Gun Trafficking and Violence: From The Global Network to The Local Security Challenge [1 ed.] 9783030656355, 9783030656362

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ST ANTONY’S SERIES

Gun Trafficking and Violence From The Global Network to The Local Security Challenge Edited by David Pérez Esparza · Carlos A. Pérez Ricart · Eugenio Weigend Vargas

St Antony’s Series

Series Editors Dan Healey St Antony’s College University of Oxford Oxford, UK Leigh Payne St Antony’s College University of Oxford Oxford, UK

The St Antony’s Series publishes studies of international affairs of contemporary interest to the scholarly community and a general yet informed readership. Contributors share a connection with St Antony’s College, a world-renowned centre at the University of Oxford for research and teaching on global and regional issues. The series covers all parts of the world through both single-author monographs and edited volumes, and its titles come from a range of disciplines, including political science, history, and sociology. Over more than forty years, this partnership between St Antony’s College and Palgrave Macmillan has produced about 400 publications. This series is indexed by Scopus.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15036

David Pérez Esparza · Carlos A. Pérez Ricart · Eugenio Weigend Vargas Editors

Gun Trafficking and Violence From The Global Network to The Local Security Challenge

Editors David Pérez Esparza Jill Dando Institute University College London London, UK

Carlos A. Pérez Ricart División de Estudios Internacionales Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) Mexico City, Mexico

Eugenio Weigend Vargas Center for American Progress Washington DC, WA, USA

ISSN 2633-5964 ISSN 2633-5972 (electronic) St Antony’s Series ISBN 978-3-030-65635-5 ISBN 978-3-030-65636-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Hufton+Crow-VIEW/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

The editors are grateful to many people who assisted in the elaboration of this book. We would like to thank Chelsea Parsons for her review and editing contributions to Chapter 3. Institutional support has been offered by the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford, the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City, and the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science. Our biggest appreciation goes to the authors of each one of the chapters of this book. We are truly thankful for their patience and dedication along this process. Similarly, we want to thank the proficiency of Palgrave editors. Finally, we want to thank the support of our families and friends who have supported this project from the very beginning.

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Praise for Gun Trafficking and Violence

“A great source of information for understanding the dynamics of firearm trafficking. An important contribution to the global evidence needed to address it.” —Angela Me, Chief of the Research and Analysis Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “Pérez Esparza, Pérez Ricart and Weigend Vargas have assembled a timely collection with contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners to shed light on the dynamics of illegal arms flows and gun violence, together with innovations to control them. In the process, they make a convincing case for greater global and regional cooperation informed by timely data and analysis.” —Robert Muggah, Co-founder of the Igarapé Institute and The SecDev Group “This is an outstanding book and a must read for anyone with an interest in the use of firearms at global, national or local level. It is a rich source of difficult to find data and sets out the extent to which guns are produced,

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Praise for Gun Trafficking and Violence

trafficked and used in substantial sections of the world. The authors make a strong case for policy change, whilst noting the frequent lack of institutional capacity and political will.” —Gloria Laycock OBE, founding Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London (UCL)

Contents

1

2

An Introduction to “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global Network to the Local Security Challenge” David Pérez Esparza, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, and Eugenio Weigend Vargas 1.1 Introduction to the Edited Volume 1.2 Book Structure The Global Small Arms Trade and Diversions at Transfer Michael Picard, Olena Shumska, and Aaron Karp 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Small Arms Trade in Brief 2.2.1 Arms Trade Statistics: Vital Context 2.2.2 Small Arms Trade Statistics: Strengths and Weaknesses 2.2.3 Tales from the Data Quarry 2.3 American Small Arms Exports and Diversion

1

1 8 19 19 21 21 23 25 26

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Contents

2.4 2.5

Diversions in the Transfer Process Insights from Post-Soviet Countries 2.5.1 Russia to Syria (2012) 2.5.2 Ukraine to South Sudan (2014) 2.5.3 Belarus to Libya (2014) 2.6 Conclusion References 3

Gun Violence and Key Challenges in the United States Eugenio Weigend Vargas, Josh Sugarmann, and Rukmani Bhatia 3.1 Introduction 3.2 How Gun Violence Manifests in the United States 3.2.1 Gun suicides 3.2.2 Gun homicides 3.2.3 Mass shootings 3.2.4 Unintentional Shootings 3.2.5 Gun injuries 3.2.6 School Shootings 3.2.7 U.S. Firearms Abroad 3.3 High Inventory and Gun Ownership 3.4 Addressing Gun Violence Through Effective Policy 3.4.1 Eligibility to Possess Firearms 3.4.2 Background Checks 3.4.3 Addressing Background Check Gaps 3.4.4 Restrictions on Specific Weapons 3.4.5 Extreme Risk Protection Orders 3.4.6 Safe Storage and Child Access Prevention Laws 3.4.7 Local Interventions 3.4.8 Restrictions on Gun Violence Research 3.4.9 Gun Industry Regulation 3.4.10 Concealed Carry

29 33 36 37 38 39 40 51

51 53 53 54 55 56 57 57 57 58 60 60 61 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

Contents

3.4.11 Stand Your Ground 3.5 The NRA and the Firearms Industry 3.6 Conclusions and Lessons References 4

5

Guns in Latin America: Key Challenges from the Most Violent Region on Earth Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, Jerónimo Castillo, Alex Curry, and Mónica Serrano 4.1 Introductions 4.2 Background to the Security Challenge in the Region 4.3 Key Security Challenges in the Region and Key Lessons Learnt 4.3.1 Gun Trafficking Due to Institutional Corruption 4.3.2 Smuggling of Small Quantities of Guns, their Parts, and Components 4.3.3 The Possession of Illegal Guns by Non-state Actors 4.4 Specific Policy Recommendations 4.4.1 Where Are the Hot Spots? 4.4.2 Toward a Strategy of Effective Marking, Record-Keeping, and Tracing Policy for Guns 4.5 Conclusion References Understanding the Flow of Illegal Weapons in Central America Katherine Aguirre Tobón, Rebecca Peters, and Ana Yancy Espinoza-Quirós 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Problem 5.2.1 Figures for the Most Violent Region of the World

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70 71 80 81 93

93 94 97 98 102 105 109 110

112 114 115 123

123 125 125

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5.2.2

The Scale and Characteristics of the Illegal Firearms Market in Central America 5.2.3 Main Sources of Illegal Firearms in Central America 5.3 Strategies to Reduce Illicit Arms Trafficking in Central America 5.4 Discussion and Conclusions References 6

7

A Hidden Time Bomb? Policing Illegal Firearms in Europe Peter Squires, Helen Poole, Jo Chilton, Sarah Watson, and Helen Williamson 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The European Context: Rates of Firearm Possession and Firearm Fatalities 6.3 Major Security Challenges and Social Harms 6.4 Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations 6.5 Conclusions References Africa Armed Violence and the Illicit Arms Trade Brian Wood and Peter Danssaert 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Patterns of Armed Violence 7.2.1 Armed Conflicts 7.2.2 Other Armed Violence 7.3 Small Arms Supply and Demand 7.3.1 Demand Factors 7.3.2 Supply Factors 7.4 Small Arms Diffusion 7.4.1 Dysfunctional Governance and ‘the Weak State’ 7.4.2 Recurring Violent Conflict Over Natural Resources

127 130 139 142 144 153

153 158 171 176 180 182 189 189 190 191 192 195 195 198 200 203 206

Contents

7.4.3 7.4.4

7.5

Leakages from Stockpiles Covert Arming of Opposition Groups in Neighboring States Lessons Learned and Recommendations 7.5.1 Improving the Collection and Availability of Relevant Data on Arms and Violence 7.5.2 International Assistance to Strengthen National Regulations on Transfers 7.5.3 Restricting the Local Circulation and Reducing Demand for Small Arms Conclusion

7.6 Annex References 8

Small Arms Proliferation Challenges and Solutions in South and Southeast Asia Michael Picard 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Regional Context of Armed Violence 8.2.1 Subnational Armed Conflicts 8.2.2 Transnational Threats 8.2.3 Origins of Illicit Small Arms 8.2.4 Civilian Firearms and Illicit Proliferation 8.3 Key Issues in Arms Control 8.3.1 Diversions and Misuses of State Stockpiles 8.3.2 Data Collection Challenges 8.3.3 Transparency Challenges 8.4 Policy Solutions 8.4.1 The Big Picture 8.4.2 Strengthening Internal Control of National Stockpiles 8.4.3 Strengthening Recordkeeping 8.4.4 Internationalizing Arms Control Efforts

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208 211 213

215 216 218 220 221 229 239 239 240 242 245 246 249 251 251 253 255 256 256 258 260 261

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8.5 Conclusion References 9

10

Small Firearms in the Pacific: Regionalism and Non-Trafficking Maxwell Presser and Philip Alpers 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Background 9.3 Key Lessons 9.3.1 Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Civil War 9.3.2 Australia and the Port Arthur Shooting 9.3.3 Lessons Learned 9.4 Specific Policy Recommendations 9.4.1 The Person: Licence All Gun Owners 9.4.2 The Object: Register All Firearms 9.4.3 The “Right”: Defined in Legislation as a Conditional Privilege 9.5 Conclusion References “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global Network to the Local Security Challenge” Final Remarks David Pérez Esparza, Cathy Haenlein, and Florian J. Hetzel 10.1 Challenges 10.1.1 Common Challenges 10.1.2 Specific Challenges 10.2 Moving from Theory to Policy 10.3 Final Thoughts References

Index

262 263 273 273 274 281 281 284 285 287 287 288 289 290 291

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298 298 300 301 305 307 309

Notes on Contributors

Katherine Aguirre Tobón is a Colombian economist (Universidad del Valle) with professional experience in the areas of violence and development. She has worked with think-tanks in Colombia, Switzerland and Brazil. Katherine holds a master’s in development studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland. Her research interests are in violence prevention and reduction initiatives, peace accords and post-conflict, drug policy and research methodologies. Philip Alpers is founding director of GunPolicy.org, a global project of the Sydney School of Public Health which compares armed violence, firearm injury prevention, and gun law across 350 jurisdictions worldwide. Accredited to the United Nations small arms Programme of Action since 2001, he participates in the UN process as a member of the Australian government delegation. Philip Alpers is recognized among the ‘Top 100: The most influential people in armed violence reduction’ compiled by the peak international NGO in this field. Rukmani Bhatia is the senior policy analyst for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress. She previously worked at Freedom House on their flagship publications Freedom in the World xv

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and Freedom of the Press, managing the portfolios for the Americas, Asia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and sub-Saharan Africa regions. During the Obama administration, Bhatia served as the special assistant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) assistant administrator for Europe and Eurasia, working on Eastern European development programming and policy. Prior to her political appointment, she was the inaugural Hillary R. Clinton research fellow for U.S. Ambassador Melanne Verveer at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Her research focused on women’s political participation in post-conflict nations. Bhatia has published extensively on democracy and human rights issues. She has conducted fieldwork in the Balkans, South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and Central America. She holds a master’s degree from Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and a bachelor’s degree with honors from Wellesley College. Jerónimo Castillo Director of security and criminal policy area of the Ideas for Peace Foundation (Fundación Ideas para la Paz). He has developed his career focused on citizen security and the relationship of the private sector with the criminal system, serving as a researcher and director of government entities, cooperation agencies, and private companies. He was director of Security and Coexistence of the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, Director of Criminal and Penitentiary Policy of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice, Manager against the Illicit Trade of the British American Tobacco and Director of Corporate Affairs of Diageo Colombia. He has taught and directed research work at the Javeriana University and at the National University. He advanced law studies at the University of the Andes and a master’s and doctorate in criminology at the University of Barcelona and Keele University. Jo Chilton is a Detective Chief Superintendent in West Midlands Police. He is the former operational head of the National Ballistics Intelligence Service.

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Alex Curry finished his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Latin American Studies in 2019. His work focuses on state-society relations and citizenship in Mexico and Colombia. Research interests include state-society relations, social movements, security, and citizenship in Latin America. Peter Danssaert has reported on the international arms trade since 1999 as researcher for the Antwerp-based International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and regularly produces the IPIS Arms Trade Bulletin. He has written numerous reports particularly on arms logistics and trafficking and contributed to several Amnesty International research publications. He worked as a consultant for the UN Panel of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, 2008, and 2009, and co-wrote a UN study on end use controls of small arms and light weapons. Ana Yancy Espinoza-Quirós is the academic director of Fundación Arias por La Paz and an expert on regional security. Her work has focused on light weapons, citizen security, gun trafficking, organized crime, gun violence, violence prevention, and education for peace. Ana Yancy has a graduate degree on Social and Intrafamily Violence Studies with a special emphasis on gender violence. Cathy Haenlein is director of the Organized Crime and Policing research group and Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), with expertise in serious and organized crime, illicit trade, conflict, and development. Cathy has a particular focus on transnational environmental crime, with regional expertise in East and Southern Africa, including fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Madagascar, the Seychelles, Malawi, Mozambique, Gabon, and Sierra Leone. Cathy is the editor, with M L R Smith, of Poaching, Wildlife Trafficking, and Security in Africa: Myths and Realities (Abingdon: Taylor and Francis, 2016). She is also the Chair of RUSI’s Strategic Hub for Organized Crime Research, established in partnership with the Home Office, National Crime Agency, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Research Councils UK’s Partnership for Conflict, Crime, and Security.

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Notes on Contributors

Florian J. Hetzel holds a B.A. in Political Sciences from the University of Bamberg, in Germany. He also holds a master’s in security science from University College London (UCL) and a Master’s in Comparative Politics from the University of Bamberg. Florian has worked as Researcher, both in Germany and in the UK. In 2016, he was appointed as Research Associate at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science, where he focuses on extremist violence, organized crime, and cryptocurrency fraud. Florian is also co-founder of the UCL Organized Crime Research Network (OCRN), a collaboration platform between academics and practitioners conducting organized crime research. Currently, Florian is completing a Ph.D. in Security Science at UCL, focusing on the empirical analysis of money laundering patterns and its implications for policing. Aaron Karp is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Previously he held positions at the Columbia University, Harvard Universit, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. His early research contributed to the creation of the Missile Technology Control Regime and the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. He served as consultant to the United Nations Secretary-General on missiles and nuclear weapons, and he contributed to the U.S. Commission to Assess Ballistic Missile Threats to the United States. As senior consultant to the Small Arms Survey in Geneva since 1999, he also works on the global distribution of small arms. David Pérez Esparza holds a Ph.D. in Security Science at University College London (UCL) and a master’s in Conflict Resolution from the University of Essex, a Master’s in Security Sciences with a focus on Organized Crime from University College London (UCL), and a Master’s in Public Policy from the EGAP Graduate School, Tecnológico de Monterrey. David has worked as a Consultant and Researcher leading several evidence-based policy projects for different organizations; including police agencies in Africa and Latin America, the UK College of Policing, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and the

Notes on Contributors

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European Union. David has participated in key academic projects alongside scholars at the University of Rice in Houston and the University of Harvard. David has also co-authored four books on security issues. Carlos A. Pérez Ricart is assistant professor in International Relations at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford. Carlos holds a Ph.D. in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin (2016) and has a degree in International Relations of El Colegio de México (2011). His research and teaching interests include the relationship between Mexico and the United States, security and organized crime, arms trade, drug policies, and state formation. Rebecca Peters a political advocate for gun control who served as Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) from 2002 to 2010. As of April 2012, Peters was listed on the IANSA board of directors. Michael Picard is a firearms researcher currently studying arms control and armed violence in South-east Asia. He focuses on firearm laws, firearm mortality rates, and the official and illicit manufacture and trade of small arms in the region. He has worked with the Small Arms Survey on arms control and proliferation issues since 2013. He is also the research director for GunPolicy.org of the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health and supports the Centre for Armed Violence Reduction, which provides assistance to states seeking accession to the Arms Trade Treaty and other arms control initiatives. Helen Poole is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Science, University of Northampton and head of the Centre for the Reduction of Firearms Crime, Trafficking and Terrorism; she was a lead member of the EFFECT project research team. Maxwell Presser is an MD/MPH candidate in the class of 2021 at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He has conducted research on gun violence and injury prevention at the University of Miami and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, with projects ranging from suicide in medical facilities to violent injuries following

