We all live under governmental rule, we both Indians and Pakistanis.
We both suffers the mutual tensions, terrorist strikes, and war like situations, we have suffered during previous wars.
Why do we fight and what for?
Indian government and Indian media are claiming that Pakistan sponsored Mumbai Attacks.
The general question, which arises in mind is, just some months ago, Pakistan was facing the worst economic disaster when Pakistan was forced to beg money from International banks, China, America and other nations. How can a nation in such a dire situation support such drastic moves? Why will a national government support any such adamant step in a period of economic disaster when that nation itself is suffering from extreme poverty and chaos?
Answer lies in the mysteries of Military Keynesianism.¹
Keynesian economics is what we call as Mixed economics or government controlled economy. According to Keynesian economics² the state should encourage economic growth and perk up stability in the private sector – through, interest rates, and taxation and public projects etc. That “etc” holds the key to our answer.
Military Keynesianism is a government economic policy in which the government devotes large amounts of spending to the military in an effort to increase economic growth. Almost all Mixed economies of the world, from America to India to Pakistan to China follow Keynesian economics. Military Keynesianism is based on a false observation and wrong interpretation of John Maynard Keynes on the Great Depression and World War II. The observation suggests that to face an economic recession, government should increase spending to counter the sharp decline in market and investment. Without increased spending, the downturn will stay deeper and longer. During the Great Depression, when US increased its spending in Military and joined in the war actively, US saw success against the depression. This observation created the myth of Military Keynesianism that suggests that during a depression, military spending and wars help in bringing an economy out of the recession.
Political economist Robert Higgs³ blows out this idea out delicately as -
nearly every other lion of the mainstream economics profession, failed to notice that by the very empirical-test standard the profession considers sacrosanct, this theory was decisively refuted by the events of 1945-47⁴ -or perhaps the mainstreamers believe that after their model had, as they see it, proved its mettle so beautifully on the upside from 1940 to 1945, its abysmal failure to predict from 1945 to 1947 need not be taken seriously.
In his article⁵ Higgs exposes the illness of Military Keynesianism, which tends a nation to go for wars.
He mentions–

For decades, secretaries of defense helped to justify their gargantuan budget requests by claiming that high levels of military spending would be “good for the economy” and that reduced military spending would cause recession. So common did this argument become that Marxist critics gave it the apt name military Keynesianism. On both the right and the left, people believed that huge military spending propped up an economy that, lacking this support, would collapse into depression. Such thinking played an important part in the political process that directed about $15 trillion (in today’s dollars) into Cold War military spending⁶ between 1948 and 1990. Nor did the argument disappear even after the Soviet Union unsportingly left the playing field.
Military Keynesianism has enough surface plausibility that it garnered a substantial following in certain quarters even before Keynes’s General Theory gave it apparent intellectual respectability. In his 1944 book As We Go Marching⁷ John T. Flynn noted as a fact “this devotion of the conservative elements to military might,” and he emphasized that “militarism is the one great glamorous public-works project upon which a variety of elements in the community can be brought into agreement.” He understood, however, that military public-works spending has far graver consequences than ordinary Keynesian pyramid building. “Inevitably, having surrendered to militarism as an economic device, we will do what other countries have done: we will keep alive the fears of our people of the aggressive ambitions of other countries and we will ourselves embark upon imperialistic enterprises of our own.” Flynn deserves high marks as a prophet.

Thus, it shows why it is possible for Pakistan to support terrorism, wars and havoc even in a situation when it is economically devastated. Just before Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was begging money from international communities to pay for its charges.
As the general thinking of Mixed economy governments is that government spending helps economy, it is quite possible that Pakistan planned it all.
Now one may say that Pakistan was already spending allot on Afghanistan border along-with America. We all know that Pakistani people just do not support US and its anti-terror strikes. In order to gain public confidence and gather the military power properly devoted for an aim, Pakistan needed to create a situation. After Mumbai attacks, Indian government got enraged and started making international pressure on Pakistan, and Pakistan got a chance to move its forces towards Indian borders. Now public has more important issue to handle for instead of opposing and criticizing Pakistani government. Against India, they are all united, and that brings confidence in government. Thus, more than anything, the reason behind all Pakistani military efforts since long past is the Keynesian mixed Economy, government regulated economy based on Military Keynesianism.
Is India immune to this Keynesian mixed economy madness?
We all know Indian government and politicians like our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is staunch Keynesian economist. As he said in his interview.⁸

