The HFG ReviewA Publication of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation

Spring 2005

Small Arms and Light Weapons:A Call for Research

CONTENTS

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTIONJoel Wallman

1

SMALL ARMS RESEARCH:WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE NEED TO GO

Edward J. Laurance3

EFFECTS OF SMALL ARMS MISUSEWilliam Godnick, Edward J. Laurance, Rachel Stohl, and Small Arms Survey

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GUNS IN CRIMENicolas Florquin

21

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL:PRODUCTION, ARSENALS, AND TRANSFERS OF SMALL ARMS

Anna Khakee and Herbert Wulf26

MEANS AND MOTIVATIONS:RETHINKING SMALL ARMS DEMAND

Robert Muggah, Jurgen Brauer, David Atwood, and Sarah Meek31

CONTRIBUTORS39

Very few of today's armed conflicts take placebetween armed forces of different states. Rather,most such violence occurs within states. The strat-egy of armed groups in these conflicts involvesdeliberate targeting of civilians, and most of thesecasualties, as well as those of the combatants, areinflicted with small arms and light weapons—instruments wielded by one or two people, such aspistols, rifles, and mortars. The small-arms prob-lem has not received anything like the academicattention devoted to the problem of nuclear prolif-eration, perhaps because, given the ubiquity andquotidian nature of these weapons, they do notengender the anxiety of atomic devices. Thus far,however, the human toll of small arms and lightweapons far exceeds that from nuclear, chemical,or biological weapons. The Small Arms Survey, aresearch organization that issues annual reportsbased on meticulous research, estimates that300,000 people are killed each year with theseweapons, around one-third in group conflicts andthe others from homicide or suicide by firearm.And, of course, a much larger number of victims ofsmall arms survive their injuries but live on withgrievous damage. In their aggregate effects, theseare proven weapons of mass destruction.

Small arms and light weapons can potentiate aspiral of lawlessness. Weak states allow their pro-liferation, and acquisition of arms allows formerlypowerless groups to challenge authority, furtherweakening it. The abundance of arms in the handsof nonstate actors means that new wars can readilybe started. In the case of pre-existing conflicts, theinflux of weapons exacerbates the violence, asfirearms are intrinsically more deadly than othersmall weapons. It is true that much of the 1994

killing in Rwanda was conducted with machetes,but the scale of the carnage in such a short timecould not have been achieved without the massiveavailability of rifles, grenades, and similar weaponsused to round up and terrorize the victims.

The problem is by no means just one of insur-gent groups besieging legitimate governments,however. Among the worst abusers of small armsare repressive governments and their paramilitaryadjuncts, such as the janjaweed militia of Sudan,who, in concert with government forces, have beencommitting atrocities of genocidal proportion inDarfur.

There are other effects of the spread of theseweapons, none of them good. In today's substateconflicts, anyone can become a combatant byacquiring a weapon, and participants in these warstend to be less constrained in whom they targetthan traditional soldiers. As a result, humanitarianagencies, which strive to reduce the impact of waron civilians, have become increasingly reluctant tosend their people into conflict areas. The acquisi-tion of weapons by young men, especially boys,inverts traditional authority relations, placingpower in the hands of people who, not havingknown it before, are perhaps more reluctant to dis-arm than would be their elders. And, more gener-ally, the likelihood of adherence to a peace agree-ment is much lower when large numbers of mili-tants remain armed.

Many organizations have taken up the cause ofstemming the illicit flow of small arms, but, torepeat, only a modest effort has been devoted thusfar to systematic research on the nature of thisproblem: the diversion of arms from the legitimateto illicit market, the role of small arms in the out-

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Weapons of Mass Destruction

Joel Wallman

2

break and persistence of group violence, theincreased lethality of crime and personal conflictattributable to availability of guns, the relative effi-cacy of alternative approaches to reducing theharm these weapons do. In June of 2004, theHarry Frank Guggenheim Foundation convened ameeting of researchers in this area to consider waysto expand the number of scholars and range of dis-ciplines involved in small-arms research. Anorganization was born of this meeting: RISA(Research Initiative on Small Arms). This issue ofthe HFG Review is the first product of this group.

As Edward Laurance, a pioneering small-armsresearcher, says in his introduction, we intend thispublication to serve as a primer on the issues andan exhortation to scholars to engage with them.His article provides an overview of those issues,and the following four flesh them out. The topicsare the damage small arms and light weapons causein violence by groups (“Effects of Small ArmsMisuse”) and individuals (“Guns in Crime”), thenature of demand for these weapons (“Means andMotivations”), and the sources, legal and not, thatsupply that demand (“Following the Trail”).

A Kosovo LiberationArmy fighter poses withhis World War IImachine gun. Smallarms circulate betweenconflict zones, in manycases for decades.

IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn

In the early 1990s, there was great hope through-out the world for a decline in the wars, insurgen-cies, and threats from weapons of mass destructionthat marked the Cold War. With the breakup ofthe Soviet Union, we saw a precipitous decline inmilitary spending by the major powers, the endingof several wars fueled by Cold War rivalries (e.g.,Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Salvador), and re-newed interest in the principles of the UN Charterand legal instruments controlling weapons of massdestruction.

These hopes were soon dashed as intrastate con-flicts, some new, others held in check by the super-

powers during the Cold War, began to flare up intoarmed violence. While the root causes of theseconflicts were familiar and quickly identified,something new had emerged that caught the worldunprepared for solving these conflicts. They werebeing fought almost exclusively with small armsand light weapons—assault rifles, rocket propelledgrenades, and similar tools of violence not previ-ously addressed or studied by those charged withcontrolling armed violence.1

• In 1994 Mali, a civil war between the Touregminority and the rest of the country resulted inthe wide availability of arms in society. The ensu-

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Small Arms Research:

Where We Are and Where We Need to Go

Edward J. Laurance

ing instability and violence brought all develop-ment projects to a halt.

• In El Salvador, a UN-brokered peace hadbrought a vicious civil war to a close in 1992. Butby 1995 the country was ablaze with armed vio-lence, this time by criminals armed with morethan 200,000 military weapons left over from thecivil war.

• In Rwanda, more than 800,000 Tutsis and manyHutus were massacred at the direction of theHutu government, made possible by the distri-bution of weapons brought into the country forthis purpose.

• In Sri Lanka, an intractable civil war raged, withthe government facing a Tamil insurgency thathad established a global network of illicit armssupplies.

• In the former Soviet Union, states with only armsindustries left as viable commercial enterpriseslegally sold hundreds of thousands of small armsand light weapons to governments involved inconflicts, many of which were illegally diverted toarmed groups bent on perpetuating conflicts.

Ten years after the small arms problem burstonto the world stage, there is a clear consensus thatit is key to the understanding and control of con-temporary violence. The proliferation and misuseof small arms and light weapons (SALW) occurs ina variety of contexts: receding conflict, post-con-flict, and high-crime areas. Today there are over600 million SALW in circulation worldwide. Of49 major conflicts in the 1990s, 47 were wagedalmost exclusively with small arms. Small arms areresponsible for hundreds of thousands of deathsper year, including 200,000 from homicides andsuicides and perhaps 300,000 from political vio-lence. A wide range of negative consequences fromtheir use has been revealed: deaths and injuries toinnocent civilians, human rights violations, denialof socio-economic development; sparking, fueling,and prolonging conflicts; obstruction of humani-

tarian relief programs; undermining of peace ini-tiatives; diminishing the security of vulnerablegroups such as women, children, refugees, andinternally displaced persons; and increasing thepublic health burden from violence.

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As this reality emerged in the mid-1990s, so didthe need for information and knowledge aboutthese weapons. Why? As a class these weapons andtheir effects are very different from larger conven-tional weapons. They are smaller, more portable,cheaper, simpler to use, and easily available to non-state actors. What we knew about the trade andproduction of larger weapons such as tanks andfighter aircraft was hardly enough to provide guid-ance to policymakers. The research questionsregarding small arms went far beyond traditionalnational and international security, which con-cerned only the state.

The goal of this publication is to provide anintroduction to the research field of small armsthat emerged as a result of this new reality. To date,this work has been primarily policy research,designed for and produced by nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), international governmentalorganizations (IGOs), and national governmentsinvolved in addressing this problem. This researchhas focused on practical policy variables and devel-oping and testing programs, interventions, andservices. As a result, program-evaluation method-ologies tend to have an important place in thefield. This policy research has also been character-ized by strict time constraints, placed on research-ers by donor governments and international organ-izations active in seeking policy solutions.2

The academic community was rarely engaged indebate about these policies or in systematic testingof practices enacted to stem the flow of small arms.The time has come to enlist the full range of aca-demic disciplines to expand the knowledge baseneeded to reduce the damage wrought by small

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arms and light weapons.The initial research agenda was set by a resur-

gent United Nations, which had sent out anunprecedented number of peacekeeping missionsafter the end of the Cold War. Responding to UNSecretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's 1995warning of this new global threat, a UN panel ofexperts was formed to investigate the types of smallarms and light weapons actually being used in con-flicts, the nature and causes of their accumulation,transfer, production, and trade, and the ways andmeans to prevent and curb their negative effects.

This research led to the UN Conference onSmall Arms in July 2001, the goal of which was todevelop a “Programme of Action” to guide thepolicies of governments and regional and interna-tional organizations.3 It was understandable thatthe knowledge being developed was shaped by thegoal of having maximal impact on the formulationof the Programme of Action.4

At this time there was a general recognition thatacademic research on small arms was lacking. Inresponse, the Small Arms Survey (SAS) was formedin Geneva in late 1999 as an independent researchcenter on the issue of small arms. After four yearsof work by SAS and other policy research centers,5

an initial set of propositions, hypotheses, and datahas emerged that now needs to be investigatedusing the full range of scholarly research methods.Policy research has raised a number of questionsand hypotheses that need to be tested by those lessconstrained by the dictates of a policy communitywhose first priority is solving the problem now.For example, very little statistical analysis of thegrowing volume of survey data has taken place.The small arms problem needs research that ismore replicable, cumulative, and testable by peerreview. The purpose of this publication is to stim-ulate such work.

The articles that follow summarize what we knowabout each major aspect of the small arms problemand the questions that remain to be investigated.

production, transfers, and trafficking ofsalw

Knowing the scope of production is a core ele-ment in predicting the types and numbers ofweapons in future circulation. If one is trying tostop the supply of weapons to conflict zones, it isimportant to know the source of this supply. Inthe 1990s, policymakers sought to use arms controltechniques that applied to larger weapons systems,such as tanks and aircraft. They went after pro-ducers of these weapons, only to discover that newproduction of small arms was actually declining.The major source of supply was existing stockpilesor weapons circulating from previous wars. Moregenerally, understanding how arms are acquired byprivate citizens, official security forces, criminals,and insurgent groups requires knowledge about theactors (governments, brokers, transport agents)and legal and illegal modes of transfer (export cri-teria, end-user certificates, illicit trafficking net-works) involved in distribution.

impacts of salw

Understanding the effects of small arms in andon societies goes to the heart of the motivation forsmall arms research: what harm is caused by theproliferation and misuse of these weapons, who ismost affected by them, and what are the circum-stances under which they cause harm? Researchgoes beyond deaths and injuries to individuals toinclude the full range of impacts on societies.

role of salw availability in outbreak andexacerbation of armed conflict

In Rwanda, El Salvador, Kosovo, Brazil, andmany other places, small arms and light weaponswidely available or supplied to an area of conflictand tension can spark the rise of armed violence.What are the dynamics of this process of escala-tion? Also important is the effect that the (mis)useof these weapons during armed conflict can haveon civilians, often in violation of human rights and

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international humanitarian law. Does the presenceof SALW exacerbate or lengthen armed conflict?

demand for small arms

Analyzing demand for small arms involvesexamining who possesses and carries them, whattypes are acquired, and the motivations for acquir-ing them. Knowledge of demand is important inthe design of programs intended to address thenegative effects of these weapons, e.g., demobiliza-tion, disarmament, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, as well as programs for collection anddestruction of weapons.

international efforts at control

The 2001 UN Programme of Action on SmallArms, and various regional treaties and frame-works, have been developed to address the globalproblems associated with small arms and lightweapons. Evaluation research has been conductedto assist in monitoring and evaluating these collab-orative efforts. Such treaties and protocols shouldbe compiled into a database to avoid duplicationand promote complementarities and synergies.

design and evaluation of practical policiesand programs

A significant amount of research has been con-ducted on the programs designed to alleviate thenegative effects of small arms. Much of it is classicprogram evaluation, with a focus on evaluatingneeds assessment, goals and objectives of the pro-gram, program design, implementation, and im-pact. Compilation of “lessons learned” and “bestpractices” is the typical outcome of this research.Most of this work has focused on the followingtypes of programs:

• Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration(DDR) of ex-combatants

• Amnesties and weapons collection• Destruction of surplus weapons

• Increasing public awareness

small arms and crime

As mentioned, small arms take an estimated200,000 lives each year outside of group conflictthrough homicide and suicide, as well as inflictinga much greater number of grievous injuries. Theyalso facilitate the commission of millions of crimesof other types, including robbery, assault, and sex-ual offenses.