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Notes on Contributors

the implementation of “Stand Your Ground” laws. Maxwell also wrote, implemented, and evaluated a curriculum to teach medical students how to counsel patients on firearm safety. He is currently spending a year conducting gun violence prevention research at the University of California, San Francisco’s Wraparound Project. Mónica Serrano is Research-Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University. She was educated at El Colegio de México and received her Doctorate (DPhil) from Oxford University. She has been: co-coordinator of the North American Studies Programme at El Colegio de México; Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; member of the International Advisory Board of the FRAME Project “Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies”; and co-editor of Global Governance. She has lectured at London and Oxford Universities. Her current research focuses on drug policy and the last generation of human rights violations in Mexico and Latin America. Olena Shumska is a research assistant at the Small Arms Survey, where she assists on projects studying illicit arms flows in Ukraine. She holds master’s degrees in International History from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford. Her research interests and experience are centered on post-Soviet countries with a particular focus on Ukraine and Russia. Josh Sugarmann is an American activist for gun control in the United States. He is the executive director and founder of the Violence Policy Center (VPC), a non-profit advocacy and educational organization, and the author of two books on gun control. Peter Squires is a Professor [Emeritus] of Criminology and Public Policy at the University of Brighton. He has produced 11 previous books on aspects of youth crime, anti-social behaviour, gangs, gun violence and policing. He began researching gun crime during the mid-1990s and produced a book (Gun Culture or Gun Control? 2000 ) comparing British and American reactions to mass shootings. This was followed

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by work on the evolution of police armed response policy (Shooting to Kill? 2010 ), and a book exploring global patterns of gun violence (Gun Crime in Global Contexts, 2014 ). Between 2015 and 2019 he was the elected president of the British Society for Criminology and a member of an independent national advisory group on the criminal use of firearms. Amongst current projects he is currently completing a book Rethinking Knife Crime and another exploring Gender and Firearms and the marketing of firearms to women. Sarah Watson is a lecturer in Criminology at Coventry University, she is researching for a Ph.D. on mass shootings and firearms control in Europe. Eugenio Weigend Vargas is the associate director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress. His research has focused on preventing arms trafficking and gun violence in the United States and Mexico. He has published numerous reports, fact sheets, and issue briefs advocating for measures that strengthen gun laws in the United States at the state and federal levels. His research on the impact of U.S. guns in Mexico and the perils of replicating U.S. gun policies abroad has been published in academic journals. He has provided testimonies before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as well as the InterAmerican Convention Against Illicit Firearms Trafficking in the Americas. He has been a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and the University of Texas in El Paso. He holds a master’s degree in public affairs from Brown University and a doctorate from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey. Helen Williamson completed her M.Sc. in Forensic Science at the University of Teesside in 2005. Her research project focused on changes to the firearm laws following high profile mass shootings in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America with an assessment of the ability of the public to identify genuine and replica firearms. In addition, she holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Science and Forensic Measurement, completed at the University of Teesside in 2002, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Northumbria University, completed in 2010. She is currently a M.Phil./Ph.D. researcher at the University of Brighton.

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Notes on Contributors

Brian Wood headed Amnesty International’s arms control work including on the Arms Trade Treaty from 1995 to 2016 and co-edited a book on the Treaty published by Larcier in 2015. He helped found the International Action Network on Small Arms and has done research on arms transfer issues for various UN agencies and think tanks, including International Peace Information Service (IPIS) where he is a research associate. He was the consultant to the UN Group of Governmental Experts on the illicit brokering of small arms and light weapons and co-wrote a UN study on end use controls of small arms and light weapons.

List of Figures

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

Homicide rates and proportion of homicides by firearm, Central American countries 2000–2019 (when available) (Source Igarapé Institute [2020], Asmann and O’Reilly [2020], Dalby and Carranza [2019]. Dots of each represent figures by years a single country. Graph created by the authors) Distribution of percentage of homicides by mechanism, in selected regions and globally 2017 (Source UNODC 2013, 2019: 77) Estimated overall firearm ownership rates (per 100 people) in European Countries (Note Red columns indicate societies in which unregistered firearms are thought to predominate. Source GunPolicyNews database)

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Fig. 6.3

Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5

List of Figures

Total firearm deaths and firearm suicides, selected European countries (Note Given the variable availability of data on the GPN database when accessed, figures for different countries do not always represent the same year. However, generally speaking, the figures relate to years between 2015 and 2018. Source GunPolicyNews database) Timeline of mass shooting incidents in Europe (Source Open Source data and Duquet 2016) Gun and ammunition sales on social media in 2019 (Note Screengrabs from Snapchat of the firearms and ammunition offered for sale. Source Open Source data)

164 166

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List of Tables

Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3

Table 7.4 Table 7.5

Most common types and models of firearms seized in the region Key points and hot spots for arms trafficking in Central America Value of small arms supplied to African sub-regions, as reported by Comtrade, 2001–2014 Main trading partners for 5 largest small arms importers in Africa (2001–2014) Number of African states seeking international assistance to strengthen selected regulations on small arms and light weapons, according to their national reports to the United Nations, 2012–17 International arms embargoes imposed on African countries African states’ membership of the Arms Trade Treaty, UN Firearms Protocol and regional treaties on arms transfer controls, August 2020

129 131 199 199

217 222

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1 An Introduction to “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global Network to the Local Security Challenge” David Pérez Esparza, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, and Eugenio Weigend Vargas

1.1

Introduction to the Edited Volume

How do firearms travel across the world?1 How does violence and gun trafficking intersect in every region of the planet? From a comparative D. Pérez Esparza Jill Dando Institute, University College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] C. A. Pérez Ricart (B) División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] E. Weigend Vargas Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, USA e-mail: [email protected] 1 Across

this book we will use ‘firearms’, ‘guns,’ ‘weapons,’ and ‘small arms’ as interchangeable terms. The term ‘small arms trade’ should be assumed to include small arms and light weapons as well as their parts, components, and ammunition, unless otherwise specified. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_1

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perspective, what can we learn from successful and unsuccessful attempts to control gun violence? Similarly, what can we learn from gun-related regulations that place communities at a heightened risk of violence? Are these lessons transferable to countries with limited statehood and poor governance? If so, in which specific contexts? This book aims to provide answers to these questions by directly addressing three different but intertwined issues: (1) the mechanics of gun trafficking (2) the relationship between guns and violence (3) the (un) successful attempts of different local, national, and global actors and institutions to enforce strict rules upon the production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of small arms. This volume presents three advantages over other existing works in the field. Firstly, it is the first publication in addressing the intersection between firearms and violence from a cross-regional perspective. This is particularly relevant as most of the literature on gun violence and gun control is limited to one single country: The United States. Secondly, it offers not just an academic perspective but also key insights from experienced practitioners in issues related to gun violence and gun trafficking. This, again, is quite novel for a field characterized by a rather broad gap between the policy realm and the academic domain. As the reader will notice, all chapters in the book include policy proposals to face what the authors consider are the main security challenges in their regions. This feature makes the book attractive not just for the academic community but also for policymakers. Finally, the second chapter and the conclusion of the book include a comparative analysis that encompasses common challenges, as well as significant differences across the regions. Considering the particularities of each region, the main goal of this book is to identify key trends on gun trafficking and gun violence. With this in mind, we invited distinguished academics and practitioners— from seven different regions of the world—to actively contribute to this relevant debate for the security, peace, and health of the world population. As a result, we introduce what, to the best of our knowledge, is the first comparative perspective of this global and transnational challenge, including an in-depth analysis of the challenges seen in the United States, Latin America, Central America, Europe, Africa, South & Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

1 An Introduction to …

3

In each chapter, one to five scholars and practitioners: (a) explore key regional challenges, (b) identify lessons learned, and (c) provide policy recommendations that shed some light on how to address these challenges on gun-related violence based on their experience in the different regions. As editors, our emphasis in preparing this book was not to produce a “Handbook of firearms trafficking” that includes every corner of the world. Such an effort is beyond our capacity and likely impossible with the available data. This book is rather an attempt to offer a multidisciplinary, coherent, comprehensive, and accessible text to multiple audiences, particularly for those interested in the relationship between violence and firearms. We believe that the interdisciplinary perspective and global approach of this endeavor will trigger policy-relevant discussions on different knowledge areas and disciplines. We argue that this book could be very useful for practitioners, students, and academics focusing on gun control, gun violence, criminal justice, public health, comparative law, criminology, international relations, strategic policing, statistics applied to crime, as well as conflict resolution and security studies. As readers will notice, while every chapter reflects on different challenges and problems related to firearms trafficking, illegal prevalence, and gun violence, the overall book does discuss a set of arguments and assumptions, that work as overarching themes across the book. First, we maintain that settings matter and firearms do not exist in an empty space. As discussed throughout the book, regardless if a firearm is used by a criminal group in a Brazilian favela, by the Russian mafia in eastern Europe, or by the U.S. Military in the Middle East, all these devices have a back-story that has to be addressed and understood. Ultimately, all guns share key things in common: all were manufactured, and most were also exported, imported, purchased, and ultimately used (legally or illegally) by a wide range of state or non-state actors. In many cases, a single gun might remain within the framework of legality throughout all its life cycle (i.e., in the hands of legal gun owners, private security companies, and public security agencies), unfortunately, very often small arms end up in the illicit domain (as discussed in Chapter 2). Understanding the ways in which guns slip from the legal to the illegal domain represents one of the fundamental goals of this book.

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Along the same lines, we argue that even though a number of guns remain on the legal domain, they are often linked to negative outcomes. For example, as discussed across several chapters in this book, numerous suicide s, gun injuries, and fatal accidents involved legally owned firearms (see Chapter 3). In addition, while some gun homicides could be legally “justified”—for instance, in the context of self-defense— , they are still socially undesirable. This condition becomes more visible when this phenomenon is combined with racist or xenophobic narratives, a combination which, as discussed through the book, is likely to disproportionately affect minorities (see Chapters 3 and 6). Secondly, we are interested in exploring the relationship between violence and guns; an association that is more complex than often assumed by scholars, policymakers, and activists. While it is indisputable that in specific circumstances high rates of gun availability do trigger violent situations (or at least, increase levels of lethality), and that high levels of gun ownership do not make communities safer, the assumed causal relationship between high rates of firearms availability and high rates of violence does not hold for every context. How can we explain this diversity? Why are guns more likely to trigger criminal violence in some places but not in others? Are mass shootings a direct manifestation of firearms availability? How and why does the availability of guns impact regions differently? By analyzing and synthesizing empirical evidence across these studied regions, the book aims to understand the role of gun availability in criminal violence. A possible hypothesis that we explore in this book is that, ultimately, local context and settings matter. The capacities of the state authorities, the country’s legal tradition, the effectiveness of national and local institutions to comply with the law, the role of interest groups, the levels of unemployment and other socioeconomic variables, the existence of international mafias, the historical background of the country, the size and distribution of young population, corruption and its perception (or social acceptance), the physical and technological conditions of existing borders, the number and relevance of international treaties related to trafficking, the severity of sanctions, the volume of international legal trade, gun culture, and even geography (i.e., an island is more likely to have

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strong borders as opposed to a landlocked country) might play a key role in exploring this heterogeneous effect worldwide. In this very complex scenario, it is also our goal that his book contributes to the emergence of a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the regulated firearms trade and the dynamics of criminal violence. As discussed in more depth across some parts of this book (see Chapter 2), the legal and the illegal domain are indeed connected, but this connection varies across space and time. The contributions to this volume shed some light on this debate. Thirdly, we maintain that, while the transnational challenge of gun trafficking is global, policy responses should always consider the local context and setting. In effect, we argue that, when it comes to gun trafficking and gun violence there is not a “one size fits all solution.” By contrast, empirical evidence discussed in this book clearly suggest that local policy aspects are more relevant than what the current discussion on arms trafficking often acknowledges. Having this in mind, the title of our book Gun trafficking and violence: from the global network to the local security challenge aims to reflect our interest in highlighting the relevance of turning our attention to the local aspect of this issue. Unsurprisingly, this shift includes a critique of the idea that successful strategies and policies can always be transferred and diffused without major implementation challenges. So, for instance, a successful case of disarmament such as the experienced (and discussed) in the context of the pacific islands (see Chapter 9) may not be easily applied to other more challenging regions, such as Latin America (see Chapter 4), Africa (see Chapter 7) or Central America, more specifically (see Chapter 5). This does not mean, of course, that global firearms control efforts that aim to set strict rules upon the production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of small arms are useless. To the contrary, in the last three decades, regulatory regimes have been established to maintain control over the manufacturing of ammunition and weapons, the regulation of civilian ownership, the management of arms stockpiles, the control of export, import, and transshipment of small arms, as well as other key issues around the marking, record-keeping, and tracing of arms. All these efforts have brought major changes in the way small arms are considered by each nation state and have been paramount in shaping the small arms

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market. However, as it is widely acknowledged even by the most optimist views, these regulatory regimes aren’t equally enforced across the world nor are they equally effective. The question on why some regimes are more successful in some areas than in others underlie the comparative effort presented in this book. Fourth, we argue that, very often, key global manufacturers, importers and exporters of firearms are not held accountable. The shared responsibility includes major small arms companies but also national states. Here, the role of the United States has to be acknowledged. As themed in different chapters of this volume, U.S. guns are fueling violence in many countries. In fact, American-made firearms are more likely to be used in homicides in Mexico than in the United States. In many Caribbean and Latin-American countries, more than 70% of guns recovered in crimes are traced back to the United States. With these numbers, it is difficult to believe that gun violence in these countries will diminish without major gun reforms in the United States. The same could be said about Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents and other armed groups have access to U.S. firearms. These were previously transferred, without proper protocols, to the Afghan government between 2004 and 2008 (Chapter 8). Similarly, Russia and more recently China continue to export small arms to autocratic governments, fueling civil wars and international conflicts. While the example of Russian ammunition transfer to Syria is the most obvious (covered in Chapter 2), it is not the only case. In Chapter 8, for instance, the authors discuss the case of the importation of arms from China to the Insurgent United Wa State Party (UWSP) in Myanmar and the Philippine’s New People’s Army (NPA). In Chapter 7, the role of China, Russia, and Turkey in supplying small arms to African countries is also addressed. Fifth, our approach aims to bring back the perspective of the victims to the forefront. In this volume, authors coincide with the objective of showing how vulnerable communities are more exposed to gun violence than others. Chapter 3, for instance, presents evidence of how communities of color represent a disproportionate percentage of victims of gunrelated homicides in the United States. Likewise, as Chapter 4 shows, Latin-American victims (and perpetrators) shared common patterns:

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young men (ages 15–28) living in slums and urban peripheries and with lower levels of education. It is a common pattern in the Americas and elsewhere that persistent poverty and lack of educational opportunities produce potential gun victims. In this regard, it is important to recognize the relevance of using a multifaceted approach to addressing gun violence. While stronger gun regulations are important, these must be complemented with stronger socioeconomic policies. In addition, when deciding on policy responses to mitigate gun violence, policymakers must hear and involve those individuals that have been directly impacted. In fact, some successful responses have derived from direct community involvement (see Chapter 3). Finally, we have identified two limitations in the research of small arms markets and small arms trafficking. First, the uncertainty over the scale and actors in the firearms market is substantial, even in an era when independent research institutes, international organizations, leading scholars, and governments publish reports, figures, and analyses about this issue. Instead of offering specific numbers on the proportion of the regulated arms subject to diversion or in criminal violence, we aim to have a better understanding of the mechanics of gun diversion and the interlocking aspects of trafficking. Who are the principal actors involved? Which are the preferred mechanisms? Where are the main gaps in the systems? Second, access to data varies across regions and represents a key issue for studying gun trafficking and gun violence. The case of Africa is particularly problematic. Many countries in the region lack reliable criminal justice data on homicide and crime. In Nigeria, for example, it is very likely that the homicide rate is somewhat 40% higher than currently estimated (Chapter 7). Africa, however, is not the only region with problems in data estimation. The problems of data availability are also discussed in the chapters that focus on South and Southeast Asia, Central America, and Latin America. In fact, Chapter 3 highlights that even the United States presents challenges to compile and analyze gun-related data. However, the latter has to do more with a lack of political will than with institutional capacity. With varying availability of regional data, every chapter had to rely on different data sources. Depending on the region, dissimilar degrees of

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relevance are given to different sources. In most cases, chapters are based on primarily open-source research from academic and official reports and publications (the importance of independent research centers such as Small Arms Survey cannot be exaggerated), and regional and national news coverage. In that sense, while it can be said that academic research has been slow and negligent to reflect the relevance of arms trafficking, the same cannot be said about journalism. The content of this book reflects how journalist sources continue to be indispensable in documenting issues of arms trafficking, and an impressive force capable of pushing issues of arms trafficking to the foreground of public sphere discussions. As the readers will notice, the scholars and practitioners of most of the chapters included in this volume took many of the case studies published by journalists and put them into a broader framework. To sum up, this book is just a first step into a research agenda clearly needed from more case studies based on ethnographic research and similar qualitative approaches. Furthermore, the volume doesn’t cover (and doesn’t aim to) every region on the planet. However, due to authors’ limited availability and lack of data, regions such as the Middle East, China, and post-Soviet countries are not included in this book. In order to resolve this limitation, Chapter 2 of the book offers an overview of the main challenges of those regions not included in the book. The following section introduces the book structure and discuses key points addressed in each chapter.

