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posted by on Thursday May 04 2017, @10:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the QfvLcozLwtE dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Guns are not a part of the culture of my homeland, except perhaps for the occasional Bollywood movie in which the bad guy meets his demise staring down the wrong end of a barrel.

My childhood in India was steeped in ahimsa, the tenet of nonviolence toward all living things.

The Indians may have succeeded in ousting the British, but we won with Gandhian-style civil disobedience, not a revolutionary war.

I grew up not knowing a single gun owner, and even today India has one of the strictest gun laws on the planet. Few Indians buy and keep firearms at home, and gun violence is nowhere near the problem it is in the United States. An American is 12 times more likely than an Indian to be killed by a firearm, according to a recent study.

It's no wonder then that every time I visit India, my friends and family want to know more about America's "love affair" with guns.

I get the same questions when I visit my brother in Canada or on my business travels to other countries, where many people remain perplexed, maybe even downright mystified, by Americans' defense of gun rights.

I admit I do not fully understand it myself, despite having become an American citizen nearly a decade ago. So when I learn the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention here in Atlanta, right next to the CNN Center, I decide to go and find out more.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/world/indian-immigrant-nra-convention/index.html


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  • (Score: 2) by SacredSalt on Friday May 05 2017, @01:08AM (1 child)

    by SacredSalt (2772) on Friday May 05 2017, @01:08AM (#504621)

    I think I would take South Africa off of that list. The ANC is basically a terrorist organization that came to power after detonating around 40,000 car bombs and amassing large groups of people to murder others with gasoline, used tires, and pointy sticks.

    I wouldn't say its "improved" either.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:15AM (#504691)

    Actually the ANC is a perfect demonstration of the value of hard power versus soft power.
    All of their terrorism failed to achieve their goals.
    They only started to make progress after they gave that up.
    Mandel made it clear that his time in prison caused him to re-evalute tactics and to conclude that non-violence was the best approach.
    And history proved him correct.