It clarifies that in any recession or downturn, a government, be it Indian, or Pakistanis, or Chinese, or US government, may go for wars and mass murders, and what would be the reason? Just to bring economy out of recession or depression or deflation.
Such is the effect of Mixed economy government controlled economy.
In His article, Higgs clarifies that these entire Keynesian hypothesis is nothing but a myth. Austrian economists have been opposing all this madness since always, yet American government almost always followed the Military Keynesianism idea and so is Indian government is hell bent to do it. The recent tension on borders and Media are just phase of it. Just some days ago, Indian government announced the draconian UAPA law which is no better than the Patriot act. India is demanding missiles from US. How logical it is to go for an Arm’s race? Should government waste tax-payers money in such infertile activities?
Does spending on worthless unproductive things help anybody?
After 9/11 attacks, Paul Krugman⁹ suggested that there will be favorable effects of the terrorist attack.
Yet that is how almost all government’s act. After 2001 recession in USA, US troops engaged in severe attacks on Iraq. Was it Keynesian Mixed economy effect?

The U.S. is likely to increase further spending on defense and on rebuilding the infrastructure that has been destroyed. This would ultimately create a positive sentiment in an already lethargic American economy, says Oommen A. Ninan¹⁰ .

Again there is recession, and Obama is a Keynesian. He knows he cannot keep US military fighting in Iraq, thus, he has announced stronger troops in Afghanistan.
In such a situation, is there possibility for Indian government to waste money on such needless wars? While discussing Indian Reserve Bank Dilemma, we showed how fear of recession is senseless as it clears out all “non-productive-activities” and helps the market to revamp and gain stability. We further discussed that injecting money in market would be a wrong cause as it would further increase the percentage of bad assets. We discussed how “Bail Outs” never help an economy but further increase the burden. We, the citizens of India and Pakistan do want peace, yet is it possible?
It is quite obvious that any governmental intervention in economics causes harm alone. Yet, the biggest harm to human kind can be wars terrorism and Military Keynesianism.

1. Military Keynesianism, Wikipedia Link [↩]
2. Keynesian economics, Wikipedia Link [↩]
3. Robert Higgs, Independent.org [↩]
4. Military Keynesianism was refuted in 1945-47, Independent.org [↩]
5. Higgs,Independent.org [↩]
6. Cold War military spending between 1948 and 1990, Independent.org [↩]
7. As We Go Marching, John T. Flynn [↩]
8. he says here,sikhtimes.com [↩]
9. Paul KrugmanHis article [↩]
10. Oommen A. Ninan, The Hindu [↩]