By contrast with the other domains of inquirysurveyed above, there is an abundant literature onthe role of small arms in crime, most of it pertain-ing to the United States, Canada, Australia, andthe United Kingdom. Research on the causes,effects, and costs of gun violence has an especiallylong history in the United States. This is also truefor the demand question, as well as the evaluationof policy and program interventions designed tolessen these harms. There are academic journalsdevoted to this research, well-established researchcenters, and vigorous debates among scholars onthese issues. Such is not the case with research onthe global small arms problem. The challenge is toget this academic community, mainly although notexclusively in the United States, to test the applica-bility of this body of research to small arms prob-lems outside the United States.

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The research effort on small arms, as indicatedabove, has had a clear link to policies and programsdesigned to prevent and reduce the damagewrought by these weapons. Given the lack ofinformation on small arms at the start of the policyprocess in the mid-1990s, much of the initialresearch was necessarily technical and descriptivein nature: characteristics of weapons, who wasusing them and where, how legal transfers turnedinto illicit ones, etc. In concentrating on theinstrumentalities or tools of violence, researchers

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tended to become “small arms experts.”Once the UN Programme of Action was agreed

upon in 2001, the research began to shift towardintegrating or “mainstreaming” small arms knowl-edge into larger issues. A very good example is therecent move toward linking small arms policyresearch with the general field of internationaldevelopment. Scholars in development studiesseek to formulate models of development, deter-mine effective modes of delivering assistance, andidentify the various obstacles to development. Asdiscussed in the following pages, one of the majorobstacles plaguing the delivery of assistance,indigenous capacity-building, and post-conflictreconstruction is armed violence and insecurityresulting from the prevalence of small arms andlight weapons. There is a natural synergy herebetween the development and small arms researchcommunities that is only now beginning to be rec-ognized. Within the small arms group, a consen-sus is emerging as to the various impacts of smallarms on the development process.6 However,development researchers and small arms research-ers rarely engage each other. The importance ofrecognizing the nexus of security and developmenthas become particularly urgent given the difficul-ties with post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq,Afghanistan, and Kosovo, among other places.

There are other fields of research where the dataand findings of small arms research could provevaluable. This has already begun to occur in gen-der studies. Another fruitful area is justice andsecurity sector reform, a major issue in post-con-flict nation-building contexts. As of yet, however,the justice reform element of this work has notlinked with the small arms effort. Questions to beaddressed: Have codes of conduct of legitimatelyarmed persons (police/military) regarding the useof arms been implemented? Have gun laws beenchanged? Are the legal and penal systems capableof dealing with those accused of gun crimes,including law-enforcement personnel?7

CCoonncclluussiioonn

SALW research covers a wide range of issues thatlink small arms proliferation and misuse to a hostof negative effects. This work has been shaped bya policy agenda requiring basic data on small armsand a focus on what can be done to reduce and pre-vent the damage they cause. There are now suffi-cient empirical data and hypotheses ripe forengagement by the wider academic community.

We hope that these articles, by distilling downthe literature and emphasizing what “needs know-ing,” will contribute to an increase in the quantityand quality of small arms research. We also hopeto encourage a wider set of academic disciplines toaddress the questions that will move us closer tosolving the problems posed by small arms.

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centre for humanitarian dialoguehttp://www.hdcentre.org/?aid=37

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue is anNGO with a Small Arms and Human SecurityProgram. They conduct research related to thehuman cost of small arms availability and misuse.

international action network on small armshttp://www.iansa.org

The International Action Network on SmallArms is the global network of civil society organi-zations working to stop the proliferation and mis-use of small arms and light weapons. Founded in1998, IANSA has grown rapidly to more than 500participant groups in nearly 100 countries. Its por-tals include key issues, resources and publications,events and campaigns, and a women's portal.

international alerthttp://www.international-alert.org/publications.htm

International Alert is an independent interna-tional NGO that works to help build lasting peacein countries and communities affected or threat-ened by violent conflict. They have regional pro-

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grams in Africa, the Caucasus, and Central, South,and South East Asia. They conduct policy analysisand advocacy at government, EU, and UN levelson cross-cutting issues such as business, humani-tarian aid and development, gender, security, andreligion in relation to conflict. They are part of theBiting the Bullet collaborative and have conducteda significant amount of independent research onsmall arms issues.

norwegian initiative on small armshttp://www.nisat.org

NISAT is based at the Peace Research Institute,Oslo. It maintains a database of small arms trans-fers containing over 250,000 records. Its BlackMarket Archive contains over 7,000 searchabledocuments. It also maintains a West Africa newsarchive.

saferworldhttp://www.saferworld.org.uk/iac/index.htm

Saferworld is a large transnational NGO thatworks with governments and civil society interna-tionally to research, promote, and implement newstrategies to increase human security and preventarmed violence. They are a member of the researchcollaborative called Biting the Bullet, which hasproduced a series of papers on all aspects of thesmall arms problem and what to do about it.

small arms nethttp://www.smallarmsnet.org

The Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria hasestablished the Small Arms Net, an informationportal for groups and individuals working to con-tain the proliferation of small arms and lightweapons in Africa. An initiative of the ArmsManagement Programme (AMP), it is an informa-tion hub for small arms and arms related issuesaffecting the continent.

small arms survey

http://www.smallarmssurvey.orgBeginning in 2001, Small Arms Survey, through

Oxford University Press, has published an annualsurvey of the field. Some of the chapter themes arerecurrent (e.g., products, producers, stockpiles,transfers, controls), which serves to update readerson these topics. In addition, each year SAS intro-duces new aspects of the field. Topics haveincluded arms brokers, the UN 2001 Small ArmsConference and Programme of Action, weapons-collection programs, effects of small arms onhuman development, regional and country-specificcases, and human rights. SAS also produces occa-sional papers and reports.

un department of disarmament affairs:conventional arms branch: small arms andlight weapons portal

http://disarmament2.un.org/cab/salw.htmlThis web site is an authoritative source for all

UN action and documents since the small armsissue entered onto the world stage in the mid-1990s.

un development programme: small armsand demobilization divisionhttp://www.undp.org/bcpr/smallarms/index.htm

Assists countries recovering from conflict to cur-tail illicit weapons, address the needs of ex-com-batants and other armed groups through alterna-tive livelihood and development prospects, andbuild capacities at all levels to promote humansecurity.

NNootteess

1. The 1997 Report of the United Nations Panel ofGovernment Experts on Small Arms provides the mostwidely accepted definition of small arms and lightweapons. This distinguishes between small arms, whichare weapons designed for personal use, and lightweapons, which are designed for use by several personsserving as a crew. The category of small arms includes

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revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines,assault rifles, sub-machine guns, and light machineguns. Light weapons include heavy machine guns,hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launch-ers, portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, recoillessrifles, portable launchers of anti-tank and anti-aircraftmissiles, and mortars of calibers less than 100mm. Seehttp://www.smallarmsnet.org/definition.htm.

2. Colin Robson. Real World Research. Oxford:Blackwell Publishers, 2002.

3. For a summary of this conference and the text ofthe Programme of Action, see the web site of the UNDepartment of Disarmament Affairs: http://disarma-ment2.un.org/cab/salw.html.

4. An example of this research can be found in theBiting the Bullet series of publications at http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications/int_arms_

control.htm.5. Major examples include United Nations Institute

for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), Bonn Inter-national Center for Conversion (BICC), Institute forSecurity Studies in Pretoria, Bradford University,International Alert, Center for Defense Information,Human Rights Watch, OXFAM, Peace ResearchInstitute of Oslo (PRIO), UN Development Pro-gramme (UNDP), UNICEF, Monterey Institute ofInternational Studies, Saferworld.

6. See http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/Yearbook%202003/ch4_Yearbk2003_en.pdf.

7. For research questions and the state of the researchin this field, see “Critical Triggers: ImplementingInternational Standards for Policing Firearms Use,” pp.213-247 in Small Arms Survey 2004. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

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Kalashnikov produc-tion at Arsenal Co. in

Bulgaria. Weaponsfrom plants in formercommunist countriesturn up frequently inillicit arms transfers.

IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn

In 1994 the impoverished nation of Mali waswracked with violence. Small arms and lightweapons had become readily available, turninggrievances by the economically marginalizedToureg into armed violence so pervasive that alldevelopment work in Mali had come to a halt.Donor countries pulled out, and the scuttling oftheir development projects resulted in half-builtschools, contaminated water supplies, and unfin-ished roads. The president of Mali formally askedthe United Nations to assist his country in tacklinga problem heretofore unaddressed in internationalaffairs, the proliferation and misuse of small armsand light weapons.

When the global community first engaged theissue of small arms and light weapons (SALW) inthe 1990s, it was the terrible effects of theseweapons in places such as Mali that were the primemover for research and action. Documenting theseeffects was a crucial first step toward developingpolicies to address the problem, since most of theweapons involved initially had a legitimate role inthe internal and external security of sovereignstates, yet governments were understandably reluc-tant to formally recognize that there were unin-tended effects from these weapons. The result wasa set of papers, produced mainly by the policy andadvocate communities, intended to demonstratethe need to focus on the instruments of violence.Most of these initial reports were stories or anec-dotes gathered by NGOs with firsthand experienceof the effects of small arms.1

Once the policy and advocacy materials definedthe problem, it was natural that more in-depthresearch would soon follow. Understanding the

societal and individual effects of small arms is themotivation for this research: we want to knowwhat harm small arms cause, who is most affectedby them, and the circumstances under which theseweapons cause harm.

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deaths, injuries, and disabilities

Direct effects of small arms occur as deaths,injuries, and disabilities, as well as direct costs thatresult from the treatment of injuries and disabili-ties. In addition, there are the costs to society oflost working days resulting from treatment, prema-ture death, or disability.

Studies in the United States in particular, and toa lesser extent in other Western societies, have pro-vided an understanding of the significance offirearms in suicide and homicide rates by compar-ing firearms with other means of killing.

Suicides by firearm: It has been documented formany Western societies that the availability of civil-ian firearms influences the percentage of suicidescommitted with a firearm. This is partly explainedby the higher suicide completion rates for suicidesthat are attempted with a gun as compared toattempted suicides that make use of other means.Completed suicide rates appear to be higher forgroups that are more prone to impulsive actions,such as youths, when they have easy access to afirearm. However, it remains debatable whetheroverall suicide rates increase as a result of elevatedarms availability. Nor is great firearms prevalencenecessary for a high suicide rate. Japan suffersfrom very high suicide rates but has one of the low-est rates of civilian arms availability in the world.

Domestic firearm deaths: In the US there is evi-

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Effects of Small Arms Misuse

William Godnick, Edward J. Laurance, Rachel Stohl, and Small Arms Survey

dence that rates of domestic murder are positivelycorrelated with rates of firearms ownership.However, research has also shown that firearmownership rate is only one of several variables thatinfluence fatal domestic violence. Unemploymentand abuse of alcohol and drugs have also beenshown to be significant.

Our understanding of patterns in firearmsdeaths around the world is still patchy. It is oftenstated that the majority of SALW victims are men,and in particular young men. However, in relationto political conflicts it is often stated that a major-ity of victims are civilians, largely women and chil-dren. While there is a significant volume ofresearch on categories of victims in the UnitedStates, information on other societies is more lim-ited. Therefore, studies that provide a detailedbreakdown of firearm victims by gender, age, eth-nicity, and locality in different societies are neededto develop a nuanced picture of who is most at riskand who should be the focus of intervention pro-grams.

There is evidence that the rate of suicides com-mitted with firearms can be used as a proxy forcivilian gun ownership rates. However this obser-vation is based on research in Western societies.Further work is needed to validate this assumptionfor non-Western societies.

Most work considering the direct effects offirearms use has concentrated on death and physi-cal injury. These, however, don't exhaust the con-sequences.

terror, intimidation, and other psycholog-ical effects

Human rights activists have pointed to the useof firearms in coercion and intimidation. Besidesdocumenting individual stories of human rightsabuses, there has been very little research to datethat would help us to understand how guns areused to threaten rather than kill. Similar work hasbeen conducted on the criminal use of guns, but to

date little concentrating on the effects of gun use insystematic state violations of human rights.

particular vulnerability of children andwomen

ChildrenWhile it is obvious that small arms negatively

affect the lives of children, it was really not untilthe lead-up to the UN 2001 Conference that thefull effects of small arms on the welfare of childrenwere documented. UNICEF drew attention to theissue in their pre-conference and conference state-ment, and a comprehensive NGO study on theimpacts of small arms on children was released forthe conference.2

Such studies have provided data about the vic-timization of children by small arms violence. InColombia in 1999, children were victims of 1,333homicides, 58 accidents, and 16 suicides in whichsmall arms were used. Between 1987 and 2001, 467children died in the Israel-Palestine armed conflictas a result of gun-related violence, while 3,937 chil-dren were killed by firearms in the state of Rio deJaneiro during the same four-year span.