1.2

Book Structure

Gun trafficking and its associated violence are major challenges to health and security worldwide. Authors in this book reviewed the key dynamics of the global small arms trade. Despite some common lessons and patterns discussed through the first sections of the book, there are also some issues, challenges, and possible solutions that are—to some degree—specific to each region. In Chapter 2, Michael Picard, Olena Shumska, and Aaron Karp present an insight on how “legitimately” traded or transferred firearms can end up in the illicit domain through the transfer process. To do so,

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they first discuss the challenges associated with estimating the global arms trade. For instance, the authors discussed the reasons that can explain why major reports frequently offer different estimations. The first reason behind these differences is associated with the unit of analysis that is considered. In other words, that it is paramount to focus the attention on what is estimated, as well as who are the actors taken into account for these estimations. On the one hand, some estimates cover all types of arms transfers (including ammunition and support equipment), but others do not include commercial transfers. Similarly, while some reports cover both transfer agreements and deliveries, others simply do not. On the other hand, it is also important to note that comparisons across the estimations will be very much influenced by the scope—or number of actors—considered. Unsurprisingly, estimates could vary even further if some take into account commercial military transactions as opposed to government-to-government transfers only. Likewise, estimates might vary if the reporting system is voluntary as opposed to if it is mandatory. In this context, authors offer an interesting insight: while quantitative data is helpful for setting the overall context of small arms transfers and diversion, case studies and donor-commissioned research often play a bigger role in small arms policy. A second contribution from this chapter is a review of how the international arms transfer process works and how diversions can occur at transfer. In this context, authors devote their attention to explaining that the integrity of the regulated arms trade is the outcome of national transfer laws, the licensing systems they mandate, and their interoperability with domestic and foreign counterparts. In the same line of thought, Picard and colleagues discussed the relevance of both the end-user certificate (EUC) and the ATT that are debated by other contributors across different chapters. Likewise, they review some efforts associated with developing a “typology” of how diversions occur in the transfer process. Regardless of the differences seen in this typology, some themes are recurrent: limited state capacities, fraudulent practices by transferring parties, process gaps and loopholes, and intentional state-sponsored diversions. As expected, these variables are often seen throughout the different chapters of the book.

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As a third key point, authors in this chapter present a number of cases in which guns and ammunition manufactured in one country might have a major negative impact elsewhere. Two examples are particularly noteworthy. On the one hand, they review a number of former Soviet states, with a specific focus on Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, in which exported weapons end up with illicit end-users. In the case of Russia, authors argue that there has been an intentional diversion of weaponry to Syria despite international embargos. In the example of Ukraine, they examined an illicit deal between a state conglomerate and South Sudan, based on fraudulent practices hinging upon the facilitation by transferring parties. As a third example, they present how Belarusian ammunition was diverted to a Libyan armed group, showing institutional weaknesses in this field. On the other hand, authors note the case of the United States; a major small arms producer, exporter, and importer. Specifically, Piccard and colleagues describe some typical schemes that let guns manufactured in (or imported to) the United States to be associated with violent crimes in countries such as Canada, Jamaica, and Mexico where “an American-made gun is more likely to be used in a murder than in the U.S. itself.” In Chapter 3, Eugenio Weigend Vargas, Josh Sugarmann, and Rukmani Bhatia continue the discussion started by Picard et al. in the previous chapter regarding the relevance of the United States as a major producer, consumer, importer, and exporter of guns. To illuminate this, authors summarize some of the key factors that make the United States an outlier that requires attention, both from an academic and policy perspective. As a background, authors argue that gun violence in the United States displays a public health crisis. This statement echoes the fact that a person is killed with a gun every 14 minutes. The social cost of gun violence seems more concerning when violent incidents occurring in the United States are compared to other developed nations: for instance, gun suicide rates are eight times higher, gun homicides are 25 times higher, and an unintentional shooting occurs every 18 hours, in a rate 6.2 times higher. Violent incidents are also disturbing even if they are not compared to other developed nations: a mass shooting occurs every 25 hours in the country—and becoming more frequent—, 76,000

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people are injured with a gun every year, and 400 school shootings occurred from 2013 through 2018. To explain this visible and costly outcome, authors describe the United States as an outlier in terms of gun production as well as gun ownership and presented some evidence to suggest there is an unsurprising association between high prevalence of guns and high levels of gun violence. Taking advantage that most of U.S. gun laws are often local (state laws) and that this allows a “natural experiment” approach to compare the outcome across the states, the authors then analyze already implemented policies to reduce gun violence. Overall, the chapter makes a substantial contribution about policies that are effective to address gun violence. Finally, this chapter highlights the challenges of passing gun-related laws in a country with strong lobbying organizations that are associated with the gun industry. While this issue is predominately a U.S. challenge, the discussion of this chapter can serve as a cautionary analysis for other regions and countries where interest groups might be pushing for the gun industry’s agenda (see for example Chapters 4 and 6). In Chapter 4, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, Jerónimo Castillo, Alex Curry, and Mónica Serrano revise the case of Latin America. To do so, they first provide a general background about the problem of gun violence in the region. Among other factors, they recall that, one out of three homicides occurring in the world happened in Latin America, that more than half of the murders are committed with firearms (when in some other regions such as Asia, this level can be as low as 3%), and that, weighted by population, 17 of the top 20 most homicidal countries in the world were in this region. In this chapter, the authors discuss key security challenges related to guns in the region including institutional corruption, cases of diversion in which guns were initially bought through legal channels but were later transferred to illegal organizations, and leakage of guns and ammunition from national stockpiles. To reduce and mitigate risks of diversion, the authors note valuable routes such as that the destruction of surplus military arms (mainly in places where there is a decline in the size of the armed forces), as well as implementing management practices to improve inventories. An additional scheme that could be relevant for countries with similarities

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with Latin America is the implementation of gun surrender programs in which civilians, voluntarily and anonymously, hand in guns to authorities in exchange of financial incentives or goods. Despite the apparent achievement of these programs, it is evident that there are many opposing tensions to increase the circulation of guns instead. As a matter of fact, a number of Latin-American parliaments are using the fragile confidence in public institutions and the elevated levels of violence and fear to introduce bills aiming to increase “gun rights” by granting citizens the right to own and bear firearms, cut taxes on guns, and reduce the minimum age requirement for buying guns. The authors also discuss the complexity of the trafficking structures operating in the region. While an important percentage of illegal guns in Latin America are legally purchased in the United States, the modus operandi used for trafficking can be different depending on the specific region of the continent. In Mexico, for instance, firearms are often trafficked over the U.S. border by car. Nonetheless, the authors also present evidence on how traffickers also employ more complex mechanisms to smuggle arms to the Caribbean and South America, often using maritime shipping services, commercial airliners, and postal services. Pérez Ricart and his colleagues note the relevance of illegal guns in possession of non-state actors. To elaborate this argument, they suggest that, instead of “instances of state failure,” part of the violence in Latin America is the result of a variety of governance interactions that are somehow very specific to this continent. This complex system is intrinsically related with the existence of political actors: groups that can reach certain degree of territorial control within states. Nonetheless, as opposed to other regions, these groups do not seek the creation of a new State but the control of resources. To do so, violence—and the possession of firearms—becomes key to define constituencies, mobilize sectors of the population, and construct political and social authority—with some form of legitimacy. In this context, armed forms of community policing and self-defense represent a key challenge, and authors elaborate further about some examples in Colombia, Peru, and Mexico. One might think that disarming non-state social and political groups could be an obvious response to this challenge. Nonetheless, seeing these actors simply as disputing the state’s monopoly of violence by being armed, underplays

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the complexity of the situation. The alternative, instead, would be much better focused if attention is given to understand the political, social, and economic conditions at the local level, and to explore possible routes toward the institutionalization of these groups. Finally, the authors present three policy recommendations from the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) approach. They discuss three possible routes. The first one refers to the implementation of hot-spot policing (HSP) methods in the Latin-American context. The second refers to the necessity of developing a new and reliable system for tracking and marking guns. Finally, the third recommendation addresses the necessity of separating the responsibility of those state entities that use arms, from those that regulate the production, importation, and exportation of guns. In Chapter 5, Katherine Aguirre Tobón, Rebecca Peters, and Ana Yancy Espinoza offer a zoom into the problem of gun violence in Central America, the region in the world that presents the clearest scenarios of the devastating effects of firearms. The editors agreed that the region with the highest rates of homicides reported outside a war zone needed a special examination. The challenges in this region are massive and include guns and ammunition leakage from official stockpiles by corrupt state agents, firearm diversion from private security companies and misuse of legal documentation. As stated by the authors, all these challenges are fueled by the deep relationship between drug traffickers and local and national state security forces. Against the usual notion of the region as a “bridge for drug traffic” toward the United States and Mexico, the authors present an assessment of the region as one with intrinsic dynamics of violence and where the extensive coastlines, porous borders, vast jungles, and dozens of unmarked airstrips and clandestine ports make arms trafficking an almost impossible challenge to solve. The authors start the chapter by describing the features and causes that make Central America the region with the highest homicide rate in the world. Next, they describe and assess the scale and main characteristics of the illegal firearms market in Central America. Here, we learn that handguns, (mainly pistols and revolvers) are by far the most popular firearm among gangs’ members. Most of the available firearms are either

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remnants of the many civil wars that took place in the region during the 1970s and 1980s, leaks from official but not well-sheltered stockpiles, firearms smuggled from the United States, or weapons diverted by private security companies to the black market. The chapter continues by describing the relevant though insufficient strategies to reduce illicit arms trafficking in the region. As shown by the authors, the efforts to implement marking, record-keeping and tracing of arms have been uneven, inadequate and dependent on external funding. Finally, Aguirre Tobón and her colleagues discuss the main ideas covered in the chapter. In Chapter 6, Peter Squires, Helen Poole, Jo Chilton, Sarah Watson, and Helen Williamson discuss the security challenges associated with firearm misuse, possession, and trafficking in Europe and the United Kingdom. The chapter focuses on two different but quite interrelated aspects. On the one hand, the question on how ownership is regulated. On the other hand, how the supply of illegal firearms can be disrupted. As stated by the authors, both aspects are interrelated since most firearms begin their life as legal products before crossing into illegality domains (see Chapter 2). The European regulatory framework is normally seen as a model for the rest of the world. However, as shown in this chapter, issues such as unregulated migration, political intolerance, and terrorism could potentially ignite a “hidden time bomb.” The emergence of racially motivated mass shootings, and the expanding role of the “dark web” and crypto markets in facilitating the trafficking of firearms and explosives (not to mention drugs) might be, according to the authors, just the first warnings. Among the different discussions addressed in the chapter, Squires and his colleagues tackle two issues that are paramount for the approach of this book. First, the degree to which continental Europe can learn from the “British experience” and its capacity for firearms intelligence management. The question on the transferability of policies and the implementation of successful strategies and lessons are at the center of the debate (see above). Second, the symbolic significance of mass shootings and terrorist outrages in the current European context. Here, the question arises inevitably: to which extent might Europe replicate some

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of the features that lead to the surge of mass shootings in the United States as described in Chapter 3. The chapter ends with a review of two research projects (SAFTE and EFFECT) that in recent years examined the scale, variance, and nature of firearms ownership across European societies. Drawing on the findings of both projects, the authors identify the most relevant regulatory weakness and security’ challenges for the region, including the (lack of ) willingness of the national police forces to share intelligence, the (lack of ) compatibility of some ballistic analyses and information systems. In Chapter 7, Brian Wood and Peter Danssaert consider a comprehensive view of the illicit trade in firearms in Africa. This was certainly not an easy task considering that Africa is the least documented region in terms of data collection on gun violence and firearms trafficking. The first part of the chapter outlines the general phenomena of armed violence in Africa, a “multifaceted problem” shaped by both structural legacies of foreign colonialism and weak political and economic institutions. As explained by the authors, armed violence in Africa takes place in a context of ethnical factionalism, high dependency of natural resource extraction, and extreme marginalization. The authors point out that the region is home to 21 out of the 39 worldwide fragile situations and armed conflict affected situations listed by the World Bank in 2020. Similarly, out of the 13 UN peacekeeping operations that took place in the world, seven were in Africa. In such a context, it is not surprising that most of the countries in the region (more prominently in sub-Saharan countries) lack any institutional capacity to prevent, detect, and eradicate the illicit trade and diversion of small arms, light weapons and ammunition. The chapter addresses what Wood and Danssaert consider four relevant security challenges: dysfunctional governance and limited statehood; violent conflicts over natural resources; leakages from stockpiles; and, finally, the covert arming of opposition groups in neighboring states. While the authors present the roots and causes of these challenges and outline possible policy solutions to tackle all four challenges on a continental level, they also recognize that the relevance of these issues varies across countries. Differences in the degree on how the threat of armed

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violence by terrorist groups is perceived, the degree of trust in the judiciary sector, the (limited) presence of the central state in areas where exploitation of natural resources takes place, and the depth of racial and ethnic tensions are variables that shape how dynamics of “demand” and “supply” of small arms interact. A relevant section of the chapter discusses the role of international organizations in putting forward regional and international frameworks to effectively control the export, import, and transfer of guns in the region, including four African subregional treaties on small arms. The authors cite different UN reports to show that while relevant, in most cases these attempts have been unsuccessful in enforcing full compliance with the agreements. The authors end the chapter by stressing the importance of improving the collection and availability of relevant data on firearms and armed violence, fostering international assistance to strengthen national regulations on transfers and furthering capabilities for tracing serial numbers on weapons, as well as improving methods of destruction and decommissioning of surplus and dangerous stocks. In Chapter 8, Michael Picard examines the case of South and Southeast Asia, two regions marked by a tremendous diversity of governance systems and security challenges. Even though both regions are home for some 160 million firearms in civilian as well as government hands, Picard argues that this part of the world suffers (like in many other regions examined in this volume) from a pronounced lack in research regarding small arms. The chapter begins with an overview of recent and ongoing domestic and transnational conflicts in these territories. As explained by the author, these are embedded in a context of limited state capacity, ethnic grievances, uneven peace processes, and porous borders. Next, the author discusses the sources for illicit weaponry which are, according to the reports quoted by the author, leakages from state armories, legacy stockpiles from other conflicts, and diverted imports. The role of China and the United States as providers of legal and illegal small arms to non-state actors in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Afghanistan is discussed in depth. Picard identifies major challenges for South and Southeast Asia. The main issues that should be addressed to “greatly bolster internal security and expand local abilities to combat and reduce the proliferation of

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illicit small arms” are (1) diversion of state small arms, (2) inconsistent data collection mechanisms, and (3) lack of transparency and cooperation on security issues. Picard does not just explain the complexity of each of these challenges but also offers a set of pragmatic technical solutions available to governments to address these issues, including some around the effort of internationalizing arms control efforts. Oceania has the lowest rates of gun trafficking and armed violence worldwide. The explanation for this might be that the region has also the most stringent gun control across the world (five nations do not even allow any kind of civilian firearm ownership). The above discussion is addressed in Chapter 9, the last “regional chapter.” It is written by Maxwell Presser and Philip Alpers and provides an overview of firearms in the Pacific (including Austria, New Zealand, and Fiji) with a special focus on the mechanics of small arms trafficking in the region. The chapter includes a set of proposed strategies to address gun violence and trafficking not just in the region but beyond the Pacific. The chapter begins with an exploration of the reasons for the relative geopolitical stability enjoined by the region in the last two decades (after many years of political volatility). According to the authors, cooperation and a strong sense of regionalism were key to the good political development of the region. Secondly, the chapter reviews the varying degrees in civilian firearm possession across the region. Thanks to the very detailed explanation, we learn that thirteen of the 20 Pacific nations have 8 or fewer guns per 100 people, with 9 countries having fewer than 1 per 100 people (compared to the 121 guns per 100 people in the United States). Thirdly, the authors outline the clear historical, legal, geographical, and societal causes of a regional phenomenon known as the Pacific consensus for disarmament. The experiences of the process of disarmament after the civil war in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and the restrictive policies that followed a mass shooting in Australia in 1966 are presented as key milestones in the Pacific’s regional approach to firearm reduction. In the last part of the chapter, the authors suggest that the success of civilian gun control in the Pacific rests upon three key pillars: the person, the object, and the right. The first refers to the aim of licensing all gun owners to be able to use and own a gun; the second to the objective of registering all firearms, themselves, for record-keeping purposes;

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the third to the enactment of legislation that defines gun ownership as a conditional privilege rather than an unlimited right. The success of this strategy is, according to the authors, a clear contrast between the Pacific and other world regions, making the Pacific case one from which lessons may be learnt and applied to other jurisdictions as ways to effectively address gun violence. Finally, in the concluding chapter, David Pérez Esparza, Cathy Haenlein, and Florian J. Hetzel reflect on the analyses presented in the regional chapters. The first part of the conclusion discusses the key specific or shared challenges that governments have to face to reduce gun violence and prevent arms trafficking. The second part invites to consider the “high level of fluidity” between the categories of “legal” and “illegal” firearms when designing and executing public policy. The authors argue that the way in which policymakers define the boundaries of “legal” and “illegal” has crucial legal, tactical, and operational implications. Finally, the authors conclude with two final points that, according to them, should be considered by scholars and policymakers concerned with issues of firearms trafficking and gun violence: the urgent need of regional and global responses to face the shared challenges discussed in the book and the relevance of leadership and robust, comparative and real-time data to produce evidence-based policy.

