No, not that kind of Indian. The other kind. Cows in the streets. Saris. Little red dots on chick's foreheads. Those Indians.

Turns out that, completely ignored by the American mainstream media, India's developing quite a love affair with the idea of the right to keep and bear arms. I'm sure Gandi's spinning in his grave but he was wrong about socialism as well.

They've got a national gun rights organization explicitly modeled along the lines of the NRA - National Association for Gun Rights India - and at least one pretty active forum - http://indiansforguns.com/

But they've got their work cut out for them. The regulations are very heavily slanted against the private ownership of firearms and the socialist mind-set still has a strong grip on Indian society and politics. Still, it makes me smile to consider that in some of the unlikeliest of places the concept of inalienable rights as starting to seep into the public consciousness.

Just another small item to support my contention that the twenty-first century is going to be called the American century.

Holy cow, arpad!  :P :P You give me HOPE!

But other than the fact that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution describes OUR right to own a gun, how does this add up to the 21st century being the American century? I guess I don't see the connection.

Because the only uniquely American political idea, baked into the foundation of a country at least, is the Second Amendment.

Other countries have allowed their citizens to carry/own firearms but the U.S. is then only nation that explicitly recognizes that the true power of the sovereign, the power of death, is the birthright of every free man. That's the basis of the concept of the sovereign citizen. Every American had, in common with the King of England, the legally-recognized power to deal out death as required by their circumstances and perceptions.

I believe that idea is starting to spread and the National Association for Gun Rights India is an expression of the spread of the idea of the sovereign citizen. Ergo, the American Century.