in every public place? Even if you place arms guard around won’t the shooter just kill the guard first and kill others after that? Also, what is the guarantee that one of the guard doesn't turn around and kill people?

Will just banning assault weapons reduce gun violence? In reality number of mass killing victims are a very small compare to total number of gun deaths and injuries across the U.S. A more determined killer will just buy more guns and clips achieve his objective. 

Even one child killed because of these guns is more than it should be.

I understand the politics and huge population’s desire to keep their weapon. Because of that banning all the guns even possible and at the same time only controlling type of weapons and clips will not help much either.

There will have to be a way to control, who owns guns. Having a gun gives a person huge power and having that power in wrong has been the cause of all the gun violence.

Here is a proposal:

In addition to banning all the machine guns (according to me anything that fires more than one round at a time is a machine gun) anybody who wants to own a gun should have to go through following:

• A drug test and mental evaluation. You want a gun owner to be stable all the time right?
• Once you pass above then you can take a class and a written exam about how to handle a gun and responsibilities of storing and maintaining them. Similar to getting a driving license.
• A skill test at a shooting range. In case you cannot pass this you are bound to hit an innocent rather than killing a bad guy.
• After all above test have been passed you can apply for a permit, which you get after your background check, is cleared.
• These test and evaluations should be done periodically.
• It should also be required that owner should have safe to store these weapons.
• In case the weapons are used by or found in possession of a minor or any person who cannot own a gun the owner should be held responsible for it.
• Only person with the permit should be allowed to handle a gun.
• And obviously cost for all this is going to be paid by the gun owner same as a car owner does for the driving license and registration.

I didn't come up with above list by myself, most of these are the laws Japan follows and statistics speak for themselves.

I believe, this will be a good start to make our society a safer society.

Originally posted on: 12/22/12