2 The Global Small Arms Trade and Diversions at Transfer Michael Picard, Olena Shumska, and Aaron Karp

2.1

Introduction

In early 2016, an image surfaced on Twitter of a slim, lightly equipped fighter in Yemen brandishing a rifle (CBC News 2016). The rifle is unmistakably modern, western in origin, and as long as the fighter is tall. It could be a prop from any Hollywood blockbuster, action or sci-fi, made in the past decade. M. Picard (B) GunPolicy.Org, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] O. Shumska Small Arms Survey, Geneva, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] A. Karp Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_2

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It is an LRT-3 sniper rifle, produced by PGW Defence—a Canadian manufacturer that specializes in precision rifles for military and law enforcement. These rifles cost over US$8,000 per unit (PGW Defence n.d.). They are intended for elite units and government arsenals— governments that Canada deems trustworthy of the weapons of war produced within its borders. Yet the man holding the rifle does not match this profile. He is a Houthi rebel, a belligerent in a violent conflict that has brought catastrophe upon Yemen. The rifle is—or was—part of Saudi Arabia’s government arsenal, procured from Canada for its border force. It was exported to Saudi Arabia following a diligent review process by the Canadian government that such a weapon would be secure from misuse. Yet a surprise raid by Houthi militants upended that process, and visibly demonstrated how vulnerable even the most stringently controlled small arms are to diversion—to falling into the wrong hands. The revelation generated outrage in Canada and led the government to review its arms control processes (CBC News 2016). Guns do not exist in a vacuum.1 Every firearm used in a coercive act— whether in a conflict, criminal, or otherwise violent context—has a back story of how it got there. For most firearms, the story begins as a legally manufactured firearm, produced by a licensed manufacturer operating lawfully and within the legal frameworks set out by a government. Most will remain within these frameworks throughout their lifespan, though some firearms will inevitably slip into the illicit domain. Many will do so as they undergo a gamut of transfers between states, government agencies, private entities, and individual owners, as the Canadian rifle demonstrates. This chapter focuses on how “legitimately” traded—or transferred— small arms can end up in the illicit domain through the transfer process.2 More specifically, by juxtaposing theoretical overviews with concrete examples—or case studies—it seeks to demonstrate how the 1 For

simplicity, this chapter uses ‘guns,’ ‘firearms,’ ‘weapons,’ and ‘small arms’ as interchangeable terms. The term ‘small arms trade’ should be assumed to include small arms and light weapons as well as their parts, components, and ammunition, unless otherwise specified. 2The term ‘transfer’ is a catch-all, as defined in the Arms Trade Treaty, that includes the export, import, transit, transhipment and brokering of arms between states (Kimball 2017).

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regulated trade between states is liable to weaknesses, and how these weaknesses contribute to and sustain armed violence in conflict and criminal contexts. It is subdivided into 4 sections: the first summarizes the overall trade in small arms and explains the data underlying it; the second focuses on the United States’ outsize role in the trade, and how American policies impact the global trade and violent contexts all over the world; the third section provides a theoretical overview of how transfer diversions happen by explaining the transfer process and identifying the thematic weaknesses inherent to it; the fourth and final section explores several well-documented transfer diversions originating from former Soviet states that exemplify the themes identified in the previous section. This chapter combines quantitative data from international reporting mechanisms, published research from various organizations and journalistic sources, as well as original research compiled by the authors and their collaborators.

2.2

The Small Arms Trade in Brief

2.2.1 Arms Trade Statistics: Vital Context The trade in small arms is shaped by the same forces affecting every other aspect of the global arms trade (UNSC 2015a). This deductive rule applies equally to statistics on the dimensions of the trade. Not all global arms trade statistics include transfers of small arms. But even when they overlook small arms, these statistics provide essential context for the international small arms business. There are three major annual reports on global trends. The divergence between them reveals much about the uncertainty over the scale and actors in the arms market. The most comprehensive and independent global arms trade figures come from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). A recent SIPRI report concludes that “the total value of the global arms trade was at least $95 billion in 2017” (SIPRI 2020a: 13). For methodological reasons, this does not include small arms, light

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weapons, and ammunition.3 SIPRI data, moreover, does not report the actual value of arms trades. Instead SIPRI provides trend indicators, stressing five-year moving averages. This is in large part because SIPRI analysts depend on prices from media reports of arms deliveries. When no prices are reported, they estimate from comparisons to betterunderstood deals for similar equipment. The method has been criticized as “unrepresentative and arbitrary” (Singh 1995: 41). This criticism is no less relevant for all other arms trade estimates, too. Two annual reports that do cover small arms as part of the global arms trade come from the United States Government. World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT, or “we-meet”) is produced annually by the U.S. Department of State, based on declassified reports from the U.S. intelligence community. WMEAT put the total value of arms trade deliveries in 2017 at US$195.4 billion (U.S. Department of State 2019a, table IIe). The great difference between this and the SIPRI total is partially because WMEAT is more comprehensive; it covers the actual value of all international trade in military equipment and services, small arms included. It also estimates the value of commercial military transactions—not just government-to-government transfers—which greatly increases the total, especially for the U.S. (U.S. Department of State 2019a: 14). WMEAT’s approach is also subject to criticism on suspicion that its estimates are too high. One analyst concludes it “cannot be considered viable” (Perlo-Freeman 2018: 11). But what if it’s right? Commercial sales are especially relevant here, because that’s how most small arms and light weapons are traded, reflecting their greater simplicity and lesser support needs. The smallest estimated value of total global arms trade usually comes from the annual report of the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS). Methodologically it lies between SIPRI and WMEAT, covering all types of arms transfers including ammunition and support equipment, though it does not include commercial transfers (Theohary 2016: 3 When

the SIPRI Arms Trade Database was established in 1966, its creators feared being drowned in data. They choose to focus exclusively on major weapons systems, which initially meant only major platforms: airplanes, armored vehicles, ships and major missile systems. Ever since, the institute collects information and it reports on small arms and light weapons transfers, but does not systematically cover them (SIPRI 1971: 5–6).

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2, 16). Unlike SIPRI and WMEAT, the CRS report covers both transfer agreements and deliveries. It reports that the value of all arms transfer agreements worldwide in 2015 was $79.9 billion, while the value of actual deliveries that same year was just under US$46.2 billion.

2.2.2 Small Arms Trade Statistics: Strengths and Weaknesses The most complete assessment specifically on the global small arms trade is published annually by the Small Arms Survey (Picard et al. 2019). This relies on country reports to the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade). Comtrade reporting in 2016 showed that the total value of the international small arms trade was at least US$6.5 billion. Ammunition is consistently the largest category, with exports worth US$2.6 billion in 2016. (Picard et al. 2019: 11). The Survey report shows that small arms generally follow global arms trade trends, led by exports from the United States, though it differs in that for small arms, the United States is also the dominant importer. The next largest small arms exporters are Italy, Brazil, Austria, and Germany, largely due to their sales to the American civilian market (Picard et al. 2019: 25). Comtrade data has the virtue of availability, but it is plagued by weaknesses (Marsh 2005: 2). While it covers much international commercial activity, it does not capture all small arms transfers. Many states simply do not report them to UN, or do only partially (Picard et al. 2019: 15). Comtrade is a voluntary reporting system, and many countries conceal their military-related exports, including controversial exporters like China, Iran, and North Korea. Clever data use and research, such as mirror-imaging reports from recipients, can illuminate unreported exports (Bromley et al. 2013: 39). However, the political sensitivity of such research imperils its future sustainability, as shady actors in the arms trade may feel compelled to further repress data. The Comtrade system is also vulnerable to reporting errors. One of the largest small arms importers in recent years, according to Comtrade, is Indonesia, which reported importing US$791.8 million worth of small arms 2014–16, (Picard et al. 2019: 24, 25, 48, 59). But this figure

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may be misidentified imports of major weapons systems, the mistake of an official in Jakarta submitting their data to New York (Picard et al. 2019: 71). On the other hand, Indonesia is completely rearming its security services. In September 2017, the Indonesian parliament approved the acquisition of 150,000 firearms—some imported, some produced locally—just to reequip its police (Stanley-Lockman 2019: 13). As is often the case, the truth in publicly available data can be obscure. Sometimes clarity comes from other reporting mechanisms, such as the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) or Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) annual reports. Under UNROCA and the ATT, states can voluntarily report the number of small arms and light weapons they export, and to whom. The European Union publishes a common annual report on licensed and facilitated arms exports for all member states (CoEU 2019). Some exporters report unilaterally as well, such as the United States with its annual Section 655 reports on military exports (U.S. Department of State 2019b). These reporting systems wax and wane in popularity and are hampered by differing metrics and categorizations of military materiel. In total, these various reporting mechanisms do not cover the entirety of the state-regulated trade, though trends and insights can be triangulated between them. Another problem undermining all statistical systems are emergent technological capacities that circumvent traditional state-based data systems on the arms trade. Hand-made small arms are increasingly common and even prolific in much of the world (Nowak and Gsell 2018). Additive manufacturing—3D printing—is an emerging source of firearms (Hays and Jenzen-Jones 2018). As digital information (in the form of designs and blueprints), a critical component of 3D printing, gains importance, such technology transcends the physical transfer process on which traditional arms control measures and data systems are based. The data sources of the past, in other words, are becoming progressively less comprehensive.

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2.2.3 Tales from the Data Quarry Quantitative data is helpful for setting the overall context of small arms transfers and diversion, but there are limits to their impacts, as they rarely provide conclusive correlations (UNODC 2015: 28). Nor do they resonate deeply; there is no evidence that statistics are a major force shaping views or policy. Decision-making, rather, is framed above all by anecdotal accounts of specific incidents that reveal deeper truths. Case studies often play a bigger role in small arms policy. By illuminating individual events, journalism has long been a major force shaping arms trade policy, including perceptions of small arms issues (Sampson 1977; Farah and Braun 2007; Feinstein 2011). While journalism can push arms trade and diversion to the foreground, it lacks conclusiveness. Some of the most incisive research on the illicit trade comes from investigations by the United Nations. An example is the UN Experts’ Report that proved Iranian sanction violations in providing small arms, light weapons and larger weapons to the Houthi militia fighting for control of Yemen (UNSC 2019). Such reports are uniquely revealing, though rare and limited by their mandates. A little more common is donor-commissioned research. Conflict Armament Research (CAR), for example, specializes in studying battlefield seizures and refuse, such as discarded cartridge casings, seized weapons, and ammunition. In South Sudan, CAR found that “China accounts for 37 per cent of the weapons and more than 99 per cent of the ammunition documented by CAR in South Sudan since 2014.” Other significant suppliers to the warring sides in South Sudan were revealed to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, Sudan, and Bulgarian- and Romanian-made small arms transhipped through Uganda (CAR 2018b: 17). Many of these suppliers do not participate in the previously mentioned reporting mechanisms. In addition to providing quantitative insights into the composition of conflict arsenals, such research also illuminates the methods by which weapons end up on battlefields in the hands of non-state actors. Focused and sustained research by organizations like CAR, the Small Arms Survey, SIPRI, Control Arms, and others provide insights into the labyrinthine processes of international arms transfers and the fault lines

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upon which diversions occur. This will be revisited in Sect. 2.4 of this chapter. As statistical sources lose comprehensiveness due to political and technological disruptions, anecdotal reporting and forensic methods help bridge the gap. As the examples here show, when done well, they can contribute numerical insights as well as granular detail.

2.3

American Small Arms Exports and Diversion

The illegal diversion of small arms is a problem that often can be seen more readily than it can be measured. The United States does not play a unique role in the global illicit trade, but owing to its clout as a major small arms producer, exporter, and importer, it is a prominent actor. A poignant example came in April 2020, when Gabriel Wortman used five semi-automatic weapons to kill 22 people in Nova Scotia. Three of his guns were from the United States, where they were apparently purchased legally, but transferred illegally—diverted—to Wortman in Canada (Tutton 2020). It was the deadliest crime in modern Canadian history, but far from unprecedented. Guns from the United States—some transferred legally, many illegally—play a prominent role in facilitating deadly violence throughout the Americas. Doubt about gun numbers is an endemic characteristic of small arms proliferation. After the Nova Scotia massacre, Canada banned public ownership of assault guns. Yet this ban is impeded by a poor understanding of how extensive civilian ownership is. One Canadian official said there could be as many as 90,000 assault guns in Canada (Tardieu 2020). An industry publication said the number is at least 1.5 million (Gun Trade World 2020). Without accurate record-keeping, implementing and measuring the effectiveness of gun-policy reform and armed violence reduction programs is greatly impeded. The illegal proliferation of firearms from the United States is especially serious in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to WMEAT (which covers all arms transfers, including small arms and ammunition), in 2015–17, the twenty-one countries of Central America and the

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Caribbean (including Mexico) took delivery of US$6.9 billion worth of military-related equipment from the United States. US$6.4 billion of that went to Mexico alone. The other twenty countries received military goods and services of all types worth roughly US$500 million from the United States (WMEAT 2019, Table III). SIPRI arms trade data shows most of that was aircraft and ships (SIPRI 2020c) While Comtrade data shows fully licensed transfers, total diverted weapons, and ammunition must be surmised. Reviewing trace and homicide data, it appears that 70 percent of gun crimes in Mexico involve American-bought weapons, which generally cannot be imported into Mexico legally. “The share of homicides in Mexico involving a firearm grew from 16 percent in 1997 to 66 percent in 2017. That suggests around half of Mexico’s 33,000 murder victims last year were killed by a gun manufactured in the United States, which had 14,542 gun homicides in 2017. An American-made gun is more likely to be used in a murder in Mexico than at home (Economist 2019).” Modeling suggests that illegal (undeclared) transfers from the United States to Mexico were roughly 88,000 in 1997 and rose to 253,000 annually in the years 2010–12 (McDougal et al. 2015). Although there is no persuasive reason to doubt the United States is the dominant source of small arms illegally reaching Mexico, gun control opponents cite specific categories to sow doubt. American gun advocates insist that the sample of weapons traced to the United States is self-selected; national police are more likely to request North American tracing on guns they suspect originated there. Indeed, the U.S. isn’t the only source of weaponry fuelling Mexico’s violence. John Lott notes that “Between 2005 and 2014, more than 13,000 grenades were seized by the Mexican government, and these simply can’t be bought in the U.S…the weapons are coming from places like Nicaragua and other South American countries…[as well as] Asia and some from the Middle East” (Lott 2019). Lott shows how data-picking can be used to support even counter-intuitive conclusions. While he might be right about hand grenades, such skepticism does not hold up for illegal transfers of small arms (Dube et al. 2012). Less debatable, perhaps, are impressions from the region. There is a consensus among regional officials that “American weapons are routinely

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funnelled into the country aboard ships, flooding cities like Kingston… Jamaican authorities, who estimate that 200 guns are smuggled into the country from the United States every month” (Azam 2019). Illegally trafficked firearms from United States are becoming a serious problem in the United Kingdom (Bradley 2020). Seizure data substantiates that firearms from the United States are routinely found by police and customs authorities (UNODC 2015: 45–47). There seems little doubt that the states of the Caribbean and Central America cannot solve their gun problems without major reforms in the United States relating to the production, sale, recording, and transfer of small arms. The proliferation of small arms originating from the U.S. civilian market seems likely to get worse and become more global. In recent years, the U.S. has reduced restrictions and oversight on arms exports in several ways: reducing regulatory measures; transferring export licensing from diplomatic entities to commerce entities; streamlining licensing procedures; restricting Congressional oversight mechanisms; and withdrawing from treaty commitments such as the Arms Trade Treaty (Mehta 2020). American gun advocates have long sought to globalize American gun policy (Weinberg et al. 2019). With the election of President Trump in 2016, the American gun industry saw an opportunity to reduce regulations on gun-related exports to civilians, arguing that these should not be regulated the same as munitions, or weapons of war. According to the country’s largest lobby for gun manufacturers, the goal was to increase firearm exports by removing the State Department from the regulatory process, which takes political and human rights considerations prominently into account, and allows for congressional oversight (Keane 2017). In 2020, it was announced that “the [Trump] administration…[would] no longer consider semi-automatic assault weapons, select sniper rifles, and their ammunition as weapons of war, but instead as commercial items” (Federal Register 2020). As such, it is estimated that legal exports could increase by twenty percent (Stone 2020). While these reforms lower the bar for legal exports from the United States, they do not change import rules in recipient countries. This combination is certain to augment diversions, as importing parties will find it easier to bring weapons in due to reduced scrutiny on the part of the exporter.

