Violations of firearms law
To see that some people with licences to bear firearms are putting them to illegal use, such as those employed by private security agencies, as guards in banks, as a report in this newspaper has exposed, is alarming.
There are specific laws and rules that govern the use of firearms. And the licence puts several caveats on a licence holder, limiting its use to personal protection and hunting as per law. Therefore, use of a firearm in any other circumstances should result in the revocation of the licence and even confiscation of the weapon. The security companies who are doing so are in breach of the rules, and are as much culpable as those companies employing the individual armed guards. It is surprising that the law enforcing agencies have been oblivious of the matter, and were it not for the said Daily Star report, the police would still have been ignorant about such a situation prevailing in the country, as evident from the statement of a police officer in the report.
It would not be a big issue were it not for the fact that Bangladesh is seriously affected by two sets of problems when it comes to the question of firearms. One is that the country is saturated with arms of this particular denomination, most of them illicit. The other is that, many of the differences in the society—individual and collective—are being arbitrated through the use of legal as well as illegal small arms. Although we have no report of any casualty caused by a carrier of such firearms, there is always the potential. While banks and other institutions do need safety and security, the law cannot be violated to achieve that.
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