Firearms Laws of Vietnam
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Firearms Laws of Vietnam by Tien Thuy Dinh1 IP-5-2017 | November 2017 727 East 16th Avenue | Denver, Colorado 80203 www.IndependenceInstitute.org | 303-279-6536 | 303-279-4176 fax Introduction Vietnam has one of the strictest gun This Issue Paper provides an overview of laws in the world. The policy reflects the the history of firearm laws in Vietnam and cultural and historical influences that a translation of the current laws. Part I have shaped the nation. Little has been surveys arms laws in Vietnam from 1427 written on Vietnamese gun control, in to the present. Part II provides an English part because of the inaccessibility and loss translation of the current law, which was of documents as a result of the country’s issued in 2011. Part III is the Vietnamese violent history. text of that law. 1. Brief History of Arms in Vietnam The first recorded firearms in Đại Việt (Divine Lightning) because of the power were used against the Champa king Chế of their firearms. The Lê revolution Bồng Nga in 1390. (Đại Việt means Great greatly shifted the balance of power in Viet, and was the name of Vietnam from Southeast Asia away from China, and 1054 to 1400, and from 1428 to 1804.) towards Vietnam. The book Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư (Complete Vietnam has one Book of the Historical Record of Đại Việt) Further improvements on firearms were of the strictest attributes the king’s death to a cannon made under the Nguyễn Dynasty. Emperor gun laws in the called houchong.2 Gia Long, thanks to a considerable supply world. The policy of arms and ammunition from the French, The Vietnamese may have obtained the defeated the Tay Son revolt and came to reflects the cultur- houchong from Chinese traders, but a power in 1802. Influenced by the French al and historical systematic introduction of gunpowder designs and decorated with Eastern motifs, influences that and artillery into Vietnam did not happen some of the best-known arms of the until about a decade later.3 After defeating Nguyễn Dynasty were the Nine Sacred have shaped the Vietnam’s Ho Dynasty in 1407, China’s Cannons5 and a field-gun named the nation. Ming dynasy established a military Victorious and Majestic General 100 Degrees.6 occupation in Vietnam. The Chinese These are thought to have surpassed many followed the policy “Divide and conquer”: of their European counterparts. favoring the subservient while cruelly suppressing the opposition. The military During the Indochina War and the technology transfer occurred in this Vietnam War, the Vietnamese employed context. firearms either seized from or provided by the Soviet, Chinese, or American armies. Over the course of the occupation, the Despite developments in arms technology Chinese gradually lost their superiority, as throughout Vietnamese history, guns in more and more weapons were seized by Vietnam were, and have always been a Vietnamese rebel forces. A resistance led mark of the rulers, not the ruled. by Lê Lợi defeated the Chinese in 1427, and established an independent Đại Việt.4 Pre-colonial era The Lê Dynasty strengthened its army, Due to the Vietnam’s turbulent history, equipping the two battalions with the there is little or no evidence left about gun houchong. These battalions were named policies before the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802- Thần Lôi (Divine Thunder) and Thần Sấm 1945). 1 1 Generations of Nguyễn kings strictly French protectorate regulated the management and use of Thiệu Trị’s son, Tự Đức, became king in firearms. 1847. During his reign, French colonialists took over Vietnam in 1887, while allowing Gia Long, after his enthronement, the Nguyễn dynasty to remain on the announced Hoàng Triều Luật Lệ (The throne. Nguyễn law code) in 1815. The laws banned the possession and trade of Because of Vietnam’s long record of firearms by the non-noble classes. Article warfare, many documents from the French 231 specified: protectorate era have been lost. What little remains today suggests that under The people are forbidden to own the French colonization, a majority of military weapons, including horses, Vietnamese were not allowed to own and armor board, cannons, firearms, use firearms. ammunition, and pennants. Anyone who privately possesses In 1925, Alexandre Varenne, the newly- those weapons is guilty, and people appointed governor-general of Indochina, stealing military weapons receive arrived. A group of Vietnamese the same punishment.7 intellectuals drafted “The Wish List of the Vietnamese people.” It asked for reforms According to the Nguyễn law code, a for “the educational and judiciary systems, person who either hid or owned forbidden the acknowledgement of basic human According to weapons would be beaten by a heavy stick, rights… the reduction of military service, the Nguyen law 80 times for each weapon. The highest and a liberalized method of granting punishment is 100 times being beaten, and code, a person French citizenship to meritorious people being exiled 3000 dặm (approximately 932 from Cochinchina.”10 (“Cochinchina,” who either hid or miles) from the homeland.8 which is sometimes written as two words, owned forbidden refers to southern Indochina, which is weapons would be Under the Nguyễn regime, guns were today the southern part of Vietnam.) stored in government warehouses, heavily beaten by a heavy guarded by the military. King Minh Mạng, The document notes the advantages which stick, 80 times for Gia Long’s son, ordered government Vietnamese persons received from being each weapon. officials to report the quantity and quality granted French citizenship: of firearms and ammunition every five years. Under Ming Mang’s reign, each “The attraction that naturalization exerts military unit (500–600 soldiers) was on the gallicized [French] portion of the equipped with 200 matchlock muskets Vietnamese population can be readily and 2 cannons. The regime owned 34,330 understood if one considers the numerous kilograms of explosives and ammunition, and substantial privileges it brings to its which were equally divided to and seekers: freedom of thinking and writing; preserved in 24 warehouses located on freedom of assembly and association; four sides of Hue, the Nguyen Dynasty’s freedom of travel; freedom to bear firearms for capital. After Minh Mạng died, his son hunting or for defense of one’s possession against King Thiệu Trị ascended the throne. the raids of bandits when one lives in the middle Under Thiệu Trị’s reign, officials had to of the Cochinchinese boondocks.”11 check on firearms and ammunition every month.9 Only the king could order the In other words, French naturalization manufacture of firearms, or research on granted the people freedom to bear firearms. firearms. Yet in a typical year, only about 2 2 one out of ten thousand indigenous people with North Vietnam that provided for the in Indochina were granted citizenship. repatriation of U.S. prisoners of war. The So the majority of Vietnamese did not war ended in April 1975 with victory for enjoy the freedom to bear firearms for self- North Vietnam. defense or hunting. Having to focus its attention on the wars, As is typical in colonized nations, rebels the Hanoi government initially utilized sometimes obtained illegal arms from laws from the Nguyen Dynasty and the colonial army. In a story told by Luu French colonial period. The Communist Pham, a Vietnamese refugee from Sai government issued its first arms decree in Gon, his grandfather was among the 1964, aimed at “strengthening the state Vietnamese rebels fighting against the management of weapons, preventing French in the late 1920s. Grandfather accidents caused by the use of weapons, Pham’s role “was to buy guns, grenades, and limiting activities by bad people and other weapons from sympathetic wanting to use weapons to oppose and Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial destroy the government.”13 army.”12 The decree specified that no one has the Communist North and Cap- right to own private weapons. Unless The decree italist South ordered by the Hanoi government, specified that no During World War II, Imperial Japan took individuals were forbidden from selling over Vietnam from 1940 to 1945. They or bringing arms into the territory of one has the right allowed the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy Vietnam. Anyone having private weapons to own private French government to remain as nominal had to hand them over to the nearest weapons. Unless rulers. Following Japan’s defeat, Hồ Chí public security department or military Minh and his supporters proclaimed agency.14 ordered by the an independent Democratic Republic Hanoi govern- of Vietnam. Some of the language The 1964 decree covered pistols, rifles, ment, individuals in the proclamation tracked the U.S. machine guns, automatic guns, bombs, were forbidden Declaration of Independence, but the mines, grenades, and other mitary form of government that they desired was weapons. Shotguns, matchlock muskets, from selling or Communist. daggers, machetes, and spears were not bringing arms within the scope of the 1964 decree.15 into the territory The First Indochina War ensued, and lasted until the French forces were defeated In the South, Americans provided firearms of Vietnam. at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The result to militias and other self-defense units in of the war was a divided nation, with a the villages. But these arms were often Communist regime in North Vietnam, and seized later by Communist fighters. a pro-Western, somewhat capitalist regime The program was sometimes poorly in the South. Hanoi was the northern implemented; many Vietnamese resented capital, and Saigon the southern capital. the Saigon government forcing them to Soon the Second Indochina War began, leave their homes, to go live in fortified lasting from 1954 to 1975. United States “strategic hamlets.” Skeptical of the direct military involvement was initially villagers’ anti-communism, the Saigon small, and then during the 1960s became government at times withheld arms which enormous.