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The following section will provide an overview of how the international arms transfer process works and examine how diversions can occur at transfer.

2.4

Diversions in the Transfer Process

Sections 2.2 and 2.3 demonstrate the scale of the documented arms trade, as well as the United States’ outsize role and impact on it. This provides a basic context for understanding how the regulated trade ties into the illicit proliferation of small arms and sustains armed violence. While officially traded weapons are subject to varying amounts of government control and scrutiny, they can still be diverted into the illicit sphere through a variety of weaknesses. This section explains the control process for internationally traded firearms, and how they are liable to be diverted throughout their transfer. All states have some form of a transfer control process for conventional arms, of which small arms are a subcategory. States have the discretion to grant or deny permission to export, import, transit, and broker arms in their territory. These permissions are accorded by national licensing authorities in the importing and exporting states, as well as any states that the arms are transiting4 through or being brokered from. The integrity of the regulated arms trade is built upon national transfer laws, the licensing systems they mandate, and their interoperability with domestic and foreign counterparts. The ATT aims to address this by establishing a common set of norms that participating states must incorporate into their transfer control systems, thereby bridging the procedural gaps between states and harmonizing transfer processes. It also encourages states to report annual trade volumes and to exert broader scrutiny over potential arms transfers before granting transfer permissions.5 The ATT is not the first multilateral 4This encompasses both transit and transhipment. Transit is when a consignment passes through the territory of a state en route to its destination without changing vessel. Transhipment is when a consignment changes vessel in an intermediary state en route to its destination. 5The ATT requires states to conduct a risk assessment that considers whether an individual arms transfer could undermine peace and security; violate international laws and norms;

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effort to harmonize arms control systems and bring transparency to the international arms trade, but it goes the furthest by being a legally binding instrument that signatories must conform to (Woolcott 2014). This is consequential as states otherwise set their own requirements and criteria in their licensing process. At the heart of essentially every transfer control system is the end-user certificate (EUC; CAR 2019). In every arms transfer, there is at the very least an exporting party and an importing end-user. They are responsible for acquiring and presenting the various government permissions and licenses necessary to legitimize and allow their transfer. EUCs are verification documents accorded by the licensing authority of the importing state that the transferring parties must then present to the licensing authority of the exporting state for review. EUCs typically contain information on the transferring parties, the contents and value of the transfer, information on the intended enduse, and more (Bromley and Griffiths 2010). EUCs are vital as they are the first line of scrutiny for the licensing authority of the exporting state. This authority will conduct a risk assessment of whether arms could be misused or diverted for illicit purposes using the information contained in the EUC as a starting point (Bromley and Griffiths 2010). As such, EUCs are key to understanding how weaknesses in the transfer process can divert regulated arms into the illicit domain. Typologies of diversion have been developed before, though typically from a post-diversion perspective—that is to say, after an illicit arm has been diverted, recaptured, documented, and investigated (CAR 2018a). In an analysis of over 1,000 cases of diversion around the world, Conflict Armament Research developed a typology of diversion causes, ranging from battlefield capture to state-sponsored diversions (CAR 2018a). While these typologies are useful for understanding how weapons end up on battlefields, this perspective often obscures the complex set of factors that allow for arms to be diverted during the transfer process. CAR has also produced an analysis of 75 EUCs, allowing for a typology of EUC weaknesses (CAR 2019). However, this is limited by its relatively small contribute to terrorism or transnational crime; perpetuate gender-based violence; or have any other unintended negative consequence.

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sample size and the ambiguity of whether the sampled EUCs are related to cases of diversion. Other NGOs provide qualitative analyses for how diversions occur in the transfer process, though these approaches do not provide a typology of diversions or a quantitative context (Holtom and Jongleux 2019; Control Arms 2018). Developing a typology of how diversions occur in the transfer process is inherently difficult, not just because diversions are difficult to detect and document as they happen, but also because the documentation relating to specific diverted transfers is often beyond public access. Nevertheless, recurrent themes are identifiable when examining accounts of transfer diversion, and these themes often overlap and compound each other’s impacts. Very generally, these themes are limited state capacities, fraudulent practices by transferring parties, process gaps and loopholes, and intentional state-sponsored diversions. Institutional capacity weaknesses are an omnipresent set of challenges in verifying and monitoring arms transfers that are experienced by all states, particularly developing states. This can entail the physical inability of customs agencies to verify the contents of cargo consignments passing through ports of entry, or to inspect shipments transiting through national boundaries, especially maritime boundaries (Finardi and Danssaert 2012). It could also entail the inability of exporting states to conduct follow-up checks on exported arms after they’ve been delivered (Control Arms 2018). This could also entail a lack of record-keeping and data management procedures that affect institutional memory. Such weaknesses could culminate in unintentional EUC violations (such as an unauthorized re-transfer of imported arms), or an inability to track, monitor, and inhibit notorious and suspicious transfer parties (Holtom and Jongleux 2019; CAR 2019). Another challenge for states—and once again, developing states in particular—are intranational loopholes and gaps in the transfer control process. As state institutions with law enforcement mandates evolve and develop over time, differences in their processes, procedures, and mandates can lead to exploitable loopholes. For instance, if a customs agency and a police firearms registry have different standards for verifying and recording arms imports, this could lead to the generation of different official counts, allowing savvy traffickers an opportunity to divert arms

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at import (Quitoriano 2016). Another example is when states empower multiple agencies to license transfers: differing criteria for deliberating on a transfer authorization can lead to an uncoordinated, uneven, and exploitable set of transfer controls. A commerce- or security-focused state agency may have less stringent criteria for enabling an arms transfer than a diplomatic agency which places greater attention to human rights commitments. In turn, this could pose an opportunity to bad actors. Fraudulent practices by transferring parties represent the active criminal element in transfer diversions. They are enabled by capacity weaknesses and are highly adaptable to such weaknesses as they become apparent. The fraudulent use of EUCs and other forms of transfer documentation figures prominently into this theme. EUCs can be forged or provided in duplicate, typically with the collusion of corrupt government officials (CAR 2019; Control Arms 2018). Fraudulent copies of EUCs can be sent to licensing authorities in multiple states, enhancing the chances that bad actors can exploit interoperability gaps and evade exporter’s controls (CAR 2019). Finally, the intentional diversion of arms by states is a profound challenge to the international control process. Such transfers can take place by a variety of means. States with vested interests in a conflict can either directly supply locally manufactured arms to an aligned group, or reexport weapons procured from another state in violation of an EUC (Hilton 2020; Miller 2018). It is also possible for manufacturing states to use other states with less stringent export controls as proxies for providing arms to violent groups under their sponsorship (Davis 2020). Finally, diversions can take place within states: arms originally transferred under the terms of a specific end-use can be repurposed for an unauthorized use by the importing state that the exporting state would not have otherwise allowed (Holtom and Jongleux 2019). There are measures that states—both importing and exporting—can adopt to shore up these weaknesses and address the impacts of diverted small arms, which will be addressed in the subsequent chapters of this book, region by region. The following section of this chapter examines specific instances of transfer diversion in former Soviet states with the goal of illuminating how these themes underly prominent transfer diversions.

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Insights from Post-Soviet Countries

This section will explore SALW trade and diversion in post-Soviet countries6 with a specific focus on Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. It will first provide a brief overview of their domestic policies, as well as internal and regional dynamics, and then move on to a discussion of three case studies that exemplify some of the forms of diversion suggested in the previous section. The Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian Soviet Republics were home to a significant proportion of the Soviet military arsenal. Russia, as a successor state, inherited most of the USSR’s small arms production facilities (Pyadushkin et al. 2003), making its arsenal of military SALW the largest in the world (Griffiths and Karp 2008). Owing to their favorable geographies and high levels of development, defense production facilities, and stockpiles7 were placed in Ukraine and Belarus to meet the USSR’s strategic needs during the Cold War (Perepelitsa 2004). As of 2008, national ammunition stockpiles were estimated to be 2.5 million metric tons in Ukraine and 1 million tons for Belarus (Bevan 2008). Despite NATO and EU-funded programs to reduce surplus ammunition Soviet stockpiles remain a prominent source of internationally transferred weapons (Griffiths and Karp 2008). Almost three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, arms exports play different roles for each country. Russia is the world’s secondlargest weapons exporter, accounting for 21 percent of global arms exports in 2015–19 (SIPRI 2020b). Because the armaments industry is one of the main sectors through which Russia is integrated with the global economy, Moscow aspires to strengthen its position in new markets and increase its competitiveness across a wide range of weapons systems (Connolly & Sentstad 2017). Concerning illicit and contested transfers, Russia is notorious for supplying weapons to countries in which 6 Notwithstanding

the limitations of the utility of the term ‘post-Soviet’, such delimitation marker is helpful in that it provides a useful point of departure for looking at the suggested three countries. Moreover, it underscores the pertinence of post-Soviet legacies that continue to shape countries’ arms exports up to this day. 7The Ukrainian Soviet Republic is estimated to have inherited the world’s third-largest arsenal of SALW (Griffiths and Karp 2008).

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it has a political interest or military presence, such as Syria, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, and Venezuela.8 Ukraine accounts for 1 percent of global arms exports, ranking 12th internationally in 2015–19 (SIPRI 2020b). It is known as the “epicenter of post-Soviet arms trafficking” and has been described as an “irresponsible arms exporter” (Overton 2015; Holtom 2008). Guided by the desire to profit from its Soviet-era arsenals, it has been involved in multiple scandals relating to transfers to war-torn countries, including but not limited to South Sudan, Syria, Chad, Kenya, and Libya.9 Belarus ranks 20th in global arms exports, as its share came to 0.3 percent in 2015–19 (SIPRI 2020b).10 The autocratic and anti-Western nature of Alexander Lukashenko’s political regime shapes Belarus’s external relations to a large extent.11 Allegations have also been raised against Belarus regarding illicit arms transfers to countries such as Libya, Ivory Coast, and South Sudan.12 The lack of legislative regulation of arms exports that was pertinent in the early 90 s seems to have been addressed by all three countries, though enforcement challenges and abuses by officials persist (DCAF 2012). Russia has the most centralized system of exports controls on military-use items: Rosoboronexport—a state-owned enterprise—has the exclusive right to export weapons (President of Russia 2000). Ukraine attempted to establish a similar system in 2010 when an exclusive right to export weapons was granted only to the six manufacturers within a state-run conglomerate, Ukroboronprom (President of Ukraine 2010). The subsequent years have seen a reversal of this policy, and private companies were not only allowed to export weapons but also gained the right to enter the international market without having to confirm prices and marketing policy with the state conglomerate (Cabinet of Ministers 8 See

Reuters (2012a, b, 2016); Rivlin (2005); TASS (2020); U.S. Department of Defense (2020); Weitz (2009). 9 See Holtom (2008) and Small Arms Survey (2020). 10 Interestingly, all three states are experiencing a downward trend in the volume of international transfers when compared to 2010–14. 11 For example, the EU introduced an embargo on arms and equipment that could be used for internal repression for the first time in 2004 (CoEU 2004). 12 See Amnesty International (2012), UN News (2011), UNSC (2015b). The Sudan and Ivory Coast allegations were primarily raised with regards to weapons other than SALW.

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of Ukraine 2020). In Belarus, 155 enterprises are authorized to export weapons as of January 1, 2019; only 25 of them are part of the State Authority for Military Industry, or Goskomvoenprom (State Authority for Military Industry of Belarus n.d).13 The military industries of the three countries were part of a single military complex during Soviet times, and their interconnectivity has shaped close cooperation since 1991. None of these states had closed production cycles; Belarus and Ukraine produced components for military equipment manufactured in Russia (Perepelitsa 2004). At present, however, practical aspects in the sphere of military cooperation among the states go hand in hand with political considerations. Cooperation between Ukraine and Russia halted after the breakout of the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. In May 2015, Ukraine’s parliament denounced five agreements with Russia that, inter alia, governed collaboration in the military sphere and military interstate transfers (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine 2015). Such cooperation was not limited to the legal sphere. As the 2013 report published by C4ADS illustrated, the Ukraine-based network organizing illicit arms transfers all over the world encompassed companies and high-level political figures as well as a loose collection of logistics contractors in Russia as well (Wallace and Farley 2013). Conflict in Eastern Ukraine also worsened relations between Belarus and Ukraine, as the former raised concerns about arms illicitly flowing into Belarus from Ukraine (Belsat 2019). Military cooperation between Belarus and Russia is shaped by the close relationship between the countries’ leaders as well as their participation in regional integration projects.14 In 2019, for example, Belarus started to assemble its first small arms—Vepr rifles and shotguns—from Russian-made Molot parts (BELTA 2019). Notably, the relations between the two countries were hardly affected by the incident that occurred in July 2020 when

13 Goskomvoenprom

is a specially authorized export control body created in 2003 (President of Belarus 2003). 14These include the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Treaty Organization, and the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

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33 members of the Wagner Group were stopped near Minsk (BELTA 2020).15 The remainder of this section will examine several instances of international transfer diversion to illustrate how exported weapons end up with illicit end-users. Examples from these post-Soviet countries demonstrate the themes identified in Sect. 2.4: in the case of a Russian ammunition transfer to Syria, we see an intentional diversion of weaponry to a conflict hotspot despite international embargos; in the case of an illicit arms deal between South Sudan and the Ukrainian state conglomerate Ukroboronprom, it is possible to discern a pattern of fraudulent practices hinging upon the facilitation by transferring parties; finally, a case of Belarusian ammunition being diverted to a Libyan armed group demonstrates how exporters are limited by institutional weaknesses.

2.5.1 Russia to Syria (2012) The delivery of ammunition from Russia to Syria on board of the MV Chariot in 2011–2012 demonstrates the case in which one state that has a vested interest in the conflict continues to deliver weapons to a state under an international arms embargo. The Saint Vincent-flagged MV Chariot departed from the port of St Petersburg in December 2011. On January 10, 2012, it stopped at the Cypriot port of Limassol to refuel. Despite the suspicion that the ship was carrying “dangerous cargo,” Cypriot authorities permitted the ship to depart regardless (Reuters 2012a). The Foreign Ministry of Cyprus reported that it was understood that the ship would sail to Turkey and not Syria. However, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official confirmed that according to the Turkish naval intelligence, the ship reached Syria two days later on 12 January (Reuters 2012b). It was reportedly carrying 15 Lukashenko initially raised the suspicion that mercenaries were sent to destabilize the situation in the country during the presidential election. Yet, the seizure of Sudanese banknotes gave way to the speculation that the group of mercenaries was in Belarus in transit to Sudan (Foreign Policy 2020). While the final destination of the detained members of the Wagner Group remains unclear, Moscow adopted the viewpoint that they intended to take a flight to Istanbul and then relocate to a third country (Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Belarus 2020).

