Easy small arms availability and the crime rate
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Enayet Rasul Bhuiyan
Past governments of the country were noted a number of times for ordering the deposition of all legally owned firearms with the police or the offices of the district commissioners (DCs) in their bids to control the crime rate. But every time such orders were issued, the same created a great deal of hassle and loss to the legal wielders of firearms. For, it was a short-sighted view in the first place that firearms owners with valid licenses had descended to the level of gangsters to use their weapons for commiting crimes.
This is not to say that all persons who obtained licenses for firearms had clean backgrounds. They also included deviant ones who secured the licenses perhaps with bribery or political influence. Nonetheless, one would not be wrong in assuming that most of the ones with legal firearms are law abiding citizens.Otherwise how could it be that they responded overwhelmingly to each call made to deposit their legally possessed firearms taking such great troubles and at personal disadvantages.
The depositors on every occassion complained that under poor conditions of keeping these arms in police stations and DC offices, they later found their arms in worn out or damaged conditions on taking them back. Besides, they were left completely at the mercy of gangsters in the periods when their arms remained under deposition. So, a vital need for owning the guns legally, for self protection, remained unfulfulled and they also suffered deprication in the value and effectiveness of their weapons.
As per latest statistics available, there are only about 25,000 legally permitted firearms in the country. But it is estimated that the presence of illegal firearms is probably well over 600,000 to say the least. And the availability of such weapons is considered to be on the upswing. This is where the catch lies. Why take the huge trouble of asking a far smaller number of legal owners of firearms with only a small number of deviant users amongst them, to submit their firearms afresh when this move would hardly make a significant impact on the crime scene. For every time the use of firearms for crimes goes up, the characteristic response of the government seems to be one of issuing just another order for the deposition of the legal firearms.
But it is plainly an absurd policy that has no effect on the greatest number of the users of firearms for crimes. For the government issues no orders to the illegal firearms owners to come forward and deposit their arms as well. Even if it did, it is a surety that the response to it would be nil. The criminal possesors of such arms would feel neither the moral compulsion or any practical need, to lay down their arms to governmental authorities or to disclose their identities in the process. They keep illegal weapons knowing fully well the risks and as means for commiting the crimes. So, they would not be persuaded.
According to the findings of different agencies and organizations, the cadres of different political parties use a big part of the illegal arms. Besides, 124 criminal gangs across the country use illegal arms and the age of almost 40 per cent of these firearms users is below 18. This alone points to the very worrying aspect of the falling of lethal small arms into the hands of teenagers who are found to be most uncaring, reckless and impulsive users of the same . Furthermore, there are a number of terrorist organizations working for diverse reasons or causes and they also are in possession of plentiful illegal firearms and explosives.
Thus, it is imperative to take all kinds of measures--having the potentials for success--to mop up the unauthorised firearms and smash the sources and supply routes through which these are smuggled into the country.The killing of a police officer in Dhaka city last week by probably teenagers with such illegal small arms, should undereline how seriously important it has bcome to start and sustain a dragnet for the seizure of these arms. According to police sources, some 4,000 unauthorised firearms were seized by them in the last six months period and 2,000 persons were detained in the realted cases. This performance is not too bad but of marginal value compared to the enormity of the challenges posed by the easier trafficking of these arms through border points mainly in the Chittagong and Mymenshing areas.
Thus, another well planned countrywide sweep against illegal weapons should be started at the earliest utilising better all possible sources of assistance available to the law enforcers in these respects. The number of informants for law enforcement bodies will have to be increased and also incentives to them to do their work with more sincerity. Typically, only the arrested handlers or direct possessors of the illegal firearms, are found charge-sheeted under the Arms Act. But the lords of the underworld who are the large scale suppliers of these weapons somewhow escape detection and appropriate legal actions against them. From the highest levels of the law enforcement bodies and the government, directions should come to investigating officers at field levels to throughly investigate to find the links between arrested ones in arms cases and the sources from which they get supplied. Apart from the trafficked arms, there are also clandestine factories in the country that make weapons like pipe guns and pistols with rough finishings. But such arms can also kill and maim like the better looking arms that come across the borders. So, these local underground arms making work-shops also will have to be found out and knocked out of existence.
The investigations against ones charged for killing with firearms, the investigation of these cases must be carried out with exceptional competence that would make the getting of bail by the offenders impossible and their succesful conviction a surety.
