Arms Act, 1959: Difference between revisions

{{use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}

{{use Indian English|date=March 2022}}

|citation            = [https://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A1959-54_0.pdf Act No. 54 of 1959]

|date_assented      = r 1959

'''The Arms Act, 1959''' is an [[Act of Parliament|Act]] of the [[Parliament of India]] to consolidate and amend the law relating to arms and ammunition in order to curb illegal weapons and violence stemming from them.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.unodc.org/tldb/showDocument.do?documentUid%3D6926 |title=Terrorism Legislation Database |access-date=2013-07-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105001553/https://www.unodc.org/tldb/showDocument.do?documentUid=6926 |archive-date=5 November 2013 |df=dmy }}</ref> It replaced the [[Indian Arms Act, 1878]].

The Act has undergone many changes since 1959, the most recent being in 2010 through an amendment for the Arms Act.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/cabinet-approves-tougher-provisions-for-arms-act/article1-572716.aspx |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150425213303/http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/cabinet-approves-tougher-provisions-for-arms-act/article1-572716.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 April 2015 |title=Cabinet approves tougher provisions for Arms Act |work=[[Hindustan Times]] |date=15 July 2010 |access-date=25 April 2022}}</ref> There was also controversy around [[air gun]]s to be included as part of this act which was rejected by the Supreme Court of India.<ref>{{cite news |first=Shreyas |last=Sharma |url=http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/supreme-court-stays-order-classifying-air-guns-as-firearms/1/167363.html |title=Supreme Court stays order classifying air guns as firearms |location=New Delhi, India |date=5 January 2012 |work=India Today |access-date=25 April 2022}}</ref> [[Semi-automatic firearm|Semi-automatic]] and [[automatic firearm]]s are illegal to posses by civilians.

The Indian Arms Act, 1878 was an act regulating the manufacture, sale, possession, and carry of [[firearm]]s.

Prior to the [[Indian Rebellion of 1857]], there were few gun control laws in [[Colonial India]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://statutory-law.knoji.com/gun-control-and-indian-arms-act-1877-during-the-days-of-the-raj/|title=Gun Control and Indian Arms Act 1877 During the Days of the Raj}}</ref>

In a 1918 recruitment leaflet for [[World War I]], [[Mahatma Gandhi]] voiced disapproval of the act:<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/what-gandhi-really-thought-about-guns/|title=What Gandhi really thought about guns|date=4 February 2022}}</ref><blockquote>“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.”</blockquote>

In ''[[The New Cambridge History of India#The Indian Empire and the Beginnings of Modern Society|The New Cambridge History of India: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India]]'', historian [[David Arnold (historian)|David Arnold]] noted the effect of the British rule on weapons, mining and metallurgy in India:<ref name=Arnold>Arnold, 100-101</ref>

{{Blockquote|The British were aware of the part metal-working had played in supporting indigenous powers in the past through the production of arms and ammunition, and, just as they introduced an Arms Act in 1878 to restrict Indian access to firearms, so they sought to limit India’s ability to mine and work metals that might sustain it in future wars and rebellions. This was especially the case with [[Rajasthan]], a region rich in metals. In the 1820s [[James Tod]] identified the ‘mines of [[Mewar]]’ as one of the means that had enabled its masters ‘so long to struggle against superior power, and to raise those magnificent structures which would do honour to the most potent kingdoms of the west’. Indian skill in the difficult art of casting brass cannon had made Indian artillery a formidable adversary from the reign of Akbar to the [[Anglo-Maratha Wars (disambiguation)|Maratha]] and [[Anglo-Sikh wars (disambiguation)|Sikh wars]] 300 years later. But by the early 19th century most of the mines in Rajasthan had been abandoned: the caste of miners was ‘extinct’.}}

 

 

[[Category:Law of India]]