Licensed Guns & Dealers in India

[infosearcher]

Can anyone tell me where to find the number of licensed gun owners and the number of licensed gun dealers in India? Even better would be to know the number of licensed shotgun owners but this may be asking too much!
Thanks

[mundaire]

Infosearcher, in the absence of a nation wide database of licensed gun owners, it would be next to impossible to get the total number of licensed gun owners, let alone find out specifically how many of them are licensed shotgun owners!

While many local licensing authorities are now computerized, a large number still use the traditional paper/ file system. It might be possible to get figures for a particular jurisdiction from that particular licensing authority - but compiling a nationwide census would be a herculean task! I doubt if even the Govt. of India has the exact figure of how many licensed gun owners there are in India

Finding out the details on the number of licensed arms dealers might be a tad easier - as I believe the data should be with some mandarin or the other at MHA - you would still need to convince him to divulge those details though!

Sukhpreet, you reckon the Right to Information Act could be called in to the rescue here?

HTH

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[mundaire]

I forgot to mention - as per certain police estimates, more than 80% of all guns in India are unlicensed and illegal...

Please see this article (circa 2003) where the Delhi police quoted a figure of 55,000 licensed guns in Delhi city. If you read further, you will also notice that the same police estimate put the number of illegally held (unlicensed) guns in Delhi city at FIVE times legal & licensed guns.

And this is Delhi - the capital city, supposedly much better policed than most other parts of the country...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[penpusher]

Abhijeet,

There is a provision for the Central govt. to carry out a census of firearms in India.However this has never been invoked.In Punjab, an exercise was carried out to verify all the Arms licenses,about 5 years ago.There fore,it might be possible to obtain the figures for the no. of Arms licensees in the State.I don't think that this would be possible for other states.I would like to point out one thing that came to light during this exercise in Punjab.This was that a substantial number of people who had obtained a license for a firearm had not eventually bought one.

Regarding the no. of Arms dealers in the country, this info would not be that difficult to obtain as the figures are there with every state govt. and the MOH would be able to provide this.

you reckon the Right to Information Act could be called in to the rescue here?

Why not.Would give the babus something to do.

Take care,
Sukhpreet

[piyushpdsingh]

Sukhpreet,
There Was lot of noise made some time ago that all the License holders name will be put on some website by goverment in Punjab. Some people objected to it as they will be targeted for their firearms and it was a infringement of their privacy(it was in newspapers).What happened to it ?

[mehulkamdar]

Quite frankly, I think the number of illegal arms in the country may be considerably more than the 80% estimate. .. until the newspapers began making noises and the whole thing was tightened up. Significantly, it was at this time that the three arms limit came in and the import of guns was banned...

[infosearcher]

Thanks to you all for such a quick response, I have contacted the Ministry of Home Affairs and shall let you know if I get anywhere!

[penpusher]

Infosearcher,

Why do you need this info.The fact that you have contacted the Ministry of Home Affairs and have been able to get the name right as well, indicates that you are certainly not based in UK.My opinion is that people who seek such info are upto no good ,as far as gun ownership is concerned.

Mehul,Abhijeet,

Lets not feed the paranoia about firearms by talking about how huge the no. of illegal firearms in India is.Nobody has any clear idea about the exact figure.It suits the anti-gun types to exaggerate the problem.At best, these figures being bandied about are pure guess work reached by multiplying the no. of firearms confiscated in a year from all sources, including Kashmiri terrorists, by a randomnly arrived at figure.At worst these figures are just the product of some peoples fancy,arrived at to serve their own agenda.

Take care,
Sukhpreet

[mundaire]

Sukhpreet,

Dunno, but my reading is that the larger the number of illegal firearms out there, the sillier these restrictive gun control laws seem! The logic being that it is impossible for any government to ensure that criminals will not get their hands on the hardware they desire, the only people affected by these laws and restrictions are law abiding citizens.

And since clearerly the government is consistently failing to ensure the security of Indian citizens - citizens MUST be allowed to have the means to protect themselves...

Of course you are right about the figures being bandied about being pure speculation... in the absense of solid data... pretty much anyone can use statistical methods of their choice to extrpolate the minimal data available into any figure of their choosing... depending on the method used and the assumptions made - one can create a logical argument for pretty much any figure

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[mundaire]

Also, judging by the initial question and the specific request about info on licensed shotgun owners and dealers... I bet you a beer on the fact that this is a some kind of market survey being done for a company evaluating the Indian market...

Lets see what infoseeker has to say about that assessment...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[infosearcher]

Sukhpreet,
thanks for the compliment on my ability to contact the MOH! Actually I am a UK professional researcher working for a client who makes clay target machines and is wanting to expand into the Indian market. We hope that there is a market for our products but would like to have more data before we go any further. The non-licensed/illegal gun debate is of no interest to me or my project, we are only concerned with finding a market for our traps.
Thanks!
Infosearcher

[penpusher]

Abhijeet,


The inflated and highly fanciful figures about illegal firearms is what would be used to justify any arms ban

Take care,
Sukhpreet

[mundaire]

Bang on target!!

<pats himself on the back>

Guess all those years spent in sales & marketing, do have some benefit to them after all...



Cheers!
Abhijeet

[penpusher]

Infosearcher,

In that case,you are more than welcome.I hope that the company you are working for,ultimately decides to set up shop in India.They would be the first ones to do so,I think.Rustam and Abhijeet would be able to help you with any info about the shooting spoorts in India.Shooting is steadily gaining popularity and the no. of shooters has gone up,especially after the recent success of Indian shooters in the international arena.


Take care,
Sukhpreet

[penpusher]

Abhijeet,

I bet you a beer on the fact that this is a some kind of market survey being done for a company evaluating the Indian market...

You are more than welcome.Want a keg

Take care,
Sukhpreet