Past governments of the country were noted a number of times for ordering the deposition of all legally owned firearms with the police or the offices of the district commissioners (DCs) in their bids to control the crime rate. But every time such orders were issued, the same created a great deal of hassle and loss to the legal wielders of firearms. For, it was a short-sighted view in the first place that firearms owners with valid licenses had descended to the level of gangsters to use their weapons for commiting crimes.
This is not to say that all persons who obtained licenses for firearms had clean backgrounds. They also included deviant ones who secured the licenses perhaps with bribery or political influence. Nonetheless, one would not be wrong in assuming that most of the ones with legal firearms are law abiding citizens.Otherwise how could it be that they responded overwhelmingly to each call made to deposit their legally possessed firearms taking such great troubles and at personal disadvantages.
The depositors on every occassion complained that under poor conditions of keeping these arms in police stations and DC offices, they later found their arms in worn out or damaged conditions on taking them back. Besides, they were left completely at the mercy of gangsters in the periods when their arms remained under deposition. So, a vital need for owning the guns legally, for self protection, remained unfulfulled and they also suffered deprication in the value and effectiveness of their weapons.
As per latest statistics available, there are only about 25,000 legally permitted firearms in the country. But it is estimated that the presence of illegal firearms is probably well over 600,000 to say the least. And the availability of such weapons is considered to be on the upswing. This is where the catch lies. Why take the huge trouble of asking a far smaller number of legal owners of firearms with only a small number of deviant users amongst them, to submit their firearms afresh when this move would hardly make a significant impact on the crime scene. For every time the use of firearms for crimes goes up, the characteristic response of the government seems to be one of issuing just another order for the deposition of the legal firearms.
But it is plainly an absurd policy that has no effect on the greatest number of the users of firearms for crimes. For the government issues no orders to the illegal firearms owners to come forward and deposit their arms as well. Even if it did, it is a surety that the response to it would be nil. The criminal possesors of such arms would feel neither the moral compulsion or any practical need, to lay down their arms to governmental authorities or to disclose their identities in the process. They keep illegal weapons knowing fully well the risks and as means for commiting the crimes. So, they would not be persuaded.
According to the findings of different agencies and organizations, the cadres of different political parties use a big part of the illegal arms. Besides, 124 criminal gangs across the country use illegal arms and the age of almost 40 per cent of these firearms users is below 18. This alone points to the very worrying aspect of the falling of lethal small arms into the hands of teenagers who are found to be most uncaring, reckless and impulsive users of the same . Furthermore, there are a number of terrorist organizations working for diverse reasons or causes and they also are in possession of plentiful illegal firearms and explosives.
Thus, it is imperative to take all kinds of measures--having the potentials for success--to mop up the unauthorised firearms and smash the sources and supply routes through which these are smuggled into the country.The killing of a police officer in Dhaka city last week by probably teenagers with such illegal small arms, should undereline how seriously important it has bcome to start and sustain a dragnet for the seizure of these arms. According to police sources, some 4,000 unauthorised firearms were seized by them in the last six months period and 2,000 persons were detained in the realted cases. This performance is not too bad but of marginal value compared to the enormity of the challenges posed by the easier trafficking of these arms through border points mainly in the Chittagong and Mymenshing areas.
Thus, another well planned countrywide sweep against illegal weapons should be started at the earliest utilising better all possible sources of assistance available to the law enforcers in these respects. The number of informants for law enforcement bodies will have to be increased and also incentives to them to do their work with more sincerity. Typically, only the arrested handlers or direct possessors of the illegal firearms, are found charge-sheeted under the Arms Act. But the lords of the underworld who are the large scale suppliers of these weapons somewhow escape detection and appropriate legal actions against them. From the highest levels of the law enforcement bodies and the government, directions should come to investigating officers at field levels to throughly investigate to find the links between arrested ones in arms cases and the sources from which they get supplied. Apart from the trafficked arms, there are also clandestine factories in the country that make weapons like pipe guns and pistols with rough finishings. But such arms can also kill and maim like the better looking arms that come across the borders. So, these local underground arms making work-shops also will have to be found out and knocked out of existence.
The investigations against ones charged for killing with firearms, the investigation of these cases must be carried out with exceptional competence that would make the getting of bail by the offenders impossible and their succesful conviction a surety.