From these early studies we know that childrenare victims of conflict and small arms misuse, thatsmall arms proliferation and misuse interfere withthe provision of basic needs and services, and thatsmall arms make child soldiering more possibleand more probable. We have good case studies butthere is still much we don't know. There is nothorough data-collection process that transcendsnational borders and experiences to quantify theimpact of small arms on children.

WomenWomen are another of the groups most vulnera-

ble to small arms violence, and a significantamount of work is now being conducted on therelationship between gender and small arms. It iswell established that legal guns are just as danger-ous to women as illegal ones. There is abundant

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evidence that sexual violence at gunpoint is used asa weapon of war. To name but a few cases, inAfghanistan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic ofCongo, and the former Yugoslavia, women andyoung girls have been abducted from their homes,schools, and places of work at the barrel of a gun.This practice persists in the aftermath of armedgroup conflict.

Women are not just the victims of gun violence,however. They may also participate as combatantsand in support roles, providing information, food,clothing, and shelter, as well as bearing the long-term burden of caring for the sick and injured.

increased potential for violations ofhuman rights and internationalhumanitarian lawHuman Rights

There is a prodigious body of scholarship onhuman rights and an increasing amount concern-ing the use of small arms to violate internationallyrecognized human rights. Much of this work hasbeen done by organizations such as Human RightsWatch, Amnesty International, and other non-governmental organizations evaluating the humanrights records of small arms recipient countries.Amnesty International has a recent publication forthe Control Arms campaign examining effectivemechanisms for police to use in controlling theseweapons without themselves misusing them.Research to date has demonstrated that small armsin the wrong hands (both governmental and non-governmental) lead directly to human rightsabuses, including extrajudicial executions, forceddisappearances, and the general repression of indi-viduals and groups.

Small arms were effective tools of terror, used tokill, maim, rape, and forcibly displace people ingenocides and mass attacks on civilians in Bosnia,Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, andSudan. Even where they are not the primarymeans of killing, weapons capable of massivelethality—automatic rifles, grenades, rocket

launchers—can serve to corral victims so that theycan be killed with cheap and crude weapons suchas machetes. In addition, small arms have beenused to forcibly recruit and arm children to serve assoldiers in dozens of countries around the world.

Small arms proliferation facilitates rights viola-tions outside of conflict situations. Governmentforces may misuse small arms in violation of theUN Basic Principles on the Use of Force andFirearms by Law Enforcement Officials, as hasbeen the case, for example, in Ethiopia, whenpolice have used excessive force against studentprotesters.

In April 2003, the United Nations appointed anexpert on human rights and small arms to investi-gate the link between them. This research andother work in the area will focus on the need foradditional principles and norms and elevate to theglobal intergovernmental level violations of humanrights directly linked to small arms proliferationand misuse.

International Humanitarian LawThe use of conventional weapons, including

small arms, in armed conflict falls under the juris-diction of international humanitarian law (IHL),as embodied in a variety of international agree-ments, including the 1907 Hague Conventions, the1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1977 Protocols Addi-tional to the Geneva Conventions, and the 1980UN Convention on Conventional Weapons. Theseagreements are designed to protect civilians and pre-vent unnecessary suffering during times of conflictby limiting both the physical means and the meth-ods that belligerent parties can use to wage war.The deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminateforce that is likely to harm civilians, and the use ofweapons and tactics that are indiscriminate by theirnature or excessively injurious to combatants areprohibited by these agreements.

Just as small arms can be used to violate humanrights law, which applies mainly to nonwar con-

12

texts, small arms can also contribute to violationsof IHL, which applies to situations of inter- andintrastate war. All types of armed groups, whethergovernment or guerrilla forces, have used smallarms for IHL violations. Small arms have beenused for summary executions in Liberia and tocommit massacres in Colombia. In Sri Lanka,children have been forcibly recruited at the barrelof a gun. Civilian property has been looted inAfghanistan and forced disappearances haveoccurred in Chechnya.

Violations of IHL have been more frequent insome conflicts because armed groups are purpose-fully targeting civilians and aid workers as part oftheir strategy. The culture of impunity that allowssuch atrocities needs further study. How does thisimpunity prolong armed conflicts and make themmore intractable? How do the standard tactics andoperating procedures of organized military forceslead to violations of IHL? Since currently there areonly inadequate measures to address the irrespon-sible transfer of weapons to areas where their mis-use is foreseeable, we must also consider whethergovernments authorizing such transfers are fulfill-ing their obligation to “respect and ensure respect”for the basic protections established by IHL.

threats to humanitarian intervention

The widespread availability of small arms hasincreased the duration, incidence, and lethality ofarmed conflict, where, since the end of the ColdWar, the “average” conflict has lasted eight years.Small arms have made it more difficult for human-itarian relief to be delivered as aid workers arespecifically targeted for extortion, threat, theft,rape, and murder. For example, on March 28,2003, a Red Cross worker in Afghanistan was sin-gled out from his Afghan companions and killed ata roadblock. The risk of violence can limit accessto populations in need of assistance and divertresources to security rather than relief provision,even though IHL requires that aid agencies have

access to populations that need humanitarian assis-tance. Approximately 50 percent of populations inconflict regions live in areas that are not accessibleto relief campaigns due to security threats. In somecountries it has become too expensive, both inhuman lives and cash, for outsiders to providemuch-needed aid, forcing populations to endurethe horrors of war alone. The danger to aid andrelief workers from small arms has been docu-mented in a ground-breaking study by the SmallArms Survey and the Centre for HumanitarianDialogue, In the Line of Fire. Ten percent ofrespondents from relief organizations reported hav-ing been the victim of a “security incident,” such asassault, intimidation, or sexual violence, in the pre-vious six months. Forty percent of these encoun-ters involved a weapon.

Even when aid workers can supply relief, it isoften difficult to reach the needy populations. Atthe end of 2002, there were approximately 12 mil-lion refugees, 5.3 million internally displaced per-sons (IDPs) still away from their homes, and941,000 asylum seekers. Refugees and IDPs areoften afraid to leave camps and return to theirhomes or to venture out of safe areas to acquirerelief supplies. At the same time, refugee and IDPcamps often become militarized, and their vulner-able populations are subject to intimidation, rape,injury, forced prostitution, and slavery as well asforced recruitment into armed service.

Some research on refugee camps being used asarms trafficking sites has begun. But we need toknow much more about both the levels of suchphenomena and their impact on underserved pop-ulations.

outbreak of intergroup violence

It is clear that small arms exacerbate and perpet-uate intergroup violence, but does the buildup andacquisition of small arms and light weapons actu-ally lead to the outbreak and escalation of armedconflict? This was a crucial question for those who

13

pushed the small arms problem onto the globalstage in the mid-1990s. Laurance, surveying theevidence, concluded that “while it is true that peo-

ple bent on killing each other will do so regardlessof the weapons they possess, it is also true that acritical mass of weapons can be the impetus forstarting a major conflict.”3

Two case studies that received much attentionshaped the early response to this question.Researchers from Human Rights Watch arguedthat all four phases of the Rwanda conflict of the1990s—the invasion of Rwanda by Tutsi exiles, thediffusion of weapons to Hutus within Rwanda, thegenocide itself, and the raids by Hutu militia afterbeing expelled—were possible only because of thesupply of small arms and light weapons.4 The sec-ond case pointing to the direct effect of armsbuildups on the outbreak of armed violence isKosovo. In 1997 the government of Albania col-

lapsed and, in the subsequent instability, its signif-icant arsenal of small arms and light weapons waspillaged. More than half of these weapons left the

country, and many wereacquired by the KosovoLiberation Army (KLA).A very tense situation inKosovo, a province ofSerbia in which 1.7 mil-lion ethnic Albanians,though a majority, livedunder the domination of200,000 Serbs, very soonexploded into armed vio-lence. The massive ac-quisition of arms did notcreate the KLA's willing-ness to use violence, butit did give them the meansto do so on a broad scale.5

The most comprehen-sive study of the impactof small arms and light

weapons on the outbreak and escalation of conflict,Arms and Ethnic Conflict, concludes that “armsaccumulation by ethnic groups or in conflict zonesseems a relatively good predictor of impending vio-lence.”6 The authors regard their findings as pre-liminary, however, and call for research to clarifythe impact of weapons on governments' and ethniccommunities’ opportunity and willingness toemploy violence in pursuit of their goals:

• Under what circumstances do arms produce orcontribute to the initiation of conflict? What arethe early warning indicators involving SALWthat could be used to better predict the outbreakof violence?7

• In what ways might arms fuel ongoing violence?• Do arms flows facilitate or hinder efforts to

resolve ethnopolitical violence and conflict?• What is the effect of arms infusions on the likeli-

14

The importation of weaponry to regions of conflict perpetuatesviolence, impedes peacekeeping and development efforts,and undercuts the ability of the parental generation to social-ize youth.

hood and success of third-party efforts to resolvea conflict?8

IInnddiirreecctt EEffffeeccttss

Development studies have identified the indi-rect effects of small arms by pointing to the linkbetween SALW and instability and insecurity,which, in turn, are seen as responsible for a num-ber of socioeconomic effects (reduced productiveeconomic activities, limited possibilities for educa-tion, malfunctioning health structures) that hindera nation's or community's development. In addi-tion, public health experts have documented theindirect deaths that occur during conflicts becauseof famine, interrupted health care, and increasedstress levels. In many African conflicts, for exam-ple, the death toll from indirect causes is consider-ably higher than the number of fatalities fromfighting.

development

In the early work of the United Nations, theconcept of “sustainable disarmament for sustain-able development” became a catch phrase for com-bining the work of the arms control and develop-ment communities. The concept is simple: sus-tainable development cannot exist in an insecureenvironment, as in the case of Mali in 1994, citedabove. Violent conflict destroys the physical infra-structure needed for an economy to grow anddiverts human and economic resources away fromagriculture, education, industry, and other con-structive activities. Proliferation of weapons pre-vents sustainable development by damaging fragileeconomies, deterring foreign investment, anddiverting domestic economic resources to publicsecurity.

Over the past decade we've learned a lot aboutthe impact of small arms on development. In post-conflict societies, former combatants enter the jobmarket and, finding limited opportunities, oftenturn to crime. In El Salvador, the number of gun-

related deaths was actually higher after the fightingended due to the extensive use of weapons in crim-inal activities. In post-war Iraq, the disbanding ofthe Iraqi army left at least 400,000 soldiers withouttheir jobs but with their guns.

Fear and damaged public infrastructures candeter public and private foreign investment.Development projects have been cancelled inLiberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone due to small armsviolence. Promised international development aidto post-war Afghanistan and to Iraq remains largelyunfulfilled due to insecurity. We also know thatorganized crime and black markets harm develop-ment. Profitable companies are now lucrative tar-gets and businesses must invest in their own pro-tection to avoid kidnapping or other extortion. InColombia, the major guerrilla groups “earned” anaverage of $140 million annually between 1986 and2000 from ransom and other extortion activities.

Research on the reciprocal relationship betweenunderdevelopment and gun violence is clearlycalled for. Toward this end, the Department forInternational Development of the government ofthe United Kingdom began a major assessment ofdevelopment, “Tackling Poverty by ReducingArmed Violence,” in 2003.9 Nine SALW projectswere selected for evaluation. The researchers esti-mated that only 5% of the indicators being used inthese projects related to effects on development,poverty reduction, or humanitarian impacts.10

These projects simply did not have these outcomesas major concerns. Moreover, the study of thesenine projects concluded that for effective policyand programs, it was essential to go beyond moni-toring progress merely in terms of arms reduction(number of weapons collected, weapons sales andstreet prices). Measurements should also be madeof the direct impact on armed violence itself andthe realities and perceptions of insecurity, as well asof other development and poverty-related effects.Evaluation research focused on such measuresshould be a high priority.

15

social structures

How small arms affect the lives and livelihoodsof individuals is fairly well understood, but weneed also to address the effects of small arms onsocietal structures, as illustrated in the followingvignettes.

El SalvadorThe current situation in El Salvador is represen-

tative of much of post-conflict Central America,where, due to insufficient disarmament and demo-bilization programs for ex-combatants, small armsare still abundant and misused. At the end of thecountry's twelve-year civil war in 1992, the UnitedNations was successful in recovering and destroy-ing approximately 10,000 small arms from theFMLN guerrillas, while a private-sector initiativerecovered close to that many weapons from thecivilian population between 1996 and 2000,including highly dangerous hand grenades androcket launchers.11

But during the Salvadoran peace process, whennearly 10,000 guerrillas were demobilized alongwith 31,000 government soldiers, the newly formedcivilian police force was mandated to absorb only5-6,000 of these individuals, while defunct policeand paramilitary forces also disbanded. This leftthousands of former guerrillas, soldiers, and policeofficers unemployed in a society where the prob-lem of youth gangs was growing on a scale neverseen before. Because of the scarcity of employmentopportunities and the ability of these men to useweapons, many had life options limited to organ-ized crime or employment as private securityguards.