In a pole conducted by CNN-IBN today, the people of India, if I may say so, have agreed to decreased human rights in the country for a stronger anti-terrorism law. The UPA government in the centre has played to the popular demand and has passed a new law today, the much anticipated “Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment“ bill.
The government, in order to hide its intelligence and military failures have added a legal modification which will be much published in newspapers and broadcasted in TV channels, but will not help in capturing any terrorist(For law never catches any criminals, enforcers do), but may result in harassment of many people.
Indian population can be divided broadly in three classes, the lower class who is bothered with local issues and food and cloth prices, a middle class that is bothered with the job sector and the tax-rate along with food and cloth price, the price of cars and computers and an upper class, which is mostly concerned with economic reforms. All three vote for the same candidate in the election although their expectations from the legislator grossly vary.
Yet all three classes are grossly unaware of their rights as citizen, as a human being, as a part of the state.
The lower class is the most ignorant of all, and a daily labor from Assam does not bother about the incident of Mumbai, but he would just add that the Muslims must be exterminated. The middle class feel that they are the most aware of all the three classes and the moral burden of the country rests upon them, and they are the defining and the determining factors in government policy. Mostly their reaction has been almost the same as that of the daily labor, though they have presented it in a more coherent manner. They have demanded extermination of Pakistanis. The upper class, as always has remained aloof, and I could not contact any for comments, though it seems they are more worried about the stock slump then anything else.
In such a democratic country where legislators are elected on various bases ranging from cast to free gifts, it is not unexpected that government will be devoid of vision. In addition, the subjects of the government are yet to understand what human right is.
A representative from BJP who was speaking in the said broadcast commented,” terrorists are not human, and hence, are devoid of any rights”. It appears that all have forgotten that principle that unless convicted, all are innocent, and the burden of proof lies with prosecutor. The government, through this act, has reversed it, and now, you or me, who ever is framed by a terror charge will have to prove our innocence, rather than the state proving us guilty. So it is quite possible that number of fake encounters and ill-informed police assaults will go high.
The act also increases the days that police can keep one in custody without filing a charge sheet has been doubled, and as can clearly be seen is a clear infringement on human right. We all know how the police works, isn’t the police itself is not a terrorizing force? Nevertheless, the people of India are happy to cheer such a law because the government has proved to them that the country is on war, and war requires drastic measures. The problem I face here is that, we are facing an enemy without a face, and the war may last for a generation. It has lasted almost throughout my life. What am I being asked to sacrifice?
The response of the mass shows near resemblance to jingoism or unawareness to what it is cheering. The cause of terrorism is being forgotten, and the people are praying for a stronger state, a dominant military, restricting laws. Indian populace already has a curtailed horizon; it is prepared to sacrifice the little it has.
The cause of this reaction lies in the fact that Indians, mostly are unaware of the system they are in. They do not understand neither do they think about what is next.
A knee-jerk response is the only sort they are capable of. The commoner thinks the strategies are best left to experts, economics to economists, thinking to philosophers. In addition, philosophy is a much ridiculed subject today. The Indian education system is still producing one-dimensional professional, like the days of British-raj, who are not thinkers, or reformers. The entire country lacks education and character.
To add something different, as reported in a Bengali daily, one man was waiting under trial for murder for seven or so years, because there was lack of magistrates in the court where he was to be tried. Therefore, now this man demands that he be either tried or set free, as he as effectively served many years without trial. To this, a magistrate replies, he must submit a petition before the court for acquittal. The man gets mad and begins to slam his head on the bars. Sadly, the magistrate did not file a case for attempted suicide.
In a country with such a judicial history, along with the history of Emergency, imagine what laws like POTA and UAPA can do.
Suppose, you own a licensed gun and you are a Muslim, and there is a terror attack like Mumbai. You take out your gun for self-defense, and now police catches you with it. Now, you are caught at the scene of crime with a weapon in hand, and you are Muslim. Therefore, you spend six months in custody, and are subjected to torture, and after all this, you have to prove you were taking this action as self defense. In POTA, if the police after subjecting you to third degree framed a statement of confession, than it could have been used against you. That is what BJP wants. The UPA has given you some liberty, but in a backhand, it admits, its police are worthless, and can not carry out a proper investigation, so, you end up proving your innocence.
The government intends to use this law during riots too. In an occasion like Gujarat, where the whole state machinery was involved in destroying a particular community, this law can be used and the entire process can be legalized by police and the state. The Indian citizen was vulnerable to terrorism from groups before, now he is vulnerable to state terrorism too. Liberty lies outraged, and the citizens of world’s largest democracy cheer the act.