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60 tons of ammunition belonging to Rosoboronexport—Russia’s state manufacturer. A representative of Westberg Ltd, a manager company of the MV Chariot, confirmed that the cargo belonged to Rosoboronexport. He also reported that though the cargo was declared to be in the “dangerous” category of items, Westberg Ltd was unaware of its actual contents (Gazeta.Ru 2012). Despite international pressure, Rosoboronexport refused to comment on the origins and destination of the cargo. Moreover, Moscow maintained its earlier position that the arms transfer did not violate any international law, as Russia did not support the UN resolution on Syria and was fulfilling its obligations under existing contracts (RBC 2011). It should also be noted that the ease of delivery is shaped by the fact that Russia holds a naval facility in Tartus, Syria. In fact, the route between Russia, the Russia-controlled naval base in Tartus and the Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia is often colloquially referred to as the “Syrian Express,” as it is notorious for facilitating transfers of Russian weapons to Syria (EurAsia Daily 2020). Notably, Russia is estimated to have supplied 71 percent of Syria’s imports of major weapons throughout 2008–2012 (SIPRI 2014).

2.5.2 Ukraine to South Sudan (2014) This case illustrates how third parties might facilitate an illicit arms deal and, potentially, transfer. In September 2017, a report published by Amnesty International shed light on a 2014 arms deal that was supposed to enable the transfer of Ukrainian weapons to South Sudan with the assistance of a UAE-based intermediary as well as a shell company registered in the UK. (Amnesty International 2017). While Amnesty International was unable to determine whether the delivery took place, it provided compelling details regarding the nature of the deal. Allegedly, International Golden Group—a private firm based in the UAE—was contracted by the government of South Sudan to procure weapons. Thereafter, in August 2014, the firm signed a contract with Ukrinmash—a state-owned

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company that is also part of Ukroboronprom—to supply weapons worth US$169.3 million to South Sudan.16 The Ukrainian government rebuffed the accusations about delivering weapons to South Sudan, as both the State Service of Export Control and Ukrinmash stated that no transfer of weapons took place even though the contract had been signed (Ukrinmash 2017). Export data reveals that deliveries of weapons to South Sudan had, nonetheless, happened in 2014 and 2016 (State Service of Export Control of Ukraine n.d.). Another facet of Ukrainian involvement includes Ukrainian citizens and director of S-Profit—a UK-registered shell company, being flagged as a prospective supplier of a large percentage of the items listed in the contract. S-Profit’s legal address—43 Bedford Street, London—appeared in multiple controversies, as it is associated with businesses of Ukraine’s ousted president Viktor Yanukovych and his associates, as well as the subsequent president Petro Poroshenko (Nashi Groshi 2014). Moreover, the documentation indicates that S-Profit took part in orchestrating other deals that were negotiated by the Ukrainian company Techimpex. Notably, this company also appeared in a 2014–2015 deal arranged to circumvent EU embargos and deliver armored vehicles from Poland to Uganda and Burundi via Ukraine and the UAE, amongst other deals (Stack 2017). No measures were taken within Ukraine to address the activities of Techimpex.

2.5.3 Belarus to Libya (2014) Over 3,000 tons of Belarusian small arms ammunition intended for the Libyan Ministry of Defense were diverted upon delivery by the Zintan brigades—a local militia—in 2014. Belarus submitted its notification of the weapons delivery to the UN Panel of Experts in due course in July 2013 (UNSC 2015b). However, it was reported that on February 28, 2014, part of the shipment was stolen at Tripoli International

16 Ukrinmash was involved in another questionable arms deal when it was involved in the reexport of ammunition to Libya through an Armenian broker and the aforementioned Emirati International Golden Group in 2011. See Small Arms Survey 2020 [forthcoming].

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Airport by the non-state armed group controlling it. This information was verified by a representative of the Libyan Ministry of Defense working in the field, Libyan sources from the aviation sector, international security sources, and an eyewitness (ibid.: 32). After the incident, Belarus informed the Panel that as of May 20, 2014, 29 flights delivered weapons and ammunition to Libya. However, no information was provided regarding either the delivery locations or end-users. Moreover, flight data indicated that some of the deliveries were made to “airports that are not under the control of the Government of Libya or groups aligned with them” (ibid.: 33). While official Minsk communications claimed that they did not make any deliveries after June 2014, the Panel received information that further transfer happened in July 2014 at Ghadmes airport controlled by Zintani groups. According to an expert with Libyan aviation, one such flight took place on 24 July and delivered arms and ammunition (ibid.: 38). The Belarussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the allegations of possible diversion by underscoring that Belarus acted in compliance in all procedures and international obligations and that the ammunition was transferred to meet the needs of the Libyan Ministry of Defense. It was also highlighted that no issues were raised by the Libyan side and that end-user documentation proves that deliveries were made in accordance with the contract (UDF.BY 2015). Despite this statement, the Belarussian government did not publicly release such certificates to prove its veracity.

2.6

Conclusion

It is impossible to know what proportion of the regulated arms trade is subject to diversion and eventually violence. Only about US$6.5 billion of the small arms trade has been reliably documented, and even then, the data lends itself to several limitations and inconsistencies. However, it is possible to understand how diversions happen in the transfer process by examining interlocking aspects of the trade—from how it works to who are the principle actors driving it—as well as case studies that exemplify how arms end up in the wrong hands.

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This chapter began with a summary of what the regulated arms trade entails, and what are the principle methods in documenting it. It then discussed the outsize role of the United States in driving the global trade, both in terms of supply (that is to say, as an exporter) and demand (as an importer). It demonstrated that US export policies have a notable impact on the trade and, eventually, on armed violence around the world, especially in Latin America. The chapter then summarized how the transfer process works and how several thematic weaknesses can culminate in diversions. Finally, these themes were exemplified in several case studies involving former Soviet states that facilitated illicit transfers one way or another. Through this overview, it is hoped that an understanding of the nuanced relationship between the regulated arms trade and armed violence begins to emerge. They are indeed connected. The subsequent chapters in this collection will explore the impact diverted small arms have locally, nationally, and regionally in greater depth, and will provide even more examples of how arms are diverted. They will also explore how stakeholders can prevent arms diversions, limit the proliferation of illicit firearms, and reduce armed violence.

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3 Gun Violence and Key Challenges in the United States Eugenio Weigend Vargas, Josh Sugarmann, and Rukmani Bhatia

3.1

Introduction

When examining firearm policies and gun violence globally, the United States (U.S.) serves as an important case study. The U.S. is the main manufacturer, importer, and exporter of firearms worldwide. The U.S. has the highest level of civilian gun ownership among countries: The nation represents four percent of the global population but holds close to 46% of civilian-owned guns worldwide (Nichols 2018). Recent acts of gun violence have illustrated the potential cost of the U.S.’ gun policies. Since 2007, the U.S. has witnessed 17 of its 26 most lethal shootings in modern history (CNN Editorial Research 2018). These tragedies are not anomalies, with mass shootings occurring often in public places like E. Weigend Vargas (B) · R. Bhatia Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, WA, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Sugarmann Violence Policy Center, Washington, DC, WA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_3

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schools, colleges, movie theaters, concerts, nightclubs, workplaces, and places of worship. However, random mass shootings in public spaces represent a small fraction of a much bigger problem. Based on 2014–2018 fatal injury data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC (2020), nearly 103 people are shot to death daily. Everyday incidents of gun violence manifest in different ways, including firearm homicides, armed domestic violence attacks, suicide by firearm, and unintentional shootings. In fact, during the 2018 elections, voters reported gun violence prevention as the fourth most important issue (Sarlin 2018). Addressing gun violence is challenging because, in addition to high levels of gun ownership, the existing system of federal and state laws enable individuals to easily obtain firearms, even those who may pose risks to themselves or others. Additionally, despite evidence that a number of gun policies would reduce gun violence and widespread public support (e.g., Quinnipiac University 2018), the political leverage of advocates for the gun industry and gun rights, like the National Rifle Association or NRA, serve as significant impediments on reforming and strengthening gun laws. The objectives of this chapter are to provide an overview of gun violence in the U.S., discuss the challenges that exist in addressing this problem, and to provide policy recommendations and actions to reduce gun violence in the United States. To do so, we compiled and analyzed information from sources including academic articles, reports from nonprofit organizations, datasets from government agencies, press releases, and news media content. This chapter is divided into four sections. Section one provides an overview of how gun violence manifests in the U.S. and its impact on numerous communities. Three main challenges are discussed in sections two through four. Section two describes how this country is an outlier in terms of gun production as well as gun ownership, and the linkage between the prevalence of guns to higher levels of gun violence. Section three analyzes already implemented policies to reduce gun violence and addresses gaps as well as regulatory challenges that make the population more vulnerable. Section four describes the ties between the gun industry and the NRA, detailing how that relationship has contributed to higher

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levels of gun ownership, to blocking stronger gun laws, and to adopting dangerous regulations. Finally, our recommendations are provided in the conclusion.

3.2

How Gun Violence Manifests in the United States

Gun violence in the U.S. is considered a public health crisis (American Medical Association 2016). According to data from the CDC (2020), there were 188,017 gun-related deaths in the U.S. from 2014 through 2018, meaning that a person was killed with a gun every 14 minutes.

3.2.1 Gun suicides Roughly 61 percent of gun-related fatalities were suicides (CDC 2020). A study by Grinshteyn and Hemenway (2016) found that the U.S. presents gun suicide rates that are eight times higher than other developed nations, making it an outlier among peer nations. From 2014 through 2018, the U.S. had a rate of 7.1 gun suicides per every 100,000 people (CDC 2020). However, rates of gun suicides vary significantly across U.S. states. While Massachusetts had a rate of 2.01 incidents per every 100,000 residents from 2014 through 2018, Montana presented a rate of 16.47 gun-related suicides per every 100,000 residents during the same period (CDC 2020), with Alaska and Wyoming also presenting rates more than twice as high as the national rate. In contrast, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, and Hawaii had rates lower than three per every 100 thousand people (CDC 2020). Gun rights advocates often dismiss data about gun-related suicide, arguing that these deaths should not be included as incidents of gun violence because they are not interpersonal violence and the gun is a tool rather than a driver of suicides (Leah 2018). These assertions overlook the lethality of firearms: about 85% of suicide attempts with a firearm are fatal versus only 3 percent of attempts by drug overdose (Drexler 2013). Similarly, a 2000 analysis of 8 U.S. states concluded that firearms

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were the most lethal method of suicide with more than 82% of suicide attempts with a firearm ending fatally (Spicer and Miller 2000). The lethality of gun suicides is further compounded by data indicating that 90 percent of suicide survivors will not die by suicide and 70 percent of suicide survivors will never attempt suicide again (Giffords Law Center 2018; Owens et al. 2002). While multiple factors must be addressed to reduce U.S. suicide rates, the problems of easy access to guns in U.S. households are factors that need to be addressed.

3.2.2 Gun homicides The U.S. presents a rate of gun homicides that is 25 times higher than other high-income countries (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2016). Gun homicides represented 73 percent of total homicides from 2014 through 2018, making firearms the most common method to commit homicides in the U.S. (CDC 2020). With 66,902 incidents from 2014 through 2018, a gun homicide occurred every 39 min in the U.S. (CDC 2020). Across states, rates of gun homicides vary. The average of the five states1 with the highest rates from 2014 through 2018, 8.63 per every 100,000 people, was nine times higher than the average of the five states2 with the lowest rates, 0.93 per every 100,000 people (CDC 2020). The rates of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama alone are more than two times higher than the national rate of gun homicides, which was 4.14 per every 100,000 people from 2014 through 2018 (CDC 2020). Communities of color represent a disproportionate percentage of victims of gun-related homicides in the U.S. While African Americans represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 57 percent of gun homicides from 2014 through 2018 (CDC 2020). Young African American men experience the highest rate of gun homicides in the U.S., presenting a homicide rate of more than 78 per every 100,000 people, 19 times higher than the national rate (CDC 2020). High rates of violence in urban communities are often the result of both a prevalence of guns and an interconnected web of social and economic issues, 1These 2These

states are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina. states are Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and North Dakota.

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such as persistent poverty, lack of employment and educational opportunities, and a breakdown in the police-community relationship that imperils community safety. Generationally, while young people ages 15–29 made up 2.2 percent of all deaths in the country during 2016, they accounted for nearly 50 percent of gun-related homicides (Parsons et al. 2018). When compared to other developed nations, the U.S. is again an outlier, presenting a gun homicide rate among young people ages 15–24 that is 49 times higher than its peers (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2016). In terms of sex-disaggregated data, men represent 84% of gun homicide victims (CDC 2020). Nonetheless, gun homicides of women are a problem within the U.S. that manifests differently, with women often knowing their attackers. A study found that nearly 4.5 million women in the U.S. were threatened by a partner with a gun (Ewing 2016). Domestic violence homicides are often driven by the presence of a gun. According to a 2003 study, a gun in a home with a history of domestic violence is five times more likely to result in the murder of women than those homes without a gun (Campbell et al. 2003). Out of the 5,290 homicides of women reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) from 2007 through 2016, close to 50 percent were from intimate partner violence and out of those, 55 percent were firearm homicides (United States Department of Justice 2018).3 The U.S. is again an outlier on rates of firearm homicides against women, with a study examining 23 high-income countries finding that the U.S. accounted for 90 percent of women firearm homicides (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2016).4

3.2.3 Mass shootings Mass shootings are a growing concern in the U.S., particularly among young students. A survey showed that every four in ten Americans fear being a victim of mass shootings (Newport 2017). These fears stem from the frequency of mass shootings and increasing levels of media 3 Only

considering cases with one aggressor and one victim. U.S. accounted for less than 50 percent of the population of all 23 high-income nations combined. 4The

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coverage around these tragedies. According to Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as incidents where four or more people (excluding the shooter) are injured or killed, 2,087 mass shootings took place in the U.S. from 2014 through 2019, meaning a mass shooting occurred every 25 hours in the U.S. (Gun Violence Archive 2020). Academic evidence suggests that mass shootings are becoming more frequent. Using a more limited definition of mass shootings, researchers analyzed a 1982–2014 dataset that compiled attacks where the shooter killed four or more people in a public place.5 They found that while public mass shootings occurred every 200 days from 1982 through 2011, they occurred every 64 days from 2011 through 2014 (Harvard, T.H. Chan School of Public Health 2014). Similar conclusions were reported by the FBI, which analyzed active shooter incidents, defined as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” The FBI’s reports from 2000 through 2017 indicated that active shooter incidents are becoming more frequent and deadlier (Hayes 2019; Nass and Campbell 2018; Federal Bureau of Investigation 2018a).

3.2.4 Unintentional Shootings From 2014 through 2018, 2,389 people were unintentionally killed with a firearm (CDC 2020), meaning a fatal unintentional shooting occurs every 18 h. Unintentional gun deaths were 6.2 times higher in the U.S. when compared to peer nations (Grinshteyn and Hemenway 2016). Moreover, while unintentional gun deaths affect all people, this manifestation of gun violence impacts minors in two ways. First, children ages 1–17 are unintentionally killed with a firearm every four days, representing 18 percent of victims of this form of gun violence (CDC 2020). Second, minors also unintentionally shoot family members or members of their communities. Research conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety showed that from January 2015 through February 2019, there were more 5This definition is different from the one used by Gun Violence Archive because it only considers fatalities and excludes those shooting where shooter and victims were generally unknown.

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than 1,000 unintentional shootings by children under the age of 17, resulting in both injuries as well as fatalities (Everytown for Gun Safety 2019).

3.2.5 Gun injuries Gun violence in the U.S. injures thousands of people every year. According to available data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, more than 76,000 people are injured with a gun every year (Brady United Against Gun Violence 2019). Firearm-related injuries are costly for the American population; the average annual hospital admission cost for firearms injuries from 2003 through 2013 was $622 million (Peek-Asa et al. 2017).

3.2.6 School Shootings School shootings can refer to mass shootings, gun suicides, or unintentional shootings on school grounds. According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center, nearly 57 percent of teenagers and 63 percent of parents of teenagers in the U.S. worry about school shootings (Graf 2018). A survey conducted by Educators for Excellence (2018) found that gun violence was the number one school safety concern among teachers. These fears are not unfounded. According to Everytown for Gun Safety (2018), there were around 400 school shootings from 2013 through 2018. These shootings were defined as incidents where a gun was fired, intentionally or unintentionally, in K-12 schools as well as on college campuses. Research indicates that schools see lower rates of enrolment following a shooting as well as declines in student performance on standardized tests (Beland and Kim 2016).

