Owning a gun may soon be easier as govt plans simple procedure

New Delhi: Owning a gun may soon be easier with the Home Ministry seeking to change the 56-year-old Arms Act and cut down on the lengthy procedure to obtain a licence within a specific time.

The government on Thursday made public the draft rules, as per which the number of documents required to be submitted for applying for an arms licence will be reduced from nearly two dozen at present to less than a dozen and the police verification has to be done between one and three months depending upon the arms.

The government also plans to generate a Unique Identification Number and consolidation of licences while granting a licence or renewal and enter the data of the record locally in an electronic format duly approved by the Centre.

The Arms Rules, 2015 provides that the licensing authority and the renewing authority shall also enter such data as are required in an electronic automated system as developed by the National Informatics Centre for this purpose and the NDAL system shall generate a unique identification number (UIN) without which no arms license shall be considered as valid with effect from the October 1, 2015.

The UIN so generated shall be unique for a licensee. Any licensee holding multiple licences shall be required to get his existing licences consolidated into a single licence and get the endorsement of the firearms on the new licence under his UIN by making an application to the concerned licensing authority on or before October 1.

The government also plans to make obtaining gun licence simpler for those who face grave and imminent threat to their lives due to the nature of duties performed by them and have made themselves targets of militants or terrorists, and for MPs, MLAs and others, who are closely or actively associated with anti-militant, anti-terrorist or anti-extremist programmes and policies of the government.