A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims. ~~Ayn Rand

The marauders of Mumbai, who kept the Taj Heritage and Oberoi Trident hostage for more than 60 hours on 26/11 were no abnormal screamingly fanatic or paranoid.
They seem to be average, common and normal people.
Moreover, before the 26/11 Indian media were show-casing the astounding exploration of Hindu extremists involved in Malegaon Blasts.
While studying both the cases one can easily notice the important applications of psychology of all the cultists. Common definition of cult is “a particular system of religious worship”. The system can be any like Islamo-fascists, Hindu-extremists, Naxalists, and Bajrang Dali’s, SIMI activists, Regionalists (MNS workers and Shiv Sainiks), LTTE supporters, Scientologists, Zionists, Vegetarians, Animal Rightists, Feminists, Libertarians, Sanghis, Communists, Christian Crusaders, Skinheads, racists or others. Ignorance to reality in the form of cultism can be seen in many forms and all these forms hold a visible resemblance.
The common characteristic such aggressors hold is that they belong to a group or other. Their individual thinking does not drive them, they do not function alone. They join a particular group, acquire the ideas of that group, and adopt the characteristic of that group. They act like the droplets of water cohesively giving birth to a devastating flood, which can cause a murderous terrorist attack.
It is the group psychological effect, which makes the terrorist.
It is the group, which produces such terrorist and the cult. The members of the group can be rich or poor, well-educated or illiterate, they can be of same religion or of different religion, they can be of same race or inter-racial, race, religion, economic status and other differences becomes less important when group members vibrantly accepts the ideology of the group. The group members produce a strong, family-like bond, which provides an astounding power to the group over its members leading them even to embrace their own deaths. The member’s own existence becomes less important for him and the goals and ideas of the group become his primary concern and most important asset. To defend these illusive assets, the member even readily accepts sacrificing himself. The members than do not consider others who are not a part of their group as human. They recognize only those as human and brethren who actively engages with them to achieve their ideas. Anyone else, who does not accept their ideas, becomes their enemy. The nature of enemies differ from group to group and these enemies becomes less human and more hurdles for the group members, and to achieve the goals of the group, the hurdles need to be removed.
At least 40 Muslims suffered death in Mumbai attack. The reason was same. Islam did not drive the terrorists, but they were enthusiast by their group ideology. Anyone else not belonging to their group was an enemy. And enemies are things, de-humanized, evil and hence it is not possible for the members of a particular aggressive group to feel empathy or compassion for others.
It is not as if groups always work for destruction. Knowledge is power and groups can be set of knowledge too like the AryaSamajists, Libertarians, Objectivists, Anarcho-capitalists, Austrian economists, Spiritualists, Environmentalists, Aristotelians, Ram Krishna ParamHans Mission, and many others.
There can be great advantage of joining a group of like-minded people with similar thinking and ideas. However, one should be clear about the dangers of joining such groups and one must be careful enough to keep sacrosanct his own individualistic approach of reality. Because if he do not, he may not become a terrorist, but he surely can be a cultist.
As an individual, the member of any group is strongly driven with the “urge to belong” to the group which many a times refrains him from using his own surety, And that creates a scene of monkey like character.
One should be careful about his distinction as an Individualist rather than a member of the group. Once the membership of the group becomes more important than the individual character of that person, he becomes a cultist. He no longer remains a reasonable fan of an ideology; rather he becomes a blind-follower.
Nevertheless, it is not easy to remain an independent thinker. It is not very easy to be a rational performer of a group. Most people are biological robots. Monkey see, monkey do.
It is necessary to check such attitude. One should have proper reasonable grounds to avoid the cultist nature.
A person joining a group (political, religious, philosophical, or other type) should be ready to check the facts independently and should not blindly follow the herd.
As for example, a group of people supporting Gun Rights, should have proper rational ideas about why they support gun rights, similarly, a pro-anti-gun-laws should be clear about the reason for his opposition to the guns.
As a matter of fact, the terrorist and violent groups do not only exploit this group psychological effect over the Individual members, but the nationalists, politicians, bureaucrats and authoritarians often exploit the “Crowd Mentality”. The politics of vote bank based on religion, castes and economic status is also an example of similar cultist behavior. To keep the democracy thriving, the individual participant not only need to defend his freedom to think and have an independent point of view, but also he need to oppose the making of democracy as a means of violent rule of majority over minority, otherwise even such majority rules won’t be much different then the terrorists.

Frontsight is World’s Premier Resort for Self Defense and Personal Safety Training.
Their training courses are so good that you will never be afraid from the guns(or rights of other free individuals to keep and bear arms) ever.

Hello Dr. Piazza,

I am writing this letter to you as a long time Front Sight newsletter subscriber.

I always wanted to take a few courses in your institute.

