darshhan wrote:
Sandeep ji .I feel that we are going in circles. Your contention is that private sector and gunsmithing(legalised form) will improve the quality of firearms.Fair enough.This is one point on which I will elaborate further since I have my own thoughts.Before I come to it , I will reiterate what we are saying.
That is Private sector/gunsmithing is not feasible without a market.Period.So even before you start courting private parties for firearms production you have to show them that a market is ready for them.And only if they find it viable they will even think of investing in firearms production.
Now the problem is that this market is not there in India.So why would any private sector player sink his money into such an endeavour.I will give you an example.I mean many of us here work in corporate sector.If we suggest our company to enter a new business , we have to prepare a comprehensive business report detailing the opportunities,market size,ROI etc to convince the top management.Now can you imagine if an employee prepares a report where market is non existent and ROI is not guaranteed , then what will be the reaction of the decision takers ? Most probably that report would be shoved in some obscure shelf.After all main purpose of running a business is not charity.
I also tried to analyse how to create a market for guns.I could come up with two methods.The first one is you allow civilians to keep,bear and use weapons(I am all for it).This is how the market has been created in USA. Currently this is not the case with India.Mostly the people who can carry weapons belong to security forces which is not that big of a market.The second method is that of exports.This model is used by PRC.But then in order to succeed in exporting firearms you have to be ready to sell weapons to all and sundry including countries/organisations which are involved in serious human rights violations.PRC does it extremely well.They deal regularly with rogue countries like Sudan,arms smugglers,insurgent outfits etc.This is how PRC companies make money.Now this is also not allowed by Indian govt , according to which you have to seek case by case approval for exporting weapons system.Exporting weapons to dubious organizations is almost impossible in India.But then you cannot sell these arms to a developed country.Most probably they will be producing their own firearms.
You gave an example of automobile industry in India.But the fact is that Automobile manufacturers know that they have a big market in India.Apart fro that they are also allowed to export.
Coming back to OFB. The question arises howcome OFB is able to survive inspite of limited market.The answer lies in the fact that OFB produces practically thousands of items from clothing to munitions.Hence even if it incurs a loss on firearms it can make money somewhere else.No private sector can hope to match the product portfolio of OFB in the near future.
So now you tell me why would any private sector invest in firearms ?
the reason why private sector can invest in it is because,
1,129,900 active Army personnel, 960,000 Reserve forces
58,350 Active Navy personnel, 55,000 Reserve forces
127,200 IAF active personnel 140,000 Reserve forces
Indian Coast Guard 9,550
1,300,586 Indian Paramilitary Forces 987,821 Reserve forces
That brings the active military strength at around 1315450, for a pessimistic projection say 1/2 of them are combatants in case of war that is around 6.5 lakh combatants, may be we can project a weapons requirement to down toless than even half of that (3 lakhs) 2.5 lakh battle rifles and equal number of side arm like semi auto handgun, and around 20,000 squad support rifles, another 20,000 carbines (assume intermediate caliber) and say 10,000 precision marksman rifles.
Reserve forces have an approximate strength of around say 1155000, forget arming them completely, just to train them 1 rifle for 10 reservists, thats nearly 1.15lakh rifles, which can be broken down into 30,000 battle rifles, bolt rifles and .22 semi auto training rifles respectively.
ignoring the coast guard and para military reserve forces, we still have around 13 lakh para mil forces, again say half of them can be combatants, bringing a projection of arming say 3 lakh units with semi auto handguns with the addition of a carbine/battle rifle of less 1/2 of them.
thats around 3 lakh semi auto pistols and around 1lakh carbines (say pistol caliber) and 50000 battle rifles.
that pessimistically projects a requirement of
Battle rifles 280000 units, (assume 70,000 7.62 Nato, 210000 5.56 Nato)
Carbines 120000 (80000 5.56 caliber, 40,000 .45acp)
Semi auto Handguns 550000 (9mm)
Squad support rifles 20000
Precision Sniper rifles 10000
Bolt action rifles 30000
.22 training rifles 30000
for sake of simplicity lets assume dirt cheap prices for all of them
battle rifle both calibers 500$ (same as insas)
carbines say 400$ (although cxstorm is nearly 1200$)
semi auto handguns at 400$ (although a berreta 92fs iss 600$)
Squad support rifles at 2000$
precision sniper rifle at 2500$ (although even a used dragonuv is around 3000$ and barret m82 runs you 5000$)
Bolt action rifle at 300$ (savage fcns is around twice that price)
.22 training rifle at 150$ (ruger 10/22 around 300$)
Battle rifles 140 Mil dollars
Carbines 48 Mil dollars
Semi auto Handguns 220 Mil dollars
Squad support rifles 40 Mil dollars
Precision Sniper rifles 25 Mil dollars
Bolt action rifles 9 Mil dollars
.22 training rifles 4.5 Mil dollars
With pessimistic projections of changing 1/4th of armed forces weaponry and 1/4th of paramilitary you are roughly looking at an approximate half a billion dollar market over a span of say 5 years.