3.2.7 U.S. Firearms Abroad U.S. guns are also fuelling violence abroad. A report from Parsons and Weigend (2018a) showed that, from 2014 through 2016, more than

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50,000 U.S. firearms were recovered in crimes in 15 countries in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Specifically, during this period, 70 percent of guns recovered in crimes committed in Mexico and traced originated in the U.S. (Parsons and Weigend 2018a).

3.3

High Inventory and Gun Ownership

The high rates of gun violence in the U.S. are driven by both high levels of gun inventory and permissive gun laws. In this regard, just as the U.S. is an outlier in terms of gun-related deaths among developed countries, it is an outlier in terms of gun production and ownership when compared to other countries. The number of manufactured and imported firearms in the U.S. significantly increased after 2008. According to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF, from 1998 through 2007, nearly 35 million firearms were manufactured but from 2008 through 2017, the number more than doubled to 79 million firearms (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2018a).6 The rise in gun manufacturing is driven by the rise in the production of rifles and higher caliber pistols, more lethal weapons (Smith et al. 2017). Similarly, while the U.S. imported 16.6 million firearms from 1998 through 2007, from 2008 through 2017, the number of imported firearms rose to 40 million firearms (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2018a). Some of these firearms were legally or illegally exported to other countries, but most of these guns appear to have been obtained by private U.S. civilians, with the rise in importation and manufacturing data being accompanied by rising levels of civilian gun ownership, in terms of the number of guns owned. Since there is no federal gun registry, it is difficult to determine the total number of civilian-owned guns. A 2015 study highlighted that the civilian gun stock in the U.S. grew from an estimated 192 million firearms in 1994 to almost 265 million in 2015, increasing by 38 percent 6 Firearms

include the following categories: pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns as well as miscellaneous firearms.

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in two decades (Azrael et al. 2017). A 2018 study estimated that civilians in the U.S. possess 393.3 million firearms, obtained through legal and illicit transactions (Karp 2018). Both estimations rank the U.S. as the nation with the highest level of civilian gun ownership globally. Additionally, associated with the uncertainties of COVID-19, the U.S. saw a significant surge of gun sales during 2020. Recent reports suggest that close to 3.9 million background checks were completed by the FBI either for the purchase of firearms or for permits to possess firearms during June 2020 alone (Booker 2020). While most gun owners purchase firearms for protection (Parker et al. 2017), evidence-based research repeatedly links high levels of firearm ownership to gun violence. A 2000 study examining homicide rates in 26 developed countries found that higher levels of gun availability are linked to more homicides, specifically firearm homicides (Hemenway and Miller 2000). A 2007 study analyzed a representative state-level survey to estimate household firearm ownership and its association to homicide rates in the U.S.; researchers found a positive and significant association between household gun ownership in the U.S. and homicides rates of men, women, and children (Miller et al. 2007). Similarly, studies have found a strong link between household firearm ownership and rates of overall suicides and gun suicides across all ages and sex groups (e.g., Miller et al. 2007; Knopov et al. 2019). In states with high firearm ownership, the rates of gun homicide of law enforcement officers are three times higher than in states with low firearm ownership (Swedler et al. 2015). Similarly, a 2018 study found a strong association between police fatally shooting civilians and levels of household gun ownership: states with higher levels of civilian-owned guns saw more incidents of police fatally shooting civilians (Hemenway et al. 2018). A 2016 academic study found that higher prevalence of firearms was associated with increased levels of homicide, rape, robbery, and assaults (Moore and Bergner 2016). More recently, a preliminary study found that the surge of gun sales during 2020 in the U.S. was associated with an increase of approximately 776 fatal and non-fatal gun injuries (Schleimer et al. 2020). Finally, academics have concluded that owning firearms for protection as well as owning multiple firearms are risk factors linked to higher gun

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theft, which often end up being used in a violent crime (Hemenway et al. 2017). In this regard, a 2017 study revealed that an estimated 380,000 firearms are stolen every year (Hemenway et al. 2017). Gun theft is a concern among law enforcement officers because stolen firearms may end up being used in the commission of violent crimes. During the six-year period between January 2010 and December 2015, 9,736 guns that were recovered by police in connection with a crime had been reported stolen or lost from federally licensed gun dealers (Parsons and Weigend 2017).

3.4

Addressing Gun Violence Through Effective Policy

While increased prevalence of guns is linked to higher rates of gun violence, the problem is further exacerbated when combined with permissive, ineffective, or counterproductive laws. In the U.S., legislative efforts to address gun violence have seen a great deal of opposition from the gun rights lobby that has wielded influence over federal and statelevel lawmakers in the past (Achenbach et al. 2013). However, despite some political obstacles impeding gun violence prevention legislation, several policies have been successfully advanced through federal and state legislatures.

3.4.1 Eligibility to Possess Firearms Under current federal law, established by the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), 9 categories of individuals are prohibited from buying and possessing guns, including people convicted of felony crimes, those subject to a domestic violence restraining order or convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence crime, and those with a history of involuntary mental health treatment. However, gaps in the current law overlook some individuals with a history of violence. For example, while federal law prohibits some domestic abusers from purchasing a firearm, the prohibitions only include current spouses, former spouses, intimate partners living or formerly living together, or

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co-parents of a child; the law excludes dating partners. Dating partner violence represented more than 50 percent of the total homicides against women committed by an intimate partner during 2015 (Authors’ analysis of data from the United States Department of Justice 2018). Similarly, federal law does not apply to those individuals who abuse other family members, not including partners or children (Giffords Law Center 2019a). Additionally, while stalking is linked to future domestic violence, individuals convicted of misdemeanor stalking against an intimate partner is not prohibited from possessing a gun under federal law (Parsons 2018). In addition, federal law does not prohibit individuals with a history of misdemeanor hate crimes from purchasing or possessing a gun. More than 250,000 Americans are victims of hate crimes every year (Southern Poverty Law Center 2018); perpetrators of these crimes often escalate or repeat their conduct to ensure their intimidating messages are rapidly received (Parsons et al. 2016).

3.4.2 Background Checks In 1993, a quarter-century after the Gun Control Act established federal prohibitive categories for firearm ownership, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, requiring all licensed gun dealers, known as “Federal Firearms Licensees” or “FFLs” to conduct a background check before selling a firearm (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2018b). FFLs must use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System or NICS, a federally maintained database, to confirm whether the buyer is legally able to possess a gun before selling the weapon. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2017), the existing background check system has prevented over three million prohibited persons from obtaining a firearm. It is also a policy that is supported by Democrats, Republicans, and gun owners, with over 97 percent of Americans favoring mandatory background checks prior to purchasing a firearm (Quinnipiac University 2018). However, the law only applies to licensed dealers. Private sellers, including people selling firearms at gun

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shows7 and online, are not required to run a background check before selling the weapon, making it possible for prohibited persons to obtain firearms from a non-licensed seller. A 2017 study estimates that approximately 22 percent of gun owners in the U.S. that acquired their most recent firearm within the previous two years did so without a background check (Miller et al. 2017). Some states have stepped in to fill these gaps by implementing universal background checks state-wide. 22 states and Washington, D.C. have passed some form of background checks for all firearm sales and transfers, regardless of whether the seller holds a federal firearms license (Giffords Law Center 2020a). Studies have indicated that state-level efforts around universal background checks are linked to lower levels of gun-related fatalities (Fleegler et al. 2013). A 2005 study found that effective state background checks limit access to firearms for prohibited persons, which in turn contributes to lower rates of gun homicides (Ruddell and Mays 2005). Other studies have linked permit to purchase laws with background checks to decreased rates of gun homicides. Connecticut, for example, enacted a law requiring all persons to apply for a permit and pass a background check before purchasing a handgun; following the implementation of this law, gun homicides rates dropped 40 percent (Rudolph et al. 2015). Conversely, Missouri repealed a law requiring all handgun purchasers first undergo a background check, with the state seeing a 25 percent increase in firearm homicides following the removal of the legislation (Webster et al. 2014). Background checks also help reduce gun trafficking. States that have expanded background checks also present lower rates of gun trafficking. A 2009 study estimated that intrastate gun trafficking was 48 percent lower in states that expanded background checks to include private sales (Webster et al. 2009). A 2014 study of gun tracing data found that, at a state level, the implementation of multiple laws which included expanding background checks to private sales was linked to lower levels of gun trafficking to Mexico (Eby 2014). 7 Organized

events with the objective of displaying and selling firearms and accessories. They are often held in public spaces. They are not regulated.

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3.4.3 Addressing Background Check Gaps The existing background check system is not without challenges. In 2007, gaps in record-keeping were exposed after the mass shooting on Virginia Tech’s campus, where 32 people were killed and 17 others were injured. The shooter was barred from legally owning a gun due to his mental health history, but a failure by the court system to include that record in NICS enabled him to purchase the gun used to commit a massacre on campus (Luo 2007). Congress passed the 2007 NICS Improvement Act, establishing financial incentives for states to improve reporting into the NICS system; by 2017, 29 states were recipients of federal funding under this act to update their systems for better NICS reporting (Giffords Law Center 2020b). However, not all gaps in reporting were addressed. In 2017, the remaining problems with NICS were again exposed when a prohibited person passed a background check and purchased a gun before perpetrating a mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas (The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence 2018). In 2018, Congress passed the Fix NICS Act, including the provision in the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act to further address inconsistent records, requiring better reporting of criminal convictions into NICS (Berman 2018). Another gap in the background check system is the “default proceed” problem. For most cases, the NICS system issues an immediate approval or denial result within a matter of minutes. However, in unusual cases, the NICS system is unable to provide an immediate result, requiring an FBI investigation into that person’s record to determine if they are prohibited. The FBI has three business days to investigate the case; after three days, if the investigation is not complete, the dealer may legally proceed with the transaction, conducting a “default proceed” sale (Johnson 2016). Default proceed sales can allow prohibited persons to purchase guns. In 2017, 6,004 background checks were denied after the three-day investigation period had elapsed; for at least 4,864 of those denied cases, a gun was sold to the prohibited person, requiring ATF officials to attempt to retrieve firearms from persons with potentially dangerous criminal histories. The consequences of a default proceed sale can be deadly. This gap is often referred to as the “Charleston Loophole”

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because a default proceed sale is how a prohibited person bought the gun used to murder nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 (Schmidt 2015).

3.4.4 Restrictions on Specific Weapons Federal law restricts private ownership of automatic weapons,8 silencers, and short-barrelled long guns and shotguns (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2018b). Under the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, it is illegal for almost all private citizens to own or transfer an automatic weapon manufactured after 1986. Any such weapons in private possession prior to 1986 are required to be registered and their transfer or sale is monitored by ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2018b). Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, silencers and short-barrelled rifles and shotguns are also tightly regulated and monitored by ATF (Giffords Law Center 2019b). These types of firearms are rarely recovered in crime scenes as reported by the ATF during 2017 (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2017).9 There are no similar federal restrictions of assault weapons, which are semiautomatic10 versions of fully automatic firearms originally designed for military or law enforcement use capable of accepting a detachable ammunition magazine. Additional non-sporting military features that are often found on these weapons include pistol grips, forward grips, barrel shrouds, and folding or telescoping stocks. The purpose-built antipersonnel features of these weapons heighten their lethality: allowing shooters to fire multiple rounds as quickly as the trigger can be pulled and quickly reload the weapon in a matter of seconds, making it possible to kill rapidly with great efficiency (Giffords Law Center 2019c). A review of mass shootings between January 2009 and July 2015 conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety found that when assault 8 Weapons

capable of continuously firing more than one round with a single trigger pull. exact numbers cannot be known, due to the facts related to such incidents being treated as tax information under federal law. 10 A gun capable of firing one round per trigger pull. 9 Although

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weapons or high-capacity magazines were used, 155 percent more people were shot and 47 percent more people were killed (Everytown for Gun Safety 2015). A 2017 analysis estimated that assault weapons and semiautomatic firearms equipped with high capacity magazines represented between 22 and 36 percent of guns used on crimes in the U.S. (Koper et al. 2017). Data also reveal the threat such weapons pose to law enforcement: In 2016 one in every four law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty were murdered by individuals using assault weapons (Violence Policy Center 2018). In 1994, the federal government enacted the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly referred to as the Assault Weapons Ban, preventing the purchase of assault weapons and high capacity magazines (Riley 2016). The law expired in 2004, with new versions of the law meeting strong Congressional opposition despite 67 percent of the population supporting this policy (Quinnipiac University 2018). As of December 2018, nine states and the District of Columbia have enacted some form of legislation to ban or regulate the ownership of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines (Giffords Law Center 2019c). Furthermore, the impact of the manufacture, importation, and sale of these weapons has consequences that travel beyond U.S. borders. A 2017 study found that, following the expiration of the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, homicide rates in Mexico increased for the first time in a decade and that this effect was larger in regions closer to the U.S.-Mexico border (Chicoine 2017). In addition, a 2013 study found that after the removal of the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban, gun homicide rates rose in Mexican municipalities that border the U.S. with the exception of those bordering the state of California. This distinction is attributed to the fact that California had a state-level ban on assault weapons (Dube et al 2013).

3.4.5 Extreme Risk Protection Orders Several mass shootings in the U.S. were perpetrated by individuals who displayed indications they were dangerous prior to attacking

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their communities with firearms. In January 2011, the shooter who murdered six people and wounded 13 others, including thenCongresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, Arizona had previously displayed concerning behavior causing his parents to take away his firearms (Martinez and Carter 2013). More recently, in February 2018, the shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida had displayed concerning behavior, with his guardian warning authorities she believed he posed a risk to others (Andone 2018). In neither case was there a process for family members to limit access to firearms, as neither state had Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO) laws at the time of the shootings. ERPO laws allow family members or law enforcement officers to ask a judge to temporarily remove firearms from an individual they believe pose a risk to themselves or others. Currently, 11 states have some form of ERPO laws. In Maryland, guns were seized after four significant threats were made against schools within just three months of the law being implemented (Broadwater 2019). These laws are also effective at identifying persons at risk for suicide who had access to guns; in Connecticut, research shows that for every 10–20 ERPOs issued, one death was prevented (The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence 2017; Swanson et al. 2017).

3.4.6 Safe Storage and Child Access Prevention Laws Safe storage and child access prevention laws seek to limit the risk of guns being used by unauthorized individuals, particularly children. Approximately 4.6 million children under the age of 17 live in a home with at least one loaded and unsecured firearm (Azrael et al. 2018). Death by firearm is one of the top causes of death of children in the U.S (Prickett et al. 2019). An overwhelming percentage of unintentional shooting deaths of children—89 percent—occur at home, most often because children access and play with the gun without their parent or guardian’s awareness (Li et al. 1996). Requiring the safe storage of firearms so they are stored in a manner that makes them inaccessible to someone other than the owner is a way

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for lawmakers to establish norms around firearm ownership that help reduce the risk of unintentional shootings and help prevent youth suicide by firearm. Currently, eleven states implement safe storage requirements (Giffords Law Center 2019d). The U.S. General Accounting Office (1991) conducted a study that found that 31 percent of unintentional gun deaths that occurred from 1988 through 1989 could have been prevented if a safety lock and loading indicator device had been used on the firearm. Researchers found in 2005 that securely storing firearms and ammunition could help reduce the risk of self-inflicted firearm injuries at home (Grossman et al. 2005). Coupled with safe storage laws are child access prevention laws, which penalize the gun owner for negligent storage of their firearm if it becomes accessible by a child. According to the Giffords Law Center, 27 states and Washington, D.C. have passed some form of child access prevention law to help address unintentional shootings involving children (Giffords Law Center 2019e). The RAND Corporation (2018) found supportive evidence indicating that implementing child access prevention laws may help reduce unintentional injuries and deaths among children, as well as youth suicide (RAND Corporation 2018a).