I am from India and a big supporter of Second Amendment.

I write this letter to you in wake of the recent events in Mumbai. That massacre of Indian, American and Israeli Citizens by armed Islamic terrorists.

India has draconian gun laws.

To currently keep a gun you have demonstrate a direct threat on your life, and surrender it as soon as the threat is gone. You need to go to the police station every month and show your gun for a checkup to the police officer there, show the bullets you have, in case if you fired them then show the casings and tell them where you used them.

Not just civilians even police officers who use their weapons have to collect the casings to be included in their report of where and why did they fire their weapon.

In simple words, it is an example of a society which has completely disarmed itself. It is like a bunch of sheep.

The terrorists which landed in Mumbai through sea routes were armed to the teeth.

They got into a car, and shot people, moved a bit forward threw a grenade here and there and moved forward again to wreck havoc. They knew one thing, it will be impossible for the police to react in that short amount of time, and public has no guns to use on them.

They finally got into the Five Star hotels where they would find plenty of foreigners, mainly American, British and Israeli citizens and held them hostages. Again nobody has any guns anywhere.

The Indian government quickly mobilized their police officers, but the best of them were shot dead by the terrorists.

I have made the case for Gun Rights in India from a long time, and every time I talk about relaxing the gun laws, I am usually kicked out of the discussions and banned from online forums. One moderator even said “We take proud in being a society free from guns, and where Guns are not easily accessible to people.”

Indians are always afraid of having a “gun culture”(the term given to America’s fascination with guns), coming to India. Every time there is a school shooting incident in India, they claim “we’re afraid that gun culture has come to India”.

What they never talk about the number of deaths, and gang rapes which can be prevented by guns during a riot. India may not have a gun culture, but it definitely has a Riot Culture.

In an average riot at least a 100 people are killed and dozens of women are raped and murdered.

How are they so easily able to do such things?

Because people don’t have guns.

When a Hindu or Muslim(the biggest riots in India are among Hindus and Muslims) family which has nothing to do with riots is hiding in the safety of their house, they have nothing to defend themselves from, and a rioting gang comes in armed with nothing but Molotov cocktails and long blades.

The whole family is killed, if there are women in the house they are caught and raped then killed. If there are no women, then the family is just burnt alive.

Many people say that the rioters might be more armed than the family if gun laws are loosened, well even in that case, the rioters will not be able to go far, they will not be able to cover more houses if they keep on taking even small amount of casualties from each house.

Maybe a suicide bombing may not be prevented by civilian ownership of firearms, but an attack of Mumbai’s nature and this scale can definitely be tackled by the scores of people affected by the attacks.

I would like you to cover this incidence, and your views upon it in your next newsletter.

Five star hotels (many of them are a part of American hotel chains) have been the favorite target of terrorists in recent time (Mariott Hotel bombing in Pakistan, and the yesterday’s attack in India). The hotel executives, the staff never carry any kind of guns.

If I were the owner of any of these hotels, I would fly over my staff to Nevada Front Sight, and have them trained in firearm and security courses.

It is my dream to see Gun Rights in India in my lifetime.

Regards

PS: Here is the Face of a Terrorist

In India, even supporting the idea of owning a gun is an exception, thanks to the ideas of Gandhi and Ahimsa.
No wonder all forgot Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh and many more.
After the mutiny of 1857, the British lords were trying to ensure every step to avoid any further revolt by Indians against the oppressive foreign government. One of the steps was to improve British Army and restructuring the administration and strengthening the ways of communication and transportation. On the other hand, British were also engaged in disarming Indians completely and destroying the local firearm production completely to avoid any further chances of mutiny.
It was during that time when Lord Lytton as Viceroy (1874 -1880) proposed the Indian Arms Act in 1878. The Indian Arms Act exempted British and ruled that an Indian could hold a weapon “only if” the British masters considers and declares him a “Loyal” servant.
The idea of importance of disarming the public was not new and James Burgh exclaimed it in 18th century as—

“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.” –James Burgh (Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses) [1774-1775]

Although Indians always respected the ideals of Ahimsa, and regarded Gandhi as the Mahatma, but what were Gandhi’s own views about the Gun-Control?
Gandhi criticized the Gun-Control law vehemently and said—