Horn of AfricaThe pastoralists in the Horn of Africa have also

seen deleterious consequences of the influx of smallarms. The Kenyan scholar Kennedy Mkutu andothers have documented this problem and workedwith the international community on potential

solutions.12 For generations, groups in theKaramoja region of Uganda and the West Pokotregion on the other side of the border, in Kenya,have pursued a pastoral mode of living ordered inrelation to the size and quality of livestock herdsand the environment. Cattle raiding has alwaysbeen a problem but was traditionally limited toonly the best livestock, and violence, though pres-ent, was minimal. When someone was killed inthe process, the victim's family was compensatedwith cattle by the offending group.

However, because of the many African wars forindependence in the 1960s, AK-47 assault riflesbegan to appear among the different pastoralistgroups and proliferated considerably in the 1970s.This led to increased frequency and lethality of vio-lence among many of the border communities aswell as a vicious circle of raid and counterraid.Bands of armed youths have now taken over largesections of the border area and warlords have capi-talized by buying and selling raided livestock andselling weapons. Traditionally, councils of maleelders governed the pastoralist communities andserved as mediators in resolving conflicts, bothbefore and during colonial rule. But the deteriora-tion of customary governance structures in thesesocieties has weakened the capacity of elders toexercise control over young males now armed withassault rifles. Not only has the availability ofSALW and proclivity to use them affected the rela-tionships between neighboring groups, it has alsoaltered the hierarchy of power within communi-ties.13

YemenThe research of Derek Miller in Yemen provides

an example of demand for small arms that is basedon indigenous belief systems and is a key compo-nent of the maintenance of political and socialorder that has not resulted in high levels of crimeand violence, unlike in other parts of the globe.14

Weapons in Yemen are considered part of the

16

national character and are more closely associatedwith custom and tradition than with violence,injury, and death. In contemporary Yemen, malesat the age of fifteen are often provided with anassault rifle as a rite of passage.

Similar to the role that SALW played in the pas-toral regions of the Horn of Africa before prolifer-ation, weapons in Yemen have long been symbolsof power, responsibility, masculinity, and wealth.This does not preclude their use for aggression ordefense, as was the case during the country's civilwar in the 1990s. However, as mentioned, therehas not been an increase in violence or SALW-related fatalities despite widespread civilian acqui-sition of weapons as a result of the war. Strongtribal mechanisms for conflict resolution in placein Yemen prevent major outbreaks of violence. Wedo not see the youth rebelling against tribal eldersas in Uganda and Kenya.

The introduction of firearms can transform rela-tions between generations, men and women, andethnic groups. Thus far, we have only a few suchcase studies and anecdotal evidence of howfirearms availability and use alter the establishedsocial order. Currently very few social scientistswork on how small arms affect social structures.Anthropologists and sociologists could provideuseful contributions in this area.

tourism

Just as small arms hinder development, so theycan inhibit tourism. Tourism has become a fast-growing industry and an important revenue sourcefor many countries. It creates employment in sev-eral sectors of society, accounting for nearly 200million jobs and over 40 per cent of GDP in smallisland economies and some developing countries.Moreover, tourism brings in foreign currency, pro-viding a stable and reliable source of income.Small arms proliferation and the attendant threatof violence can undermine tourism because oftourists’ fear of political upheaval or crime. Tourist

sites are sometimes damaged or rendered inaccessi-ble by ongoing hostilities, and recently touristshave been specifically targeted in armed attacks.Armed groups may actually utilize tourist destina-tions, as with Kenyan rebel groups that use animalreserves as their base of operations. In the late1990s civil wars in several African countries causedtourism to drop by a third to a half.

post-conflict reconstruction

In the last several years, we have seen the dangersof small arms proliferation and misuse in countriesemerging from war. In both Afghanistan and Iraq,the widespread availability of small arms puts secu-rity at grave risk, severely undermines the rule oflaw, and presents a major obstacle to the transitionto peace. The availability of arms increases thepossibility of outbreak of conflicts in areas of crisis,endangers the safety of both international peace-keepers and the local population, and above all,hinders conflict resolution.

As with humanitarian interventions, peacekeep-ing missions and the soldiers and civilian officialsimplementing them are also at risk from smallarms. Unlike during the Cold War, in the 1990sUN forces found that small arms posed a threat tothemselves that had to be addressed. UN peace-keepers are regularly targeted, most notably inKosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, andAfghanistan. Indeed, in both Angola and SierraLeone rebels have held hundreds of UN peace-keepers hostage. While some peacekeeping opera-tions include mandates that address small arms,such as disarmament, demobilization, or collectionand destruction of surplus weapons, others have nosuch mandate. More systematic attention to smallarms must be included in post-conflict peace-building. The lack of such provisions in the USplan in Iraq makes clear that the wide availabilityof small arms and light weapons can provide thefuel to transform a disorganized but angry group ofcivilians into an insurgent force that not only pro-

17

longs a conflict but also brings to a halt the eco-nomic, social, and political development needed tobring the conflict to an end. We see this phenom-enon in other places. These cases need to beresearched and compared to produce findings thatcan be used by those charged with peace-building.

governance

Small arms have had notable destructive impactson the ability of some states to govern well. As dis-cussed above, proliferation has raised the cost ofmaintaining public order. This expense divertsresources from investment in the economy anddiminishes a state's ability to help create jobs andraise the standard of living. In turn, all of this pro-motes the acquisition and use of arms for bothlegitimate protection and illicit purposes by privatesecurity firms and individual citizens. Manywould argue that in some polities the state has for-ever surrendered its role as the primary provider ofsecurity.

Research has begun on the growth of privatemilitary contractors and its effect on societies.15

This work has demonstrated how private securitycompanies fuel the legal and illegal markets forsmall arms. In El Salvador, as in much of Centraland Latin America, the state has lost its monopolyover the use of force and the tools of violence.These companies purchased mostly high-caliberweapons for their employees, which probably rep-resented a good share of the more than 50,000firearms El Salvador imported between 1996 and2000. At the same time, it has been documentedthat 25 per cent of the weapons confiscated by theSalvadoran authorities were taken off of privatesecurity agents outside hours of work.16 In recentyears the numbers of private security agents (some20,000 plus) have surpassed the 16,000 police offi-cers serving in El Salvador.17

Such widespread availability of guns and abreakdown in the rule of law have led to the emer-gence of private armed groups in many countries.

Such groups are seldom held accountable for therole they play in human rights abuses. Indeed,small arms have become the weapons of choice notonly for political insurgents but also for terroristsaround the world. Nearly 75 percent of the signif-icant terrorist incidents in 2002 were perpetratedby individuals and groups wielding small arms.Small arms create and fuel the conditions in whichterrorist groups thrive. The poverty and despera-tion experienced by many post-conflict societiesare often exploited by terrorists, who use the vic-tims' suffering to justify and build support for theiractions. Afghanistan in the 1990s provided suchan environment. Al Quaeda found there a safehaven and could tap into the vast criminal net-works that spring up in the absence of effective lawenforcement.

The availability and use of firearms are deter-mined by the nature of governance in a country.The reverse is also true: firearms influence the waysin which countries are governed. The relationshipbetween firearms and governance is extremely sig-nificant for development, law enforcement, andhuman rights, but it is underresearched.

There is now a consensus typology of the effectsof the availability and misuse of small arms andlight weapons, a picture that has emerged fromefforts of scholars working on one or another of themany aspects of the small arms problem. Table 1,from Small Arms Survey 2003, captures this con-sensus and serves as an excellent guide for furtherresearch.

NNootteess1. Some of these accounts were the basis for a set of

fact sheets prepared by the U.S. Small Arms WorkingGroup (SAWG) in advance of the 2001 UN Small ArmsConference and updated for the 2003 Biennial Meetingof States follow-up conference. Fact sheets on smallarms and brokers; children; collection, destruction, andstockpile protection; development; human rights; inter-national humanitarian law; natural resources; peace-keeping; public health; tourism; and women can befound at http://www.iansa.org/documents/index.htm.

18

2. Rachel Stohl et al., “Putting Children First:Building a Framework for International Action toAddress the Impact of Small Arms on Children.” Bitingthe Bullet, Briefing 11, 2001. http://www.international-alert.org/pdf/pubsec/btb_brf11.pdf.

3. Edward J. Laurance, “The New Field ofMicrodisarmament.” Brief 7: Bonn InternationalCenter for Conversion. September 1996, p. 16.http://www.bicc.de/publications/briefs/brief07/brief7.pdf.

4. Stephen D. Goose and Frank Smyth, “ArmingGenocide in Rwanda.” Foreign Affairs 73:86.

5. Case study on Kosovo in John Sislin and FrederickS. Pearson, Arms and Ethnic Conflict. Boulder: Rowman& Littlefield, 2001, pp. 100-105.

6. Sislin and Pearson, pp. 80-81.7. For a treatment of early warning and SALW, see

Edward J. Laurance, ed., “Arms Watching: IntegratingSmall Arms and Light Weapons into the Early Warningof Violent Conflict.” London:International Alert. May1990. http://www.international-alert.org/pdf/pubsec/lw_armswatching.pdf.

8. Questions are from Sislin and Pearson, pp. 17-19.9. A description of this effort can be found in rec-

ommendations from a Wilton Park Workshop, http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC13096.htm.

10. “Assessing and Reviewing the Impact of SmallArms Projects on Arms Availability and Poverty.”Bradford University Center for International Coop-eration and Security. Draft synthesis report, July 2004,p. 3.

11. Edward J. Laurance and William Godnick,“Weapons Collection in Central America: El Salvadorand Guatemala.” In Sami Faltas and Joseph Di ChiaroIII, eds., Managing the Remnants of War: Micro-disarma-ment as an Element of Peace-building. Baden-Baden:Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2001.

12. Kennedy Mkutu, “Pastoral Conflict and SmallArms: The Kenya-Uganda Border Region.” London:Saferworld, 2003.

13. Also see Sandra Gray et al., “Cattle Raiding,Cultural Survival, and Adaptability of East AfricanPastoralists.” Cultural Anthropology 44 (SupplementDecember 2003): S3-S30.

14. Derek B. Miller, “Demand, Stockpiles, and SocialControls: Small Arms in Yemen.” Small Arms SurveyOccasional Paper #9, May 2003. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/OPs/OP09Yemen.pdf.

15. Deborah Avant, “Think Again: Mercenaries.”Foreign Policy, July/August 2004; P. W. Singer,

19

Direct effectsFatal and non-fatal injuries

Lost productivityPersonal costs of treatment and rehabilitationFinancial costs at household, community,

municipal, and national levelsPsychological and psychosocial costs

Indirect effectsArmed crime

Rates of reported crime (homicide)Community-derived indices of crimeInsurance premiumsNumber and types of private security facilities

Access to and quality of social servicesIncidence of attacks on health/education

workersIncidence of attacks on and closure of

health/education clinicsVaccination and immunization coverageLife expectancy and child mortalitySchool enrollment rates

Economic activity Transport and shipping costsDestruction of physical infrastructurePrice of local goods and local terms of tradeAgricultural productivity and food security

Investment, savings, and revenue collection Trends in local and foreign direct investmentInternal sectoral investment patternsTrends in domestic revenue collectionLevels of domestic consumption and savings

Social capitalNumbers of child soldiers recruited, in actionMembership of armed gangs and organized

crimeRepeat armed criminality among minorsIncidence of domestic violence involving

firearms or the threat of weaponsRespect for customary and traditional forms of

authorityDevelopment interventions

Incidence of security threatsCosts of logistics and transportationCosts of security managementOpportunity costs associated with insecure

environments and/or damaged investments

Table 1. Effects of small armsmisuse on human development(from Small Arms Survey 2003:Development Denied. Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

“Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized MilitaryIndustry and Its Ramifications for InternationalSecurity.” International Security 26, no. 3, Winter2001/02.

16. José Miguel Cruz, Alvaro Arguello, and FranciscoGónzalez, “The Social and Economic Factors Associated

with Violent Crime in El Salvador.” Washington andSan Salvador: World Bank and the Instituto Universitariode Opinión Pública, Universidad Centroamericana, 1999.

17. William Godnick, “Control de Armas Ligeras ySeguridad Privada: Consideraciones para Centroamérica.London: International Alert, 2004.

20

In a Palestinianrefugee camp inLebanon, a girlstands near a pistolleft behind by a mili-tant.