3.4.7 Local Interventions While state and federal laws are important mechanisms to reduce gun violence, they need to be part of a comprehensive approach to addressing the crisis that also includes engaging locally with communities that are directly impacted and investing in programmatic approaches to intervene in cycles of violence. Communities impacted by gun violence are more acutely aware of the devastation after a firearm-related tragedy occurs. By assembling a team of respected community members, including social service providers, faith leaders, law enforcement officials, and researchers, into a team, it is possible for the community to both identify individuals at risk of potentially being both victims and perpetrators of violence and intervening before a tragedy occurs (Giffords Law Center 2019f). The inclusion of different members of society gives this type of intervention and prevention method both a broad base of community knowledge as

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well as legitimacy—the community is working internally to stop violence through non-legislative, nonpunitive approaches. Investment in local violence prevention and intervention programs focused on addressing risk factors unique to individual communities can have significant impacts. In Connecticut, three cities implemented the Group Violence Intervention program; from 2011 through 2016, they saw gun homicides decline by 50 percent (PICO National Network 2017). In Richmond, California, the city implemented a comprehensive strategy to address gun violence which reduced gun violence by 71 percent from 2007 through 2016 (City of Richmond Office of Neighbourhood Safety 2016). More investment in evidence-based programs will help make communities safer and more secure. While a wide array of legislative efforts and violence prevention programs exist to reduce gun violence, significant efforts have advanced counterproductive policies that hamper the efforts of gun violence prevention advocacy.

3.4.8 Restrictions on Gun Violence Research One major hindrance to gun violence prevention efforts is the dearth of data about gun violence as a public health crisis. Current federal law makes it difficult for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct research on the causes and factors of gun violence (Center for American Progress 2016). In 1996, a rider was added to the CDC’s budget that had a chilling effect on gun violence research. The rider, known as the Dickey Amendment, barred the CDC from using funds to “advocate or promote gun control”; Congress also cut to the agency’s budget of the exact amount previously spent on this research (Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act 1997; Jamieson 2013). Following the enforcement of this rider, the average annual funding for the CDC’s research on firearm injuries between 2009 and 2012 was 96 percent lower than the annual average funding between 1993 and 1996 (Mayors Against Illegal Guns 2013). A similar rider was added to the NIH in 2011. As of 2017, gun violence is one of the top thirty causes of death in the U.S.

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but is the least researched and second-least funded among those thirty causes (Stark and Shah 2017). This restriction has created a vacuum with many urgent research questions about gun violence that have not been addressed (Thompson 2016). However, in 2019, the congressional budget included $25 million in appropriations for the CDC and the NIH to conduct research on gun violence, a major victory for gun violence prevention advocates (Perano 2019). While this funding is critically needed, continued advocacy may be needed to ensure that funding for research on gun violence continues to exist within the congressional budget.

3.4.9 Gun Industry Regulation Despite being a multi-billion-dollar industry, the firearms and ammunition industry is largely unregulated. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is mandated to oversee the enforcement of federal gun laws while also overseeing regulations of the gun industry but due to limited resources and various legal restrictions, the ATF is unable to fulfil its mission (Chung et al. 2017). For example, limited staff and resources result in ATF inspectors being unable to inspect every licensed gun dealer to ensure dealers comply with recordkeeping protocols, follow federal guidelines for background checks, and are not targets for gun trafficking. As of 2019, ATF reported approximately 77,500 active FFLs requiring monitoring and regulation11 (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives 2019a); that year, ATF officers only conducted 13,079 inspections, leaving 83 percent of FFLs uninspected (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives 2019b). Furthermore, the ATF is also limited in its ability to regulate FFLs in terms of gun theft and security protocols (Parsons and Gerney 2015). The lack of security requirements for gun dealers, such as alarm systems or securely locking inventories after business hours, means that gun stores can—and are—targeted by gun thieves as a source of incoming and a source for gun trafficking (Freskos 2018). 11 Not

including close to 52,000 licensees of collectors of curious and relics. Figures as of December 2019.

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3.4.10 Concealed Carry Currently, every state in the U.S. allows some form of concealed carry of firearms (Giffords Law Center 2019g). Studies have linked concealed carry laws with higher levels of violence. For example, in 2019, a study found that jurisdictions saw an increase in the level of crime after passing laws making it easier for civilians to carry concealed firearms (Donahue et al. 2019). Concealed carry of firearms increases the likelihood that altercations will end in gunfire, increase the risk of unintentional shootings occurring, and reduce public safety given the increased presence of firearms (RAND 2018b; Hemenway et al. 2001). Thirty-eight states and Washington, DC, require a state-issued permit to carry a weapon concealed in public; 8 of those states and Washington, DC, grant law enforcement officials the discretion to determine whether a civilian should be issued a concealed carry permit (Giffords Law Center 2019g). Research indicates that states should mandate minimum standards for concealed carry of firearms that include background checks and training for the use and storage of firearms.

3.4.11 Stand Your Ground In 2005, Florida pioneered a law granting civilians the right to use deadly force against someone they perceived to be a threat without seeking to first deescalate the situation (Humphreys et al. 2017). Currently 30 states have a form of a “stand your ground” law (Giffords Law Center 2019h). These laws make lethal force an acceptable first source of self-preservation, altering the norms of self-defense interactions. Furthermore, these laws are unevenly applied, with evidence showing a strong racial bias in cases where stand your ground serves as a legitimate defense for firearm homicide, with people of color being twice as likely of being convicted of murder than white defendants (Ackerman et al. 2015). Studies show that monthly gun homicide rates in Florida increased 31 percent after enacting this law (Humphreys et al. 2017). Before Florida implemented its stand your ground law, the rate of firearm homicides was lower than the national average; after the implementation of stand

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your ground, the rate of gun homicides became 8 percent higher than the national average (Parsons and Weigend 2018b).

3.5

The NRA and the Firearms Industry

Observers often wonder why, despite overwhelming evidence that the status quo of weak gun laws and high rates of gun violence is a failed social experiment that costs tens of thousands of lives every year, political leaders in the U.S. have failed to act. While there are political factors at play, one of the challenges to enacting popularly supported gun violence prevention legislation has been a well-funded and aggressive opposition campaign by the powerful gun rights lobby, led by the National Rifle Association. This lobby focuses on protecting the gun industry’s profit margins while claiming they are protecting American freedoms (Violence Policy Center 2011, 2013). In its 1967 official history, Americans and Their Guns, the NRA stated that “It is not affiliated with any manufacturer of arms or ammunition or with any jobber or dealer who sells firearms and ammunition” (Trefethen 1967: 303). Yet in 2013, then-NRA President David Keen appeared on CNN less than one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School assault rifle massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 first graders and six educators dead; he was questioned by journalist Candy Crowley about the gun industry’s financial support of the NRA. Citing research by the Violence Policy Center, Crowley asked Keene, “One of the big questions here is who does the NRA represent? You do take millions of dollars from people who make guns and who make bullets, all perfectly legal. I’m sure they’re all fine folks.” Keene interrupted Crowley, “Actually, Sandy [sic], we get less money from the industry than we’d like to get….But we get some. We get more than we used to” (Edwards 2013). How, in fewer than five decades, did the NRA go from asserting its independence from the firearms industry to publicly seeking financial support from manufacturers of guns and related accessories? The answer

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stems from changes the NRA and the firearms industry, all occurring against the backdrop of a saturated and diminished gun market. Three high-profile events define the NRA that we know today. The first is the 1977 Cincinnati Revolt, in which Second Amendment hardliners seized control of the organization from a leadership they felt was abandoning federal politics. The second is the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City by former NRA member Timothy McVeigh and the resulting ascension of actor Charlton Heston to the NRA presidency. The third is the NRA’s launch in the mid-2000s of its “Corporate Partners Program” targeting the firearms industry as financial supporters of the organization, the centerpiece of an ongoing NRA/gun industry partnership designed to revive stagnating gun ownership and limit controls on firearms and associated products. For the gun industry, its design and marketing activities—from the 1980s to the present—have been defined by a continuing quest for heightened lethality in its products, often utilizing crossover military technology. In the 1980s, the bulk of U.S. handgun production switched from six-shot revolvers (colloquially known as “wheel guns”) to faster firing, higher capacity semiautomatic pistols. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns—military-bred firearms designed for anti-personnel use with no sporting purpose. Today’s gun industry is defined by firepower and capacity—including smaller, more powerful pistols with increased capacity designed for concealed carry—often targeting potential civilian buyers with language and images touting a guns’ military or law enforcement pedigree. The seeds of today’s NRA were planted in 1977 at what is referred to in NRA lore as the Cincinnati Revolt. At its annual meeting that year, a faction known as the New Guard, who felt that opposition to gun control and support of absolute gun rights should be the top priority, seized control of the organization from the Old Guard, who were viewed as being too concerned with hunting and the shooting sports at the expense of politics. At the meeting, Harlon Carter, the former head of the NRA’s lobbying arm and one of the leaders of the revolt, was elected the new leader of the NRA. (At 17, Carter was convicted of the shotgun murder of a 15-year-old Latino boy in the future NRA

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leader’s hometown of Laredo, Texas. His conviction was overturned on a technicality.) Among the bylaw changes approved by the newly empowered pro-gun activists was making defense of the Second Amendment paramount (Sugarmann 1992: 45–57). Carter headed the NRA until his retirement in 1985. The terms of his successors, Ray Arnett and J. Warren Cassidy, ended in internal scandals that led to the ascension of current NRA head Wayne LaPierre (Sugarman 1992: 67–84 and 230–235). During the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the NRA worked to fulfill the mandate declared by Carter in the 1970s, culminating in passage of the NRA’s flagship bill, the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, in 1986. The measure made pro-gun changes to the Gun Control Act of 1968 and limited the enforcement capabilities of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). However, as the result of a Democratic amendment in the House, it also banned the future sale of new, fully automatic machine guns to private citizens. The NRA’s tone and public face changed dramatically in the early 1990s, culminating in April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh. The attack killed 168, including 19 children at a daycare center in the building. More than 500 people were injured. McVeigh had been an NRA member for at least four years prior to the bombing, an unprecedented period in the organization’s history during which it began catering to increasing anti-government sentiment and a growing militia movement. Factors that fuelled this animus included lethal, high-profile confrontations between civilians and federal law enforcement at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas (the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out on the anniversary of the Waco assault), the election of Bill Clinton as president, and the subsequent passage of the Brady Bill and federal assault weapons ban. During this period, the NRA adopted the anti-government language of the militias and other components of the “Patriot movement,” a loose coalition whose adherents were “animated by a view of the federal government as the primary enemy, along with a fondness for anti-government conspiracy theories” (Southern Poverty Law Center 2010).

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Offering a soft embrace to many of the paranoid tropes that drove the anger and fear of the Patriot movement, the NRA’s official publications declared, “The Final War Has Begun.” Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were equated with goose-stepping Nazis. Other federal agents were labelled “jack-booted government thugs” in its direct mail. And its members were repeatedly warned of conspiracies to disarm American gun owners. Presumably initially undertaken to engage and activate its membership while opening the door to a new stratum of potential supporters, the NRA’s shift in rhetoric and action—as seen in the organization’s magazines, public statements, and nascent online efforts during this period—had the ancillary effect of validating the paranoid fears of the most extreme elements of American gun culture. After the Oklahoma City bombing and stung by widespread public criticism, including the resignation of Life Member President George H.W. Bush, the NRA acted quickly to make its public face appear more moderate. The anti-government “Final War” trumpeted in the NRA’s publications prior to the bombing metamorphosed into the values-based “culture war” as articulated by eventual NRA President Charlton Heston. Through this rhetorical shift, the NRA sought to maintain its ability to tap into the same societal and anti-government anger that often drove the political engagement of many of those concerned with gun rights while appearing to distance itself from attacks on government itself. Yet this exercise in reactionary branding was merely trading one vein of extremism for another. According to Heston, gun owners were just one more oppressed minority among other stalwarts of the Right ready to be sacrificed to an onslaught “against the traditional American freedom of beliefs and ideas.” As Heston observed, “Why is ‘Hispanic Pride’ or ‘black pride’ a good thing, while ‘white pride’ conjures up shaved heads and white hoods?…I’ll tell you why: cultural warfare.” In 1999, the independence from the industry that the NRA boasted of in 1967 ended in Atlanta, Georgia. That year, Heston, now NRA president, addressed gunmakers at the SHOT Show, the annual closedto-the-public trade show for the firearms industry sponsored by the gun industry trade association the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Heston promised gunmakers, “For a century we have thrived

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independently, but now your fight has become our fight…Your legal threat has become our constitutional threat” (Childress 2013a). Heston’s statement was the result of a series of lawsuits that had been filed by cities across the nation designed to hold gunmakers accountable for the death and injury that resulted from their products. The NRA’s political engagement with NSSF is described in a subsequent NRA official history published in 2002, NRA: An American Legend . Under the heading, “New Directions,” the book details how former NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA, the group’s lobbying arm) head James Jay Baker returned to his old job after a period in which he represented NSSF’s sister organization, the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI). At the time, the NRA explains, SAAMI “was then fighting a rash of liability lawsuits backed by headlinehungry big-city mayors around the country.” In a “bare-knuckled fight” in support of the industry, NRA-ILA “offered legal support to firearms manufacturers who stood steadfast in rejecting outside ‘settlements’ to the lawsuits” while at the same time it worked on the local level to pass state-wide preemption laws banning such suits (Rodengen 2002: 262– 264). In 2005, the NRA and gun industry were successful in passing a federal law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which banned the types of lawsuits that represented the “legal threat” cited by Heston six years earlier. The legislative battle that resulted in PLCCA marked the NRA’s most public embrace of the gun industry. Since then, the relationship has continued to grow as the result of an existential threat: the long-term decline in household gun ownership and the coming demise of hunting as we know it in the U.S. The gun industry has long understood that it faces a slow-motion demographic collapse. Since the 1970s, household gun ownership in the U.S. has steadily declined and today remains relatively stagnant. According to an analysis of General Social Survey data conducted by Smith and Son (2015) of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago: • From 1977 to 2014, the percentage of American households that reported having any guns in the home dropped by 38 percent.

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• During this period household gun ownership hit its peak in 1977, when more than half (50.4 percent) of American households reported having any guns. By 2014, 31 percent of American households reported having any guns in the home, a drop of close to 20 percentage points. • In 2014, less than a third of American households reported having a gun in the home. One of the “main reasons” cited by NORC for the decline in household firearms ownership is “the decrease in the popularity of hunting.” In 1977, 31.6 percent of adults lived in a household where they, a spouse, or both were hunters. By 2014, this number had dropped by more than half to 15.4 percent (Violence Policy Center 2015). In 2016, only 11.5 million people 16 years of age and older went hunting, for a national participation rate of four percent (United States Fish and Wildlife Service 2018). In response to this shift, the firearms industry has adopted a twopronged marketing approach. The first is working to resell its dying market of aging white males, focusing on heightened lethality and crossover military technology (e.g., assault weapons, high-capacity pistols for self-defense and concealed carry, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and efforts to evade or remove the more strict federal controls over firearm silencers and other products like short-barreled rifles covered by the National Firearms Act of 1934). The second is to follow a trail blazed by the tobacco industry, focusing on new markets, including women, children, African Americans, and Latinos. A diminished U.S. gun market would be devastating to both the NRA and the gun industry. The NRA would lose potential new donors as well as hoped-for political supporters for its legislative battles. The industry bereft of replacement shooters (to borrow a term from the tobacco industry) would find itself in an irreversible financial crisis. As a result, the NRA and firearms industry today work hand in glove promoting gun sales. In a 180-degree reversal from its claims in 1967, today’s NRA functions as a de facto trade association for the firearms industry, including direct payments in the millions of dollars from gunmakers to the NRA.

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Due to the opaque nature of federal reporting requirements for nonprofit lobbying organizations like the NRA, it’s not possible to ascertain the exact dollar amount of industry support for the organization. But research by the Violence Policy Center offers a glimpse of the tip of what is most likely a very, very large iceberg. The organization’s 2013 report Blood Money II: How Gun Industry Dollars Fund the NRA revealed that from 2005 through April 2011, contributions from the gun industry through the NRA’s “Corporate Partners Program” totalled between $19.3 million and $60.2 million (the range is due to the giving levels defined within the NRA donor program). In a promotional brochure for the program, NRA EVP Wayne LaPierre states, the “National Rifle Association’s newly expanded Corporate Partners Program is an opportunity for corporations to partner with the NRA….This program is geared toward your company’s corporate interests.” Donors who give more than a million dollars to the NRA are inducted into its “Golden Ring of Freedom” in conjunction with the organization’s annual meeting. In an NRA promotional video for the 2013 Golden Ring of Freedom inductees, then—Smith & Wesson head James Debney explained that the company was “very closely aligned with the NRA,” adding, “…I think it’s important for everybody to step up and support the NRA. They are our voice.” Since 2013, Smith & Wesson has acknowledged at least $2.5 million in financial support for the NRA. In 2017, the NRA’s romance with the gun industry