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” — Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth, by M.K. Gandhi, p.238)

British had a reason to oppose freedom of Indians to own a gun, an instrument for self-defense, but after the Independence, it was well-sought by the Indians that such ridiculous and anti-freedom act will be removed as soon as possible.
India got independence in 1947, yet it took almost 12 years to repeal the Indian-Arms-Act. In 1959, free Indian government denounced the Indian Arms Act of 1878 and enacted the Arms Act of 1959. Nevertheless, India was still struggling with the distrust of government against its own people. The Indian Government started License-Raj and the legislation gave enormous powers to the Licensing Authority to decide whether a common honest law abiding citizen can hold a gun or not.
It was the era of communistic impressions on India

“A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.” — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

As all other departments, government strictly controlled the arms production and private arms manufacturing industry completely.
Obviously, it was all done to reduce the ongoing dangers of secession at Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Mizoram and Nagaland borders, and to decrease the dangers of Naxalism.
However, during the mid 1980′s the government put an end to all small arms import because of the rising dangers of terrorism and seized the little freedom for private arms manufacturing units.
Government never considered that not a single terrorist or criminal ever used a licensed arm; still it made owning an arm legally near to impossible. Thus, the honest law abiding citizen was disarmed completely.
On the other hand, the black market of illegal arms started flourishing in every next city of India and crime kept increasing continuously.
It is a fact that licensed arms are far less dangerous than motorcycles or city buses.
It is also a fact that Gun-Control provides a certainty to the criminal that the victim, who mostly is an honest law-abiding citizen, is unarmed. The situation goes as-
Less guns, more crimes.
Most violent crimes, including the terrorist attacks and religious riots are committed using illegal arms and there is no way to trace and stop the illegal arms trade. Terrorists or underworld criminals are not going to respect gun-control laws, they seldom respects any law. They will be willing to gain any arms of their choice and will use them to commit crimes. Government always ignored the fact that in India it is much easier and cheaper to buy an illegal weapon than to own a legal weapon, and why will a criminal or terrorist try to get a legal weapon? Legal weapon are for self-defence by the law-abiding citizens only, and government makes them rare, government makes it impossible for the honest citizen to defend himself against the criminals.
Who can oppose owning a gun for self-defence? Who can oppose the right to self-defence?

“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” — The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times)

Was it possible for the rioting mob of Aligarh and Bhopal in 1993 to kill those hundreds of innocent if they had a gun, an instrument for their self-defence? Was Godhra riot or Best Bakery massacre, or Mumbai Riots or Golden temple Massacre possible if the common law-abiding citizen had a chance to defend himself?
We say our sisters and mothers to learn martial arts to defend themselves against the rapists and women haters. How would a rapist be able to abduct a working girl while returning from her work to rape her if he knows she owns a gun for her self-defense? At present, he knows she has no way to defend herself, her cries will not be strong enough to call back some cop to defend her and he attacks the girls freely, but what if he comes to realize that she can shoot him pretty well.
When a person owns a gun, he becomes godlike with special powers to harm and attack others. When a person owns a bike, he becomes godlike to run faster than the air. Do all bike owners commits accidents and kill people on roads through rash driving? So yes, it may be a case that some people may abuse the gun-power but mostly owning a gun makes a person responsible and careful enough to use it properly. Can anyone deny that despite of all dangers of road accidents, bikes, cars, and mopeds are a necessary need and a modern power as bless of god for the common man? A legal gun will be just another power for the honest citizen against the criminals to defend self.
Arms are free for the criminals and terrorists. Crimes and riots are free for the criminals and evil doers. However, when the evil-doers and criminals know it with certainty that the honest law-abiding citizen is defenseless; they become more audacious and adamant. If the Law-Abiding citizen owns the guns, the power to defend themselves against any sort of riots or crimes, it is clear that no or very few will even think and try to create any riot on the name of religion or caste.
Some people wonder on the removal of gun-control, will the violence increase abruptly.
Guns are not necessary for killing and domestic violence is already up. Nevertheless, if the physical weakness of women against the violent male is counter equated by the ownership of gun by a woman, it will certainly reduce the chances of domestic violence.
As a matter of fact, Indian Laws or so much strict that a common citizen cannot even hold a stick, on the other hand, even the constables are now allowed to hold a gun but they are empowered with Lathis, Lathis to lathicharge the mob.
A Mob with illegal guns and grenades can not be controlled by lathis.
When the police cannot defend itself, how is it going to defend a common citizen?
The honest law-abiding citizen needs to demand for the right of self-defence, and government should help him by removing gun-control.

