Peace or Guns? – Journal

On February 28, 2013, the then Interior Minister Rehman Malik informed the National Assembly (NA) in writing that his ministry had issued 11,776 prohibited firearms permits in 2008, 27,551 in 2009, 5,789 in 2010, 8,369 in 2011 and 15,988 in 2012, giving the parliament 69,473 prohibited firearms permits. A simple calculation suggests that on average, each MP has obtained 203 prohibited firearms permits over a five-year period. This is arguably the best-armed parliament in the world, with assets that would be the envy of any member of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

On 21 August 2019, the government issued SRO (1)/2019, lifting the ban on issuing licences to carry prohibited weapons to nine categories of persons: the President, Prime Minister, Chairman of the Senate, Speaker of the National Assembly, Governors, Chief Ministers, Federal Ministers, Judges of the Supreme Court and High Court. They were now free to purchase or receive as gifts lethal weapons from the ‘prohibited’ category. The notification was challenged by a Supreme Court judge who wrote: “The code of conduct for judges did not permit receiving such gifts. What moral authority will the government exercise to combat the proliferation of weapons by encouraging the proliferation of even more lethal prohibited weapons?”

On September 25, 2021, the government announced an even crazier and more classist notification extending the list of beneficiaries of prohibited firearms permits to all members of the Senate, national and provincial assemblies, and all officers of grade 21 and 22. Generously, it specified that they were all entitled to not one but two prohibited firearms permits.

In 2024, information received under the Right to Information Act revealed that KP had issued 68,9510 arms licenses in the last 10 years, while Sindh blessed its citizens with 115,467 during the same period.

Pakistan should eliminate weapons, not promote them.

It is incomprehensible that a nation so desperately in need of peace and tolerance could indulge in such proliferation of instruments of crime, violence and militancy. It is safe to assume that all gun permits in Pakistan have been issued without mandatory verification, training, background checks or written examinations. These permits have been issued either for the purpose of appeasement or through political influence, status, power or corruption. Pakistan could perhaps have been more successful in combating terrorism if, instead of the vague “20-Point National Action Plan,” it had chosen a single program aimed at eliminating all weapons. Here is how this could still be accomplished.

The government must understand that crime and militancy in Pakistan are the result of its own flawed gun promotion policies, its legal and illegal gun licensing facilities, and its failure to control the sale, smuggling and spread of weapons. Gun ownership must be declared the exclusive domain of the state; no citizen, regardless of status, wealth, influence or political clout, should be allowed to own, carry, store, purchase, sell or display any weapon – licensed or unlicensed.

In accordance with Article 256 of the Constitution, private militias operating in urban, riverine and mountainous areas, regardless of their size and sponsors, must be dissolved by the full power of the State. The importation, sale, purchase, transportation, delivery and possession of all kinds of weapons – except those used by law enforcement – ​​must be prohibited. The issuance of all types of gun permits must be prohibited; those already issued must be declared null and void. The discriminatory and discretionary Arms Ordinance must be repealed. Starting with unauthorized weapons, all citizens must be required to surrender their weapons through an incentive buyback program.

Private gun manufacturing in areas like Darra Adam Khel should be regulated and geared towards export rather than domestic consumption. The Small Arms Survey (Switzerland), in its 2018 report Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers, estimates the number of guns held by civilians in Pakistan at 43.9 million, far more than the combined number of guns held by all law enforcement agencies in the country.

We could learn a lot about gun control from Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, China and Vietnam, which have managed to combat this scourge intelligently. On the other hand, successive Pakistani governments have actively contributed to violence and militancy by issuing uncontrolled gun licences, creating special provisions for prohibited calibre weapons to its militant elite (in violation of Articles 25 and 256), using guns as an instrument of political corruption and neglecting the rampant smuggling and sale of illegal weapons. Pakistan has two choices: seek peace and progress or remain entangled in the world of militancy and armed militias. It would do well to disconnect itself from its NRA mentality.

The author is an industrial engineer and a volunteer social activist.

Published in Dawn, July 4, 2024