A modest proposal: let us disarm

Ghandi also said "I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: '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. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.' The Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could." He was referring to the Indian Arms Act of 1878 (which was amended several times over the ensuing decades). This Act was, in practice, a total gun ban enacted to protect the British realm from an insurgency. By banning firearm possession for all but those authorized by the Realm they were able to all but do away with both military and private arms as almost no one was ever authorized. Mr. Gandhi was a lifelong pacifist. But, he understood that in the extreme a society needs to have the capability to defend itself from invasion and oppressive governance. This is not contradictory. It's merely an acknowledgement of the existence of extremes. I have in person heard the Dalai Lama (another life long pacifist) state the same thing. In short, pacifists are not entirely blind to the possibility of a need to defend oneself from extraordinary violence. However, they do believe that in most cases where one man would choose to take up arms passive resistance would be the superior choice. In India that proved to be true. In the Germany of the 1940's it wasn't. However, one of the first things that Hitler did was ban all the guns.

This has to be the most foolish thing I have ever read. The simple fact is that criminals do not follow laws. That is what makes them criminals. When you disarm an entire population the very first thing that happens is crime rates skyrocket. Everyone, including the police, become a target. That is a verifiable fact and it has happened in every country that has ever disarmed its population. Secondly, it allows for government abuse and tyranny. Hitler and the Bolsheviks confiscated all the weapons they could get their hands on. They stockpiled them neatly in one location. Then shot anyone they didn't like. It would be erroneous to believe that human nature has changed so much in the past 100 years to put us beyond that possibility. Just visit the African country of your choice. Or Argentina. And then read the Consitution and understand its purpose.