After well over 60-hours battle, the landmark luxury heritage hotel, “The Taj” is now rescued of the terrorists.
All news channels were commenting at the start that there are at least 17 to 26 terrorists in all, but at the end of the commando-operation at the Nariman House, Obeori Trident and Taj-Heritage, overall 8 terrorists were reported killed. May be the previous guesses about 17-26 terrorists was a mistake, but it has been established that two of the co-operators of the terrorists are still free roaming on Mumbai roads with little or no chances of any catch-up. Experts say that it would take almost Rs500 crores and a year to restore the Taj-Heritage to its original glory.
And during all this operation almost 195 innocent people were killed in which some were foreigners. But will India stop? Will Mumbai stop?
Amitabh Bachchan quotes his feeling about this pretty clearly at his blog.

“And for God’s sake, let us stop reiterating that clichéd”Sprit of Mumbai” retort. Yes Mumbai is strong and resilient and shall not be cowed down by any such occurrence. But let us not conveniently use it as our cover sheet; pull it over our heads and go off to sleep. Because that is what has been happening every time. Incidents of grave disaster have continued to be camouflaged with ‘oh, this is Mumbai, we have a great spirit, we will spring back’. Fine, we will, of course. But who is assuring us that the disaster will not !!
As an Indian, I need to live in my own land, on my own soil with dignity and without fear. And I need an assurance on that.
I am ashamed to say this and not afraid to share this now with the rest of the cyber world, that last night, as the events of the terror attack unfolded in front of me I did something for the first time and one that I had hoped never ever to be in a situation to do.
Before retiring for the night, I pulled out my licensed .32 revolver, loaded it and put it under my pillow. For a very disturbed sleep.”

Luckily, Amitabh possesses a licensed gun; most of the Indians do not possess any instrument to defend themselves. Although they have got an illusive sense of right to self-defence, or do they don’t have that right?
Everybody is praising the Navy Marcos and NSG Commandos for the safety operation they carried out at Nariman House, Oberoi Trident and Taj-Heritage. Sure they deserves the praise for the pain-staking efforts they put forth to save the innocents against the terrorists. But was the effort efficient enough? So why did it took almost 3 days to end up an attack of 8 people?
And can we ignore the security lapse of whole system? We can say that it was wrong of terrorists to attack the innocent, but what about the wrong of lethargic attitude of the security forces and the government’s unwillingness to safeguard the innocent citizens? Will this attack make them aware of their own faults?
It is so easy for Indians to point against Pakistan, but can we forget that it is more of Indian intelligence fault and breach of security net? Ohh well we pay for our security, we pay taxes. Even we are disallowed to hold guns for our own security and safety, and yet we are not safe.
What will be the aftermath of Mumbai attacks? Will we make a better security net, more efficient, more sensitive? Or will the political parties keep on their dogs-bark, complaining each other for gaining vote banks?
May be Congress will loose some votes during the current going state elections and the upcoming general elections. May be the central government will change. Will that change make any good? I don’t think so.
With Islamist terrorists carrying out the Mumbai-attacks, communal politics could again become an election issue. There could be a backlash against Muslims by radical Hindu groups, and that will increase religious tensions. There have been reports that Hindu radicals have already carried out bombings this year in revenge for suspected Islamist attacks. So the waters are not going to ease down easily.
While whole world is already experiencing the greatest economic downturn since the last seven decades, this terrorist attack will halt and affect Indian economy too.
Cricket matches being denounced, and ICL being postponed, the effects are quite visible. Tourism will slow down for a while, though it will come back. But yes the poor will suffer because of the temporary effect.
Indo-Pak relations will obviously slow-down. Irrespective of Indian intelligence failure, Indian authorities will blame Pakistan majorly in an attempt to ignore the questions arising on government and Indian bureaucratic security systems.
Recently railway ministry was seeking grounds for Private-Public partnership in railways at Mumbai.
Can there be grounds for Public-Private security systems too? That will increase competence, competition and efficiency of the security net.