IInnttrroodduuccttiioonnThe toll resulting from the use of small arms in

societies “at peace” is drawing increasing interna-tional attention. At least 200,000 non-conflict-related firearm deaths occur each year worldwide,the vast majority of which (at least 140,000) arecategorized as homicides, a criminal offensethroughout the world. Nonlethal crimes involvingthe use of small arms include robberies, assaultsand threats, and to a lesser extent, sexual offenses(Small Arms Survey 2004). The criminal use ofarms in societies at peace can be treated as a dis-tinct field of inquiry, despite the obvious overlapswith the more general questions of the effects ofgun use.

The debate over the relationship betweenfirearms and crime has, for the most part, remained

a US academic and public policy issue. The aca-demic disciplines that have examined the role ofguns in crime to date are mainly criminal justice,public health, economics, and anthropology/soci-ology. Put simply, they have focused on threebroad themes:

• the accessibility thesis, i.e., the relationshipbetween gun accessibility and levels of violence,defined as crime by criminologists and as deathsand injuries by public-health scholars.

• the tangible economic costs gun violence imposeson societies.

• the intangible impacts of gun violence on com-munities and individuals’ perceptions, behavior,and attitudes.

21

Guns in Crime

Nicolas Florquin

TThhee AAcccceessssiibbiilliittyy TThheessiiss

North American criminologists and public-health experts have produced a large literature onthe linkages between firearm accessibility andcrime. There seems to be little relationshipbetween gun availability and the rates of mostcrimes, such as assault, rape, or burglary, few ofwhich involve guns. However, studies usually finda strong association between gun availability andlethal violence (homicide), but there is a need formore detailed research in the area (Hepburn andHemenway 2004).

International cross-sectional studies of high-income countries find that gun ownership levelsare correlated with overall rates of homicide(Hemenway and Miller 2000), although a recentinternational study found no relationship (Killiaset al. 2001). However, if only high-income coun-tries (as defined by the World Bank) are includedin the analysis, a strong, significant relationshipagain emerges (Hepburn and Hemenway 2004).Across US regions and states, where there are moreguns there are more homicides because there aremore firearm homicides. The association holdsafter accounting for poverty, urbanization, alcoholconsumption, unemployment, and violent crimeother than homicide (Miller et al. 2002a). Resultsare similar for youth and adults, for men andwomen.

Studies at the household, cross-state, and cross-national levels find that the more guns there are,the more women become victims of homicide(Bailey et al. 1997, Hemenway et al. 2002; Miller etal. 2002b). Gun availability is also linked to levelsof gun crime. Cook (1979; 1987), for instance,finds that higher levels of gun ownership are asso-ciated with higher rates of gun robberies, and gunrobberies are more likely than other types of rob-beries to result in death.

Pro-gun academics argue that guns are oftenused in self-defense (Kleck 1997) and that permis-sive gun-carrying laws actually reduce crime (Lott

1998). There are, however, a series of methodolog-ical problems and data limitations surroundingthese two claims (Hemenway 1997; Black andNagin 1998; Hemenway et al. 2000; Maltz andTargonski 2002, 2003). Many recent studies ongun-carrying laws suggest that, if anything, theselaws probably have had little effect on crime ormay actually have increased homicides (Ludwig1998; Duggan 2001; Ayres and Donohue 2003;Donohue 2003; Kovandzic and Marvell 2003;Hepburn et al. 2004).

The effect of restrictive gun laws on crime andlethal violence has been more difficult to deter-mine. For example, a recent Centers for DiseaseControl report found insufficient evidence toassess the effectiveness of eight different types ofgun control measures in reducing overall levels ofviolence (CDC 2003). The problem with the evi-dence stems from the difficulty of disentanglingthe effects of relatively modest gun laws from theeffects of various other factors that are changingover time.

The accessibility thesis is being continually stud-ied in the United States. New data-collection sys-tems have been put in place recently and shouldgenerate richer and more comparable data, allow-ing for even better studies in the years to come(Hemenway 2004).

A limited number of studies have also emergedfrom Australia, the United Kingdom (see SmallArms Survey 2004), Brazil, and South Africa. Littlehas been done to explore the relationship betweensmall arms availability and crime in other areas.Our knowledge would be enhanced with theimprovement of data-collection systems in manycountries, which would allow for the examinationof the accessibility thesis in different contexts.

TThhee TTaannggiibbllee CCoossttss ooff GGuunn VViioolleennccee

The economics literature has sought to quantifythe costs gun violence imposes on societies. Withrespect to costs imposed on the medical care sys-

22

tem, Miller and Cohen (1996) showed that theoverall treatment for a gunshot injury is twelvetimes more expensive than treatment for cuts orstab wounds. It is estimated that the direct med-ical costs of treating gunshot wounds is about $2billion per year in the United States. Other directcosts include those incurred by the criminal justicesystem (including bullet-proof jackets for policeofficers); the estimates here are that gun crime coststhe US criminal justice system about $3 billionannually (Cook and Ludwig, 2000).

Other costs that may be considered tangibleinclude changes in residential location due to fearof gun violence and changes in where people arewilling to work. It is estimated that eliminatinggun assaults would increase GNP in the UnitedStates by $3-7 billion just by increasing people’swillingness to engage in evening work (Cook andLudwig 2000).

Scholars examining the costs of crime havepointed out that the lack of a standardized meth-odology at the international level makes the com-parison of national estimates problematic (Lee andThorns 2003). Estimates of the costs of gun crimeare even more troublesome, as it is difficult to dis-tinguish between those costs attributable specifi-cally to firearms and those related to crime in gen-eral. The debate would greatly benefit from futureresearch that

• used a standardized methodology and thereforewould permit international comparisons, and

• sought to compare the costs imposed by guncrime to those imposed by overall crime.

TThhee IInnttaannggiibbllee IImmppaaccttss ooff GGuunn VViioolleennccee

Anthropologists and sociologists have docu-mented the various ways in which individuals andcommunities experience and are affected by gunviolence. These impacts can include declines inphysical and mental health among witnesses of gunviolence (Greenspan and Kellerman 2002; Brent et

al. 1993). Participatory studies in Jamaica haveshown that people living in areas affected by armedviolence are discriminated against in the job mar-ket and refuse to report crime to the authoritiesdue to fear of retaliation (Moser and Holland,1997).

While it is recognised that armed violence canaffect people’s lives in many ways, intangibleimpacts are, by definition, difficult to quantify.Such costs include pain, disability, loss of life, andanguish to friends and family. These are by far thelargest costs of gun violence. A promising attemptto measure such costs was made in the UnitedStates, using contingent-valuation surveys. By ask-ing respondents how much they would be willingto pay to reduce the number of gun injuries, thisstudy estimated that the intangible and tangiblecosts of gun violence amounted to $80 billion ayear (Cook and Ludwig 2000).

There has been no attempt to quantify theintangible impacts of gun violence outside of theUS. While much work has been done to identifysuch impacts, findings would be much more sig-nificant if it were possible to

• compare the intangible costs of gun violenceat the international level, using a standardizedmethodology, and

• compare the intangible costs of gun violence tothose incurred from overall violence, using astandardized methodology. As with tangiblecosts, the ultimate goal should be to determinewhat percentage of the intangible costs of generalcrime can be attributed to gun crime.

These goals could be pursued by, for example,adapting the contingent-valuation methodologydeveloped in the United States study to other con-texts. Instruments developed by psychologists tomeasure trauma could also be usefully adapted tothese purposes.

23

RReeffeerreenncceess

Ayres I., Donohue J. J. III. 2003. The LatestMisfires in Support of the More Guns, LessCrime Hypothesis. Stanford Law Review 55: 1371-86.

Black, D. A. and D. S. Nagin. 1998. Do Right-to-Carry Laws Deter Violent Crime? Journal ofLegal Studies 27: 209-219.

Brent, David et al. 2003. Firearms and Suicide.http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/suicideawareness/16.html (accessed July).

Centers for Disease Control. 2003. First ReportsEvaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies forPreventing Violence: Firearms Laws. Morbidityand Mortality Weekly Report 52: 11-20. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

Cook, Philip. 1979. The Effect of Gun Availabilityon Robbery and Robbery Murder. In R.Haveman and B. Zellner, Policy Studies ReviewAnnual. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

———. 1987. Robbery Violence. Journal ofCriminal Law and Criminology 70(2): 357-76.

——— and Jens Ludwig. 2000. Gun Violence: TheReal Costs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Donohue, John J. III. 2003. The Impact ofConcealed-Carry Laws. In Jens Ludwig andPhilip J. Cook, eds., Evaluating Gun Policy.Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Duggan, Mark. 2001. More Guns, More Crime.Journal of Political Economy 109: 1086-1114.

Greenspan, A. and A. Kellermann. 2002. Physicaland Psychological Outcomes After SeriousGunshot Injury. Journal of Trauma 53: 709-16.

Hemenway, David. 1997. The Myth of Millionsof Self-Defense Gun Uses: An Explanation ofExtreme Overestimates. Chance 10: 6-10.

———. 2004. Private Guns Public Health. AnnArbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Hemenway, David and Matthew Miller. 2000.Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates across26 High Income Countries. Journal of Trauma

49: 985-88.Hemenway, David, Matthew Miller, and Deborah

Azrael. 2000. Gun Use in the United States:Results from Two National Surveys. InjuryPrevention 6: 263-267.

Hepburn, Lisa, Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael,and David Hemenway. 2004. The Effect ofNondiscretionary Concealed Weapon CarryingLaws on Homicide. Journal of Trauma 56: 676-681.

Hepburn, Lisa and David Hemenway. 2004.Firearm Availability and Homicide: A Review ofthe Literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: AReview Journal 9: 417-440.

Killias, Martin, John van Kesteren, and ZorrinRindlisbacher. 2001. Guns, Violent Crime, andSuicide in 21 Countries. Canadian Journal ofCriminology 43: 429-48.

Kleck, Gary. 1997. Targeting Guns: Firearms andTheir Control. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Kovandzic, Tomislav V. and Thomas B. Marvell.2003. Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns andViolent Crime: Crime Control Through GunDecontrol? Criminology and Public Policy 2: 363-96.

Lee, Andrea and Jamie Thorns. 2003. TheEconomic and Social Cost of Crime. Paper pre-sented at the UNICRI/UNODC meeting onthe 2004-2005 World Crime and Justice Report,Turin, 26-28 June.

Lott, John R. Jr. 1998. More Guns, Less Crime.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ludwig, Jens. 1998. Concealed Gun Carrying Lawsand Violent Crime: Evidence from State PanelData. International Review of Law and Economics18: 239-254.

Maltz, M. D. and J. Targonski. 2002. A Note onthe Use of County-Level UCR Data. Journal ofQuantitative Criminology 18: 297-318.

Maltz, M. D. and J. Targonski. 2003. Measure-ment and Other Errors in County-Level UCRData: A Reply to Lott and Whitley. Journal of

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Quantitative Criminology 19: 199-206.Miller, Matthew, Deborah Azrael, and David

Hemenway. 2002a. Household Firearm Own-ership Levels and Homicide Rates across U.S.Regions and States, 1988-1997. American Journalof Public Health 92: 1988-93.

———. 2002b. Firearm Availability and Unin-tentional Firearm Deaths, Suicide, andHomicide among Women. Journal of UrbanHealth 79: 26-38.

Miller, Ted and Mark Cohen. 1996. Costs ofGunshot Injury and Cut/Stab Wounds in theUnited States, with Some Canadian Compar-isons. Accident Analysis and Prevention 29: 329-41.

Moser, Caroline and Jeremy Holland. 1997. UrbanPoverty and Violence in Jamaica. Washington,DC: The World Bank.

Small Arms Survey. 2004. Small Arms Survey 2004:Rights at Risk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

25

A gang member retrieves his gun. In El Salvador, violent mor-tality rates increased after the end of the civil war in 1992, agrowth in crime facilitated by the proliferation of weapons.Similar outcomes of weapons saturation can be found in otherpost-conflict areas.

In 1994 reports about a transfer of surplus gunsappeared in the newspapers of Ethiopia’s capital,Addis Ababa. Truckloads of small arms and lightweapons were exported across the Ethiopian bor-der into conflict-prone Somalia, with the tacitapproval of the government. The long warbetween the Ethiopian government and secession-ist armies in Eritrea and Tigray had ended. Troopswere demobilized and reintegrated into civilian lifeand military bases were closed. What to do withthe surplus weapons? Most of them had been pro-duced in the former Soviet Union, but there werealso a few thousand US M-16 assault rifles origi-nally left behind in Vietnam when US troops madetheir less-than-orderly exit; these were subse-quently exported to Ethiopia and other countries.In the end, many of the guns that had been used togreat devastation in Ethiopia were in turn exportedto other countries. Where are the weapons thatcrossed the border from Ethiopia to Somalia in1994? Still in the hands of Somali warlords? Usedby military or militias in Sudan? Or put to use byrebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Wesimply don’t know. But similar stories are reportedin all war-torn societies.

