In Michael’s post on Guns, the comments that follow are on a predictable line. ‘Americans love guns’, ‘it is a question of freedom and inalienable right’, ‘an average American does not depend on the State alone for his, and his family’s, security’, ‘the simple ego boost from firing guns suits the American’s over inflated sense of self’, etc.
Maybe one should look at the cold statistics provided in the The Indpendent article: “There’s no question that the gun culture – stemming back to the frontier spirit of the 19th century and justified, at least by gun-ownership advocates, by the Second Amendment of the (American) Constitution – plays a major role in perpetuating the high numbers of violent deaths.
“In the US, there are roughly 17,000 murders a year, of which about 15,000 are committed with firearms. By contrast, Britain, Australia and Canada combined see fewer than 350 gun-related murders each year.
“And it’s not just about murder. The non-gun-related suicide rate in the US is consistent with the rest of the developed world. Factor in firearms, and the rate is suddenly twice as high as the rest of the developed world.
“Children are affected particularly hard. An American youth is murdered with a firearm every four and a half hours on average. And an American youth commits suicide with a firearm every eight hours.
“It’s worth remembering that many of the most spectacular mass murders of recent years were really suicides, with the perpetrators choosing to take a few other people with them while they were at it. Gun-control advocates argue they manage to carry out their murderous fantasies only because firearms give them the means to do so.”
Now let me go back to the Time magazine story written eight years ago: “Almost exactly 30 years ago this week, TIME ran a cover story, ‘The Gun in America,’ with a memorable image by the Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein that defined the whole notion of in-your-face. That story appeared at a moment when the conduct of national affairs had collapsed into something armed and dangerous.
“It was 1968, just days after the murder of Robert Kennedy, and before him of Martin Luther King Jr., when the exit wound was becoming a standard problem in American politics. Though the bloodshed of those years emerged out of many causes, one of them was surely the long-standing American romance with guns–the mystique and abundance of firearms, and the ease with which they moved from one hand to another until they fell into the wrong ones.
“But that sequence of killings also produced a briefly effective national revulsion against gun violence. Before the year was out, Congress would pass the Gun Control Act of 1968, a milestone law that banned most interstate sales, licensed most gun dealers and barred felons, minors and the mentally ill from owning guns.
“Now TIME returns again to the issue, prompted in part by the string of school shootings that began last year in Pearl, Miss. Gunfire has increasingly intruded into the possibilities of childhood, and the militant wing of adolescence has brought the possibility home.
“Recent statistics suggest that 1 in 12 high schoolers is threatened or injured with a weapon each year. And while juvenile crime as a whole is down–down even more dramatically than the already precipitous drop in adult crime–the number of youths murdered by firearms went up 153% from 1985 to 1995.
“…There are still nearly as many firearms in the U.S. as people–more than 235 million by some estimates. At a time when crime rates are dropping, gun crime is dropping too. But gun murders in the U.S. are still far more common than they were 30 years ago, and more common than they are in any other Western industrial nation. We’ve plateaued in no-man’s-land.”
I can understand the love for guns. For centuries the Rajput, a caste group I belong to, ruling clans/kings have worshipped guns and arms. They were Hindu warrier class and ruled different parts of India before the Islamic/Mughal rulers captured power in India in the 16th century.
However, the beginning of the end of the Rajput rule started in the 12th century with the defeat of Hindu Rajput ruler Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muslim ruler Afghan Muhammad of Ghor.
Even today guns, swords and arms are worshipped in Rajput families on certain religious occasions. Being the eldest son in the family, I am the proud owner of a gun which is a family heirloom. Until three decades back the guns were used for hunting wild animals. Now guns are used purely for sports activities.
I can understand the feelings/emotional attachment of those who own guns. But I also feel that an owner of the gun must have certain family/clan/society traditions/values to uphold. A tremendous self-discipline and training is required by those who possess guns…otherwise the gun becomes a mere tool to commit violence.
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.