Lets accept it. India is a society of sheep. Nobody carries a weapon among them. You can shoot 10 cops before the an armed officer comes your way.

The biggest concern right now for Indian bloggers all over the blogosphere is:

Why don’t we pay our taxes?

We don’t care to vote; we don’t care to pay tax; we don’t care to know our rights; we don’t care to stand-up for our rights.

It was caused by “too much freedom“

The Indian media has singularly failed in its duty, by unwittingly abetting the agenda of the terrorists. Lest the media forget, there is no “freedom sans responsibility”.

That’s right guys, nobody is really able to understand a simple fact that if terrorists decide to come through sea, or somehow sneak into city, and start shooting in a heavily crowded market, there are very little options left.

Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, New Delhi, Hyderabad etc are very crowded cities, they have millions of people, and they interact at busy market places almost every day. If a terrorist decides to start shooting people on any random day they are bound to get 100 people pretty easily.

Scenario 1

The terrorists can get into local train of Bombay, since Guns don’t require a lot of baggage their AK47 could be in their small suitcase. They take it out and start shooting at passengers, there are at least 40+ people in a small crowded compartment in Mumbai’s local trains during weekday rush hour. Since he is shooting from an assault rifle, nobody dares to tackle him down, people jump from moving train, someone pulls off the chain the terrorists in other compartments get down and start shooting at the running people.
Since the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, there is no police force anywhere near. The terrorists throw grenades on the other bogies.
Terrorists: 4-5
Logistics: Assault Weapons, Hand Grenades
Casualties: 40-80
Injured: 200+

Scenario 2

Terrorists enter Goa through sea during New Year’s eve celebration, Goa is full of European tourists at that time. So many westerners, and that’s an opportunity standing for them. They have assault weapons they are firing at people in a party, throwing grenades and since most of the people are drunk, they are unable to run to safety.
Though Police and NSG might respond early, but how many forces are we going to devote to protect foreign tourists?
Terrorists: 10-12
Logistics: AK-47, M16, Hand Grenades
Casualties: 10-20 European Citizens
Injured: 100+

Scenario 3

Trained terrorists do exactly what they did in Mumbai, in some other city except this time they are heavily trained in urban warfare by special forces to do maximum damage in urban setup.
Basically its 27th Nov attacks on Mumbai all over, except this time they inflict 10 times more casualties.
Terrorists: 30-50
Logistics: AK-27, M-16, Hand Grenades
Casualties: 300-400 people dead
Injured: 1000+

Solution

One possible solution to all the above given scenarios is we train our Police force with special training, make SWAT forces, give more and more authority to police, give them the power to arrest any individual at any point based only on suspicion, force every citizen to carry IDs. Basically turn the whole nation into a Police state.

The other solution is more strong solution, its a more long term solution with a lot of positive side effects. The only problem is that it requires huge balls to dare go in that direction, and that is we start arming our society. We train our mothers and sisters in using weapons. We make it compulsory in high schools and colleges to learn to use weapons.

We make our society so heavily armed that forget terrorists from neighboring nation, the rapists and the burglars get three bullets from three different guns by the time they fall on ground.

Sadly as usual I expect people to “reject” the “gun culture” of America.
Reminds me of the Battle of Plassey when Sir Robert Clive bribed Mir Jafar and defeated Bengal’s Nawab, and Robert Clive wrote this back to England:

“After we captured 20,000 Prisoners of War from Nawab’s army, we took a precession of our victory in the evening. Thousands of Indian peasants came to see the procession, but what really bothered me was that had they started throwing even one stone by a person all 1000 of the British soldiers would have been dead, and the outcome of battle overturned. But nothing happened, nobody did anything.”