Following the trail of these weapons—one quitetypical for the many errant guns in Africa and else-where—tells us a great deal about today’s smallarms production, transfer, and stocks. It also saysa lot about what we don’t know. Most of thesearms began as legal weapons—legal in the sensethat governments licensed their production andprocured them for their own armed forces andpolice or exported them to friendly nations. Afterthat, the picture gets blurred. Some weapons are

resold to armed forces around the world; others arestolen by individuals or gangs; and some are lostfrom police or military arsenals or captured byrebels. In fact, in today’s world any person orgroup can buy whatever quantity of small armsthey desire on the international black market, pro-vided they have the right amount of cash or itsequivalent.

On the most general level, understanding pro-duction, arsenals, and transfers of guns—the sup-ply side of the small arms puzzle—involves answer-ing a series of questions. Where are the weaponsresponsible for much of the death and destructionresulting from crime, accidental and self-inflictedinjury, internecine conflict, and organized warfare?Where do they come from? Who produced them?Today, we have only partial answers to these ques-tions.

PPrroodduuccttiioonn

More than a thousand companies, usually smallor medium-sized, in more than 90 countries pro-duce small arms, from revolvers and pistols tomachine guns and man-portable air defense sys-tems (MANPADS). A large number of gun pro-ducers also manufacture ammunition and thecomponents of ammunition, such as propellants,casings, shots, and explosives. The United States isthe most important small arms producing countryin the world, with several hundred companiesinvolved in the business. It is followed by Chinaand the Russian Federation. Yet almost all otherindustrialized countries in North America andEurope (East and West) are home to medium-sizesmall-arms-producing industries. Beyond these

26

Following the Trail:

Production, Arsenals, and Transfers of Small Arms

Anna Khakee and Herbert Wulf

regions, there are significant producers in Brazil,India, Israel, Pakistan, and Singapore, which alladd to the global stock of small arms and lightweapons.

Odd as it may seem, we do not know muchabout the larger historical trends in gun produc-tion. Since weapons are a durable good, historicaltrends are relevant to today’s patterns of use. Riflesused by militia in the Philippines today may havebeen produced as part of the Soviet Army’s plansfor a European theater of operations in the 1950s or1960s.

The production of small arms and light weaponsdoes not change significantly over short periods oftime. Government contracts for new weapons, thestaple of the defense industry, are infrequent andrenewal of stocks is incremental. While armedforces are usually interested in procuring the mostsophisticated weaponry, they simultaneously holdon to their proven stock of small arms. For exam-ple, while research and development producessome cutting-edge weapons—such as computer-ized fire-control systems for assault rifles, air-bursting munitions, and satellite-directed mortarammunition—armed forces generally continue todemand simple weapons systems. Even the mostmodern armed forces employ assault rifles, thebasic designs of which have changed little since themid-20th century. Assessing changes in produc-tion would entail a long-term view, describing howweapons production has evolved with changingpatterns of demand.

While we have a good general picture of today’sglobal small arms industry—its size, profitability(or lack thereof ), main players, trends towards pri-vatization, mergers and acquisitions—some impor-tant trends at the level of the individual firm arestill obscure. Why is it, for instance, that in anindustry struggling for contracts and profitability,some companies are able to achieve sustainedgrowth? The success of companies such as HSProduct of Croatia and Taurus of Brazil is impor-

tant. These firms represent a challenge to estab-lished patterns of production, marked by Westerndominance and a core of large producing countriesand most sought-after products. Such companiescan propel a country’s lagging arms industry into asignificant place in the world’s arms market.Understanding these companies’ production andsales policies will also tell us more about tomor-row’s proliferation problems: What countries andcustomers are likely to purchase the products ofthese companies? How likely are criminals to seekout these guns?

An interesting example of how firms can enternew segments of the market is the Austrian firmGlock. In the early 1980s, the Austrian militarydecided to buy a new duty pistol. Although pistolswere not in the company’s product line at thattime, the order was placed with Glock, the nationalsmall arms manufacturer. The founder of the com-pany, engineer Gaston Glock, had specialized incombining plastic and steel components, a usefultechnology in small arms production. Twentyyears later Glock reportedly sells 2,500,000 pistolsper year in more than 100 countries and boastsabout its dominant share in the market for pistols.How did this happen? What were the mechanismsbehind Glock’s success?

AArrsseennaallss

There are at least 640 million firearms in theworld. As of yet, weapons destruction is not mak-ing any significant dent in these arsenals, althoughat least eight million firearms have been destroyedthrough formal disarmament programs in the lastdecade. We can also say with some confidence thatthere are approximately 500,000 MANPADS mis-siles and some 100,000 launchers, approximately22 million RPG launchers, and roughly 780,000small-caliber mortar tubes worldwide.

The greatest numbers of death and injury arecaused not by the small arms inventories of armedforces, police, or insurgencies, but by civilian own-

27

ers. Global civilian gun ownership is much greaterthan military or police arsenals: approximately 55per cent of known global stockpiles are owned bycivilians, with 41 per cent held by the military and3 percent by police. This lopsided ratio poses aformidable challenge to the state monopoly offorce. Typical civilian ownership is 10-15 guns per100 residents, and typical gun owners have roughlythree guns each. The United States is home to thelargest share of the civilian firearms pool.

Theft, pilferage, and loss release large numbersof small arms. Indeed, global theft accounts forat least one million missing guns each year.Catastrophic loss of control can release enormousnumbers. Albanian state authorities lost approxi-mately 640,000 small arms in 1997 when the econ-omy and then the government collapsed. In Iraq,at least four million guns went missing in 2003after the US-led invasion. Despite the overwhelm-ing importance of stockpile management, many ofthe world’s official institutions do not have reliableinformation on small arms possession in theircountries.

Our understanding of how to regulate and man-age existing arsenals to minimize the risks is stillpoor. A prominent example is disarmament—ahighly visible and politically important instrumentfor dealing with small arms proliferation—and itseffects. In the above-mentioned example of disar-mament in Ethiopia, the reduction of arms inEthiopian military hands contributed to gun traf-ficking in the region. How can small arms disar-mament be best achieved without producing coun-terproductive effects?

A better understanding of small arms arsenalsaround the world would make it easier to deter-mine the source of arms used to intimidate,wound, and kill. Should research and policy focusprimarily on illegal small arms, as in the UNprocess to combat small arms trafficking, or shouldthey encompass legal small arms as well? Whenshould civilian firearms ownership be regulated or

denied? Many guns are essentially invisible andunlikely to be involved in causing any direct harm.Some simply collect dust for years on end. Othersare extremely dangerous. What distinguishes theleast dangerous guns from their most deadly coun-terparts? Can regulation distinguish between thosesmall arms least likely and those most likely to beabused?

AArrmmss TTrraannssffeerrss

Today, there is a fairly good knowledge base onthe value of government-authorized (“legal”) tradeof small arms and light weapons between Westerncountries. The picture of authorized transfers fromWestern states to the rest of the world is also fairlyclear, although, unsurprisingly, details of some ofthe more controversial and secretive deals stillelude us. According to the latest available data andestimates, the largest small arms exporters by valueare the United States, Italy, Belgium, Germany, theRussian Federation, Brazil, and China. Theworld’s largest importers are the United States,Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Japan, South Korea,Germany, and Canada. The authorized trade insmall arms and light weapons is worth an esti-mated USD 4 billion per year.

There is still only a patchy understanding of theauthorized trade of many of the big actors outsidethe Western world, especially the Russian Feder-ation and China. Transactions of many smallernon-Western exporters are also poorly docu-mented. Hence, there are countries that are knownto be medium producers of small arms but aboutwhose exports we know virtually nothing. Theseinclude such countries as Iran, Pakistan, andSingapore.

The production of weapons by a firm in onecountry under license by a company in anothercountry, known as licensed production, is under-researched, as is the trade related to it. Licensedproduction is particularly important to understandbecause companies can evade their own national

28

laws or international embargoes on sales to certaincountries by having the “dirty work” conducted byfirms in countries that are not subject to the sameconstraints. An example of this involves the G3, asubmachine gun developed and produced origi-nally in Germany. The producer company, Heckler& Koch, was allowed to sell licences to about adozen countries, including Pakistan, Iran, Malay-sia, Thailand, Turkey, and Mexico. When theGerman government tightened export controls, ithad no control whatsoever over the license-pro-duced weapons. These weapons, as well as smallarms produced under license from many otherimportant producing countries, are used in all themajor conflicts.

Often governments sell their surplus stocks.The destruction of weapons is costly, and theexport of weapons can help to improve a tightdefense budget. A case in point is Germany afterreunification in the early 1990s, when the WestGerman armed forces, the Bundeswehr, inheritedall the materiel of the former East German forces.The list of weapons included major conventionalweapons as well as about 1.2 mil-lion small arms. The Bundeswehradopted very few weapons foruse; much of the stock wasdestroyed. But about 40 percentwas exported, including morethan 310,000 machine guns, anti-tank guns, and submachine gunsto Turkey, which were subse-quently used in the conflictagainst the Kurds. In recentyears, international pressure hasled governments to increasinglyconsider the destruction of suchweapons. However, informationon deals in secondhand weaponsis as a rule patchier than that onnewly produced small arms.

As the introductory example

illustrates, the links between the authorized andthe illicit markets (i.e., how arms that are pro-duced/first sold on the authorized market are sub-sequently diverted into the gray or black markets)are quite well understood. There are numerousreports by researchers, NGOs, and intergovern-mental bodies detailing the anatomy of individualillicit deals in small arms and light weapons. Ofthe various actors involved in an illicit deal (finan-ciers, brokers, shipping agents, insurance compa-nies, etc.), the role of brokers—the “fixers” of thedeal—is the best understood. They act as media-tors between buyer and seller and usually arrangefor the necessary documentation, transportation,and often also financing of the deals. While manyillegal transactions arranged by brokers to eitheravoid national controls or bust UN sanctions havebecome public, most of them have probably neverbeen discovered. Brokers have, in supplyingweapons to the belligerents in war-torn countriessuch as Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, falsifiedor arranged for dubious end-user certificates1 tohide the true and intended destination of weapons,

Anti-tank weapons seized in connection with an attempt to smugglegrenade launchers, shoulder-fired missiles, and other weapons into the

United States from eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

30

hired air cargo companies willing to fly into com-bat zones, and paid kick-backs to corrupt officialsto cover up the paper trail of their illegal deals.The control of arms brokers—currently only aminority of the world’s states have legislation totackle the problem—would add substantially tothe transparency of a market which is oftenclouded by secrecy. There is only limited docu-mentation of the transport and logistics of the armstrade, apart from air transport. Furthermore, theknowledge of the financial infrastructure involvedin illicit small arms deals is patchy. Links betweenthe trade in different illicit commodities (weapons,drugs, human beings, precious gems and metals,etc.) are only partially elucidated.

Although particular illicit small arms deals aredocumented, there is still no comprehensiveoverview of the illicit market in small arms avail-able. This is no doubt in part because it is moredifficult to gain a full picture of the illicit smallarms trade than, say, the illicit drug trade, as smallarms demand can shift more quickly and radicallythan demand in other illicit commodities. Also, itis arguably more difficult to assess the trade of adurable good than a consumer good such as drugs.

TThhee SSuuppppllyy SSiiddee

Small arms transfers do not influence the relativemilitary might of the majority of the world’s states.Yet the amount of small arms and ammunition

available can tip the military balance between state(and/or nonstate) actors in conflicts where fewmajor conventional weapons are available. This isthe case in a number of internal conflicts in Africa,Asia, and Latin America. Often, small arms are theonly type of weapons available to insurgent groups,thereby determining to what extent armed upris-ings are possible.

Although not normally considered strategicallyimportant, small arms and light weapons are dom-inant in many current conflicts. In fact, whilemost major conventional weapons produced andtransferred are never used in actual combat, smallarms are among the military equipment that ismost likely to be employed in conflict today. Theyare also regularly involved directly in human rightsviolations in states not involved in conflict.Furthermore, in many societies, violent crimecommitted with guns is so common as to threatenthe economic and social basis of the community.In light of all this, we need more research follow-ing the trails of small arms production, arsenals,and transfers.

NNootteess

1. End-user certificates are documents provided bythe country of destination of the weapons assuring theauthorities of exporting countries that the final use/userof the weapons is legitimate.

IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn

Supply and demand are routinely invoked todescribe alternatively how small arms proliferate,ways of managing and regulating their availability,and specific interventions to mitigate their effects.Although both supply and demand are acknowl-edged as integral to arms control and disarmament,in practice attention is devoted predominantly toregulating supplies, not demand: managing stock-piles, controlling brokers, marking and tracingfirearms, and strengthening export controls andend-user certification.

But recent experience on the ground suggeststhat lasting violence reduction, even prevention,depends on demand-side interventions. Ulti-mately, reducing the human costs of arms requiresunderstanding and addressing factors that drivetheir individual and collective acquisition, notjust their provision. Measures toregulate or limit the supply offirearms will have limited utility ifdemand for weapons creates orturns to alternative supply channels.

We begin this chapter with a review of supplyand demand as they relate to the disarmament dis-course and then summarize an unusual approachto conceptualising demand for small arms.Drawing on Muggah and Brauer (2004), theapproach focuses on preferences, prices, andresources—that is means and motivations—as fac-tors shaping small arms acquisition and use.Finally, we turn to four cases where this demandmodel has been tested: Papua New Guinea, theSolomon Islands, South Africa, and the US.

SSuuppppllyy aanndd DDeemmaanndd CChhaaiinnss

Figure 1 shows one way of depicting a standardsupply chain for small arms, from production tostockpiling, brokering, trading, and shipping, toend-use. Conventional approaches to understand-ing supply conceive of intervention (i.e., efforts atarms control or disarmament) as analysis andaction taken at different points along this chain.At each stage of the supply chain, specific inter-ventions are elaborated that might reduce or con-trol the stocks and flows of weapons, from conver-sion in the manufacturing sector to the markingand tracing of individual firearms, with the ulti-mate aim of reducing their availability. The spe-cific mechanisms articulated in the UN Pro-gramme of Action as well as various parallel smallarms control initiatives (e.g., the consultations toagree on the regulation of brokers, marking and

tracing negotiations) also can largely bearranged along this supply chain.1

An approach incorporating a demand perspec-tive would recognize that each link in the chainconstitutes a market of its own, i.e., producers sup-ply and wholesalers demand; wholesalers supplyand brokers demand; brokers supply and retailersdemand; retailers supply and end-users demand.Rather than being relegated to the end-user por-tion of the spectrum, as is usually done, demand isa central feature across all links of the supply chain.This chain could as reasonably be called, therefore,

31

Means and Motivations:

Rethinking Small Arms Demand

Robert Muggah, Jurgen Brauer, David Atwood, and Sarah Meek

production stockpiles and stockpile management brokering trade and transfer end-use

Fig. 1. Thesupply chain

the “demand chain.” This conceptualization drawsattention to the mutuality of supply and demandand makes clear that demand-oriented interven-tions can be initiated at places other than the end-use stage.

TThhrreeee DDiimmeennssiioonnss ooff DDeemmaanndd

Demand for small arms and light weapons(SALW) arises from at least three sources: demandby state security sectors, demand by organizedarmed nonstate groups, and micro-level demandexercised by individuals.

demand by armed forces andstate institutions

While lack of reliable information on nationalholdings and procurement decisions limits clarityabout what drives demand from this source, we doknow that the demand for weapons for nationalarmed forces and police is capricious, and dependson such factors as defense policy, procurementcycles, budgetary constraints, force structures andmobilization strategy, and historical precedents.Efforts at increasing transparency in national hold-ings will illuminate this dimension of demand.

demand by armed nonstate groups

This includes arming before and during conflict,perhaps keeping and replenishing stocks duringcease-fires, and the use of arsenals and the threat ofarming as a bargaining chip. A certain amount isalso understood about this dimension of demand.The armed group is a central feature of most con-temporary armed conflicts. Demand is in part afunction of their financial resources, of commandand control structures, and, in particular, of accessto conflict goods. Also important are formal orinformal alliances between and among groups.

demand by individuals

Less attention has been given to understanding athird dimension of demand: those factors affecting

micro-level acquisition and ownership patternsamong civilians and groups in countries affected bylarge-scale societal violence. The remainder of thisarticle focuses principally on this category ofdemanders. Failure to understand this group risksthe misapplication of effort and resources in inter-vention strategies.

Donor governments, affected countries, the UNDepartment for Peacekeeping (DPKO), the WorldBank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP),and a host of nongovernmental organizations areinitiating a range of interventions, such asamnesties, disarmament, demobilisation and rein-tegration (DDR) programs, awareness and publicinformation campaigns, and weapons-for-develop-ment schemes that emphasize removal of weaponsfrom communities and armed actors. But many ofthese initiatives fail to capture the range of motiva-tions underpinning weapons acquisition. Forexample, Kenyan herders, according to Weiss(2004), “often referred to coercive weapons collec-tion as 'forced upgrades' because the only net effectis the need to replace seized guns with the newermodels now available on the market.” Clearly,appraising demand at this micro-level is vital toimproving the effectiveness of such programs andthe design of others.

UUnnppaacckkiinngg MMiiccrroo--LLeevveell DDeemmaanndd

In recent years, modest levels of attention havebegun to be paid to understanding factors drivingmicro-level demand. A number of quantitativestudies have highlighted the relationships betweenpoverty and income inequality (independent vari-ables) and firearm homicide to explain demand forweapons.2 Criminologists and sociologists haveanalyzed the relationships among delinquency,repeat offenders, dysfunctional families, andweapons use. Qualitative research has drawn onthe experiences of community-based organizationsand development agencies seeking to reduce levelsof armed violence in areas where they operate. A

32

range of international workshops3 have compiled anumber of common approaches to violence reduc-tion and lessening the demand for small arms.4

But demand-related research has thus far beengeneral, and little is known about how demand fac-tors relate to each other or to what extent inter-ventions designed to reduce demand genuinelyaffect the incidence of armed violence. In somecases, demand for firearms is equated with demandfor violence, an assumption that does not apply inall scenarios. Moreover, research has been slow tofilter up to policy-makers and diplomats. The con-cept of demand remains an elusive subject area tothose involved in designing and negotiating armscontrol initiatives. As a result, demand continuesto be undervalued and ignored.

A recent paper by Muggah and Brauer (2004)introduces a new way to think about demand, newat any rate for much of the pertinent communityof diplomats, researchers, and field workers.5 Theapproach focuses on means and motivation, that is,on individual and group preferences for weapons

and on the monetary and nonmonetary resourcesrequired and real and relative prices asked forfirearms. It is important to jointly evaluate allthree aspects. For example, a seemingly tranquil,weaponless community may in fact be seethingwith desire for armament (high preferences), onlyto be prevented from implementing its desires bylack of resources and/or weapons prices regarded astoo high relative to other needs.

The majority of activist and policy-orientedreports on demand, such as they are, have focusedprimarily on the motivations (or “preferences”) forarming, to the exclusion of a consideration of themeans (resources and the price constraint).Demand from this perspective is seen as a cluster ofmutually reinforcing cultural, economic, andpolitical preferences for owning a weapon. It canbe, inter alia, a function of inherited and sociallyconstructed ideas about masculinity, the unam-biguous and seemingly rational pursuit of self-pro-tection, or a means to fulfilling a legitimate liveli-hood option. Multiple preferences can operatesimultaneously, and they are dynamic across timeand space. For example, a homeowner's belief thata weapon is necessary for family protection maychange if she feels community-watch schemes arenow providing sufficient security, even as her “deep

preference”—security for herfamily—remains an impor-tant motivating concern.

It is important to recognizethat preferences are not neces-sarily confined to the individ-ual, but can also be collec-tively realized. Ethnographicresearch in Nuer society inSouth Sudan, by Evans-Pritchard in the 1930s andHutchinson in recent years,provides evidence of a shiftfrom a group-based premiumon weapons to an individual-

33

Arms reduction or forced-upgrade program?End users will seek to replace confiscatedweapons if efforts to reduce the supply ofsmall arms aren’t supplemented by strategiesto reduce demand. Bonfire preparations,Kenya, 2003.

level preference:

In the mid-1980’s, roughly 75 years after the firstintroduction of small arms to the Nuers of easternUpper Nile, Hutchinson found a culture where displayand use of weapons confirmed masculine identity andNuer-historic identification as proud warriors. Throughthe collective ownership and presentation in the bride-wealth exchange, guns contributed to a social expansionof self. Weapons ranged high in value and status, andthe symbolic meaning was in line with the general ethicof the society.

Through the next 15 years of civil war, small armsproliferated at an accelerating pace among the civil pop-ulation. With increased access and a near-saturatedmarket, the price of guns fell, making procurement ofweapons a matter of individual capacity and, to someextent, initiative and creativity. Individualised owner-ship led to the development of a sub-culture of armedyouth, undermining the positive valuation of weaponsas a symbol of collective spirit. What used to be a strongsymbol of willingness to defend families, wealth andcultural integrity became tools for antisocial behaviourand further withering of cultural values.6

In the Nuer case, growth in the supply ofweapons attendant to civil war was clearly a factorin the proliferation of individual ownership. It isjust as clear, however, that an increase in individualdesire for weapons has occurred. But the Nuer casealso shows that while individual and collectivepreferences are key factors in demand for weapons,they are not the whole story.

Demand is also a function of real and relativeprices, which are a constraint on the realization ofpreferences. The extent to which one's preferencefor gun ownership or possession can be realized isin part a function of the price of the weapon, theprice of necessary complements (e.g., bullets,maintenance expense, time spent training, even thepsychological discomfort of carrying a gun), andthe price of acceptable offensive or defensive sub-stitutes (e.g, time devoted to community policing).The examples below illustrate that the price of gunownership is not exclusively a monetary concept.The monetary price of an AK-47 in a particularsetting may be low while its nonmonetary pricemay simultaneously be high if the cost of acquiring

the weapon includes a high probability of receivingpenalties for illegal possession (Muggah and Brauer2004).

The relationships determining demand are actu-ally expressed in the (legal or illegal) marketplaceand are further conditioned by resources. Onemay have a high preference for obtaining a weaponand the price may be low, but if personal or groupresources are lacking, demand cannot be fulfilled.Resources may be monetary but may also be non-monetary tradable commodities (livestock, dia-monds, timber, and even women), as well as orga-nizational capacity, access to enabling networks(e.g., weapons brokers), and even weapons them-selves (as tools for obtaining income or for stealingother weapons). For example, individual or groupaccess to alternative forms of dealing with conflict(such as community conflict handling traditions)may be a “resource” which can be called uponbefore “demanding” a weapon, whatever the inher-ent preferences for weapons and however low theprice.

The demand model reveals that specific policychoices and interventions, if uninformed by anunderstanding of all three factors, can generatecounterproductive results. Economic incentiveschemes aimed at providing alternatives to crimi-nality and firearm use may increase the resourcespool available for the purchase of weapons, possi-bly driving up demand if preferences—for exam-ple, the “macho” symbolism of automatic weaponsin some cultural settings—are not simultaneouslyaddressed. Many buyback schemes have con-tributed to this type of scenario (GAO 2000).Moreover, as pointed out above, in some commu-nities the choice to acquire a weapon is not neces-sarily rendered individually but influenced by aseries of collective decision-making processes.

The model also suggests that policy choices maybe enriched by examining why some individualsand groups ultimately do not choose to acquiresmall arms.

34

DDeemmaanndd iinn PPrraaccttiiccee

The past ten years have witnessed an explosionof both armed violence and weapons-reductioninitiatives around the world. The UNDP alonesupports more than 45 micro-disarmament proj-ects in over 40 countries. The World Bank hasfinanced and overseen over 15 demobilization andreintegration projects (DRPs) since the mid-1990s.7 NGOs and community-based develop-ment agencies have initiated literally thousands ofprojects addressing gun availability in order to con-tribute to the improvement of community safetyand wellbeing. To illustrate, we provide a cursoryreview of a small sample of such initiatives.

papua new guinea

Popularly perceived as a heavily armed society,Papua New Guinea in fact has comparatively fewcommercially manufactured firearms.8 Nonethe-less, a considerable diversity of weapons is avail-able, and they are being used to devastating effect,particularly in the capital, Port Moresby, and theSouthern Highlands. Tribal violence in the capitalof the Southern Highlands, Mendi, peaked tounprecedented levels between 2001 and 2002.Concentrated primarily between two tribes, at least120 people were shot and killed and hundreds morewounded. During previous inter-communal con-flicts waged with bows and arrows or bladedweapons, as few as one or two people would beseriously or fatally injured. Without governmentsupport, a reconciliation process and an informalpeace agreement were organized in 2002 by anumber of faith-based organizations. This agree-ment, brokered by May 2002, offered closure tothe three-year conflict. Among other items, com-mitments were signed to dismiss mercenary gun-men, entrust all firearms to local leaders, cease thepublic display of offensive weapons, and cooperatewith police to restrict alcohol and marijuana abuse,widely perceived as influencing individual and col-lective preferences for weapons. Although prefer-

ences for weapons apparently remain high, theprice of weapons has risen (due to the social stig-mas to weapons ownership generated by the PeaceAgreement), with no concomitant increase inresources. Because people are increasingly unwill-ing to sell, supply fell and prices rose—even aslatent preferences persisted. As a consequence ofthe higher market price, the quantity demandedfell. More than two years after its signature at apublic ceremony attended by more than 10,000people, the Mendi Peace Agreement has survivedwith only minor breaches.

