Mumbai attacks

[magicman007]

I've been reading about the multiple terrorist attacks in Mumbai as it has been unfolding and got to thinking about gun control there. I looked up the statistics as best I could and here's what I've found:

While Indoa has the world's second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated 46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, this represents just four guns per 100 people there. In contrast, the US has an estimated 90 guns for every 100 civilians.

The crine rate in India has increased from 1953 to 2006. They have some of the most stringent gun laws in the world.

Don't let the anti's use this latest happening against us! Had more people been allowed to carry weapons in India, this could have been handled much better! Just what would have happened had civilians been allowed to carry! Turn this to a positive for gun ownership! Is this not the reason we carry!?!?!?!

[HK4U]

The world we live in today is a dangerous, evil world. What happened there could happen anywhere. Disarming the citizens will not prevent that kind of attack and as most of us know only makes it more likely. Terrorists like the thugs and bullies they are would prefer a week, defenseless target.

"The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun."
Patrick Henry

[pistol pete]

I am a firm believer that due to the nature of the world today especially the USA with the gangs and crime that we should go back to the good old days of the wild west. I think everyone should have a side arm strapped to them.

[gogriz91]

I was surprised major legislation wasn't shoved down gunowners throats after Va Tech.

[gogriz91]

Indians are leaning towards militant extremists from Pakistan. Quoted from Open Source.


More than 100 people have been killed and nearly 300 injured so far in multiple attacks by an unspecified number of heavily armed gunmen in ten places in South Mumbai on 26 November, the website of state-run DD News channel reported. The terrorists struck in the night in "coordinated" multiple blasts and gunfire in a dozen areas including at iconic landmarks Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station and two five star hotels -- Oberoi and Taj. Hindi TV channel Star News called it "India's 9/11."

Agencies report as many as five blast sounds were heard from Mumbai's Oberoi Trident hotel in five minutes after the Army took charge of the site on 27 November afternoon. 35-40 people are being held as hostages inside the hotel. "We still believe that approximately 200 people are trapped inside" the Trident/Oberoi in the south of the city, vice chairman of the Oberoi Group of hotels S.S. Mukherji said (timesofindia.com).

A Times of India report said an unspecified number of foreigners including Americans, Israelis and Canadians are also believed to be among those trapped in the two hotels and in Nariman House, a residential complex with an old Jewish prayer hall, where also a hostage situation prevailed.


Terrorists strike railway terminus in Mumbai (mid-day.com, 27 Nov)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said five police officers including Anti- Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare were killed in one of the worst terror strikes in the country's financial capital that in all claimed the lives of at least 11 police personnel.

A report on zeenews.com said the attackers were looking for British and American nationals. The gunmen who killed over 100 people in Mumbai on Wednesday [26 November] night are said to have ordered hotel guests: "Put your hand up if you're British or American." A PTI report quoted British High Commissioner in India, Sir Richard Stag, saying "seven British citizens have been injured in the terror attacks in Mumbai."

Another PTI report quoting official sources said French nuclear physicist M George Vendryes and his wife, who were staying in Taj hotel in Mumbai, have been brought out safely from the terror-hit building.

The government equated the Mumbai terror attacks to a "war" thrust upon the nation and vowed to give a "befitting" reply to the perpetrators. A report on zeenews.com quoted Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal saying "we are considering the terrorists attack in Mumbai as a war and dealing the situation like war-time emergency."


Terror attack at Taj Hotel (mid-day.com, 27 Nov)
"A group of 12 terrorists came to Mumbai from Gujarat. They got into one of the many Gujarat Fisheries boats that come into Sasoon Dock," An NDTV report quoted Mumbai police sources as saying. From Sasoon Dock, they used an inflatable raft to enter Mumbai shores via Gateway of India. They dispersed from here in different directions. Many of them were part of multiple attacks.

Preliminary investigations also pointed to the involvement of at least some Pakistani nationals in the attacks. "There are indications that the perpetrators of the crime, who arrived in Mumbai by boats, are Pakistani nationals," authoritative sources said (zeenews.com).

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his address to the nation, said the "well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners" and assured that the issue will be taken up "strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated" (pmindia.nic.in)