SOURCE: ED TIMES
If there was a mad man, whose only ambition was to own more and more weapons to party like Pablo Escobar, Pakistan is probably the country to go to, because gun laws there are an unfunny joke. We hear every now and then about ceasefire violations at the LOC, but even that is the army doing it – legal usage of weapons. What about the crores of rifles and pistols owned by the common public? Yes, that is true!
The population of Pakistan is 21.22 crores – about 7 times lesser than India. And there are about 4 crore firearms in public ownership in Pakistan, thrice the number of public owned firearms in India!
Darra Adam Khel
It had me cracked up in laughter when I read an article in the Print, where a firearms dealer said, and I quote, “The industry has collapsed. Earlier, people would come from all over the world to buy weapons. Now, we are only allowed to manufacture licenced weapons”.
I do not understand when it became a sad thing to manufacture only licenced weapons. But then I get it – there is an entire valley in Pakistan called Darra Adam Khel, which produces weapons like crazy.
Yes, you read that right. An entire valley of weapons manufacturers, with an approximate population of 80,000 and over 2,000 firearms manufacturing shops. The name Darra Adam Khel is ironically associated with a public hero, who taught British officers a lesson. Now, the valley is an Ikea for weapons.
You name a weapon, chances are, they make it. Common sightings of weapons that you would have seen in India are pistols and small range firearms; maybe even rifles in some parts of the country. Common sightings in our western neighbour are rocket-propelled grenades, medium and long-range rockets launchers, anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, light machine guns, mortars, shotguns, automatics and the good old AK47s.
Funny And Scary At The Same Time
When I started writing this article, I could not decide whether to laugh or to be scared when I read about gun laws in Pakistan. The constitution there does not outright allow firearm possession.
But here are certain incidents that should tell you how much the constitutional gun control laws are effective there. Very recently, a video went viral on Twitter showing a lady gifting her son-in-law, an AK47 at his wedding. Cheers could be heard in the background.
Aerial shooting of rifles is a pretty common sighting during weddings, festivals and special occasions. Now you’ll say apne UP mein bhi toh hota hai! Cool. Explain this: Open carry of firearms in Pakistan is considered a misdemeanor.
Starting from the 1947 war, where Pakistani forces trained lashkars and gave them weapons to attack Jammu and Kashmir (the then Princely State) to the ongoing funding and training of more and more terrorists to infiltrate India – weapons are available for sale in Pakistan like pan.
If you open this beautiful resourceful website called gunpolicy.org, and open Pakistan’s page, it says two things that scare the living soul out of me. One: the regulation of guns in Pakistan is categorized as permissive. Two: The number of civilian guns increased from about 2 crores to 4 crores 40 lakhs over a period of 10 years (2007-2017). If these don’t scare you, you work for Kaleen Bhaiya.
Moreover, making firearms is a generational thing for certain families!! Pakistan has a major firearms problem but there is hardly any debate about it. What’s there to debate when it is a part of certain cultures there?
Although, this article is not an insult to any Pakistani citizen in any way. There are several people trying to fight this poisonous culture of bullets and bucks. But when the government itself is establishing a new intelligence agency instead of trying to control issues that plague the public, we can’t expect much to change anytime soon.
No one wants war. But I believe that the ideology of weapons as a part of culture needs to be uprooted first, before even talking of war.