the solomon islands

In response to insecurity generated by compet-ing rebel factions on the islands of Guadalcanaland Malaita, a number of Pacific countries launcheda 2,500-strong Regional Assistance Mission in theSolomon Islands (RAMSI) in 2003. At the sametime, the country's National Peace Council (NPC),in cooperation with the UNDP, initiated aWeapons Free Village (WFV) campaign to simul-taneously reinforce efforts at reconciliation andreduce weapons availability in more than 1,200communities.9 The WFV encourages communi-ties to eliminate weapons through a combinationof collective incentives and a formal certificationprocess with the assistance of independent moni-tors. Since its inception in August 2002, morethan 974 villages, over three quarters of the target,have been declared weapons free in public cere-monies. Although a mere 22 weapons were actu-ally returned to the NPC prior to the arrival ofRAMSI, some fifty percent of the 3,730 weaponscollected during the August 2003 amnesty are saidto have been transferred to RAMSI via NPC rep-resentatives (Nelson and Muggah 2004). Whilethe preference for weapons for hunting and pest-control purposes remains and the resources availablefor acquisition have grown due to considerableinvestment of overseas development assistance(and resumption of commercial activity in the

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aftermath of the tensions), it is believed that theprice of weapons has increased dramatically sincethe inception of the two interventions because ofthe enforced penalties that have been initiatedsince September 2003 and the stigmas associatedwith firearm ownership. Thus, as in the case of theSolomon Islands, fewer people are prepared to sellweapons, despite preferences for acquisition(Muggah 2004). There has been only one firearm-related homicide reported in the Solomon Islandssince the inception of the programs.

south africa

Gun Free South Africa launched the Gun FreeZone (GFZ) project in 1996 in order to reducewhat was then one of the world's highest firearmhomicide rates. Firearm-related violence was atepidemic levels in urban South Africa and formalpolicing approaches were not working effectively,so the explicit objective was to transform attitudestoward guns by creating areas in which firearmsand ammunition were stigmatized. In otherwords, the project sought to raise the nonmonetaryprice of weapons in the short-run and reduce long-run preferences for gun acquisition and ownership.Some of these GFZs involve strict enforcement (asin the case of businesses and government offices)with coercive deterrents (e.g., police) while othersrely on “voluntary compulsion” (many neighbor-hoods and communities). Rather than strengthenprivate monetary resources, the project sought tostrengthen social nonmonetary resources, such asby nurturing and consolidating community net-works, to direct communities to alternatives toarmed violence.10 In addition, drawing on Section140 of the Firearm Control Act (2000), Gun FreeSouth Africa undertook a project to initiate“Firearm Free Zones” (FFZ) in 27 schools in fiveprovinces. It gathered together school governingbodies, teachers and administrators, students, andpolice in a dialogue to identify key problems andestablish “Safety Teams” to implement appropriate

policies. Although none has as yet been officiallydeclared an FFZ by the Ministry of Safety andSecurity, 17 schools have adopted FFZ policies(Kirsten et al. 2004).

United States: Begun in 1995, the Boston GunProject is a problem-oriented policing initiativedesigned to confront spiralling youth homicidevictimization in Boston and serves as a test case forother inner city areas of the US.11 Set up by theNational Institute of Justice and Harvard Univer-sity, a working group was established that includeda combination of government and nongovernmentparticipants.12 The Operation Ceasefire interven-tion began in mid-1996 and entailed an innovativepartnership between researchers and practitionersto assess the city's youth homicide problem anddesign an intervention to reduce it. OperationCeasefire was based on a deterrence strategy thatfocused criminal justice attention (increased polic-ing, enforcement, and improved legal processing)on a small number of chronically offending gang-involved youth. The deterrent effect of focusedpolicing rapidly increased the price of weaponsacquisition while simultaneously reducing prefer-ences through perceived improvements in commu-nity safety and security. An impact evaluationundertaken following Operation Ceasefire indi-cated that the project was associated with signifi-cant reductions in violence indicators, such asyouth homicide victimization, “shots fired” callsfor service, and the incidence of gun assaults inBoston.13

Many other examples that shed light on howdemand for small arms can be mitigated could becited, including interventions in Cambodia,Kosovo, and Kenya, where the Arid Lands Projecthas apparently reduced firearms violence overwater resources during periods of drought throughbetter prediction of dry periods and negotiationsfor access to water (Weiss 2004).14

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CCoonncclluussiioonnss

The demand model summarized in this articleserves at least two purposes. First, it demonstratesthat the small arms issue cannot be conceived ofsolely from a supply-side perspective; indeed, theexclusive focus on the supply side may lead to inap-propriate policies. Second, the means and motiva-tions (or preferences, prices, and resources)approach handily categorizes a set of issues of anotherwise vast scale and complexity and reducesthem to an analytically tractable framework fromwhich action-oriented research and policy strategyflows.

The demand framework has conceptual andpractical applications. It demonstrates fallacies ofa one-size-fits-all approach to reducing the demandfor small arms. The theory predicts, for instance,that the provision of development assistance(resources) in a context where preferences for smallarms are high and prices low may have ambiguous,as opposed to positive, impacts on the availabilityand use of small arms. Generating a more sophisti-cated understanding of how preferences, resources,and prices influence the demand for firearms couldusefully inform both disarmament and develop-ment interventions.

NNootteess1. The United Nations convened a Conference on

the Illicit Trade of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Allits Aspects in July 2001. The Conference resulted in aProgramme of Action which (politically) committedstates to, among other things, making illicit firearmmanufacture and possession a criminal offense; identify-ing and destroying surplus weapons; tracking officiallyheld weapons; notifying original supplier nations of “re-export”; undertaking disarmament, demobilization, andreintegration (DDR); supporting regional agreementsand moratoria; marking and tracing of weapons; andimproving information exchange and the enforcementof arms embargoes.

2. See, for example, Small Arms Survey 2001 and2003, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. See Buchanan and Atwood 2003, Jackman 2003,and WHO 2002.

4. A number of studies reveal common patterns asso-ciated with the demand for weapons as well as interven-tions that appear to reduce preferences for weapons.These include (1) initiatives aimed at strengthening selfworth, identity, and positive social roles for individuals,especially children and youth, and particularly boys; (2)programs focused on community economic and socialdevelopment, with broad participation in creating jobs,housing, recreation opportunities, schooling, and cleanwater; (3) approaches to improve the capacity to resolveconflict nonviolently, including conflict-managementtraining and direct intergroup peacemaking, sometimesusing traditional indigenous processes; (4) policies tostrengthen governance so that it is more accountable tothe society it serves, establishing community policing,reforming and retraining the police, and working for anhonest, independent judiciary; and (5) broad efforts toimprove public access to government, increase publicparticipation in government, and end the marginaliza-tion of some groups.

5. For a fully elaborated explication of this theory ofdemand, see Muggah and Brauer 2004 and Brauer andMuggah 2006 (forthcoming). See also Muggah 2004.

6. A. Skedsmo, K. Danhier, and H. Gor Luak, “TheChanging Meaning of Small Arms in Nuer Society,”African Security Review 12: 65-66, 2003.

7. See, for example, the Small Arms Survey 2005(forthcoming), “Post-What: Disarmament, Demobiliza-tion, and Reintegration and Weapons Reduction in theAftermath of War.” Oxford: Oxford University Press.

8. See Muggah 2004.9. See, for example, the report by Nelson and

Muggah (2004) at http://www.smallarmssurvey.org.10. The Small Arms Survey has commissioned an

evaluation of the Gun Free Zone initiative to test theassumption that it has successfully reduced demand.Results will be published and distributed in 2005.

11. Overall youth homicide had increased 230 percent—from 22 victims in 1987 to 73 victims in 1990—while averaging some 44 per year between 1991 and 1995.

12. Including the Boston Police Department; theMassachusetts departments of probation and parole; theoffice of the Suffolk County District Attorney; the officeof the United States Attorney; the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms; the Massachusetts Departmentof Youth Services (juvenile corrections); Boston SchoolPolice; and gang outreach and prevention “street work-ers” attached to the Boston Community Centers pro-gram. Regular partners later in the process included theTen Point Coalition of activist black clergy, the Drug

37

Enforcement Administration, the Massachusetts StatePolice, and the office of the Massachusetts AttorneyGeneral.

13. Moreover, a comparative analysis of youth homi-cide trends in Boston relative to other major cities inboth the region and the nation also supports a uniqueprogram effect of the Ceasefire intervention.

14. For more on these interventions, see the UNDPBureau for Conflict Prevention and Recovery (BCPR)website: http://www.undp.org/bcpr/smallarms/.

RReeffeerreenncceess

Brauer, J. and R. Muggah. 2006 (forthcoming).Small Arms Demand: Theory and InitialEvidence. The Journal of Contemporary SecurityPolicy: Special Edition.

Brett, R. and I. Specht. 2004. Young Soldiers: WhyThey Choose to Fight. New York: Lynne ReinerPublishers.

Buchanan, C. and D. Atwood. 2002. Curbing theDemand for Small Arms: Focus on Southeast Asia.Geneva: Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue andQuaker United Nations Office.

Dowdney, L. 2003. Children of the Drug Trade: ACase Study of Children in Organised ArmedViolence in Rio de Janeiro. ISER / Viva Rio, Riode Janeiro 7 Letras.

Eschete, T. and S. O'Reilly-Calthrop. 2000. SilentRevolution: The Role of Community inReducing the Demand for Small Arms. WorldVision. http://www.worldvision.ca/home/media/SilentRevolution.pdf

GAO. 2000. Conventional Arms Transfers: USEfforts to Control the Availability of Small Armsand Light Weapons. Report to the HonorableDianne Feinstein. Washington: US GovernmentAccountability Office.

Gebre-Wold, K. and I. Mason. (eds.) 2002. SmallArms in the Horn of Africa: Challenges, Issuesand Perspectives. Brief 23. Bonn InternationalCentre for Conversion.

Jackman, D. 2003. Lessening the Demand for

Small Arms and Light Weapons. Summary ofInternational Workshops, 1999-2002. Geneva:Quaker United Nations Office.

Kirsten, A., Lephophoto Mashike, R. Mat-shedisho, and J. Cock. 2004. Islands of Safetyin a Sea of Guns: Gun-Free Zones. In Fothane,Diepkloof, and Khayelitsh, Special Report to theSmall Arms Survey. Geneva: SAS.

McIntyre, A. and T. Weiss. 2003. Exploring SmallArms Demand—A Youth Perspective. ISS PaperNo. 66. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.

Muggah, R. 2004. Diagnosing Demand: Meansand Motivations for Small Arms in Papua NewGuinea and the Solomon Islands. ANU-SSGMDiscussion Paper 7(1).

——— and R. Brauer. 2004. Diagnosing Small-Arms Demand: A Multi-disciplinary Approach.School of Economics and Management Dis-cussion Paper 50. University of Kwazulu-Natal.

Nelson, C. and R. Muggah. 2004. EvaluatingWeapons Free Villages in the Solomon Islands.Geneva/Australia: SAS/ANU.

Regehr, E. 2004. Reducing the Demand for SmallArms and Light Weapons: Priorities for theInternational Community. Working Paper 04-2,Project Ploughshares.

Small Arms Survey. 2000. Small Arms Survey 2001:Profiling the Problem. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press.

———. 2003. Small Arms Survey 2003: Dev-elopment Denied. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

———. 2005 (forthcoming). Small Arms Survey2005: Weapons at War. Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press.

Weiss T. 2004. Guns in the Borderlands: Reducingthe Demand for Small Arms. Monograph 95.Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.

WHO. 2003. Global Report on Violence. Geneva:Oxford University Press.

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CONTRIBUTORS

David C. Atwood is the Representative of Disarmament and Peace for theGeneva-based Quaker United Nations Office.

Jurgen Brauer is Professor of Economics at Augusta State University.

Nicolas Florquin is a researcher with the Small Arms Survey at the GraduateInstitute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

William Godnick is Senior Policy Adviser for Latin America for the NGOInternational Alert and a research fellow with the Centre for InternationalCooperation and Security at the University of Bradford (UK).

Anna Khakee works as a consultant to the Small Arms Survey. Her special-ization is small arms transfers.

Edward J. Laurance is Professor of International Policy Studies at theMonterey Institute of International Studies and also directs the Program onSecurity and Development.

Sarah Meek is the Head of the Arms Management Programme at the Institutefor Security Studies in South Africa.

Robert Muggah is Project Manager of the Small Arms Survey at the GraduateInstitute of International Studies and a doctoral candidate at the University ofOxford.

Rachel Stohl is Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information inWashington, DC.

Joel Wallman is Senior Program Officer at the Harry Frank GuggenheimFoundation.

Herbert Wulf is former Director of the Bonn International Center forConversion (BICC). He is Chair of the Governing Board of InternationalSecurity Information Service Europe in Brussels and Chief Technical Advisiorto UN Development Programme on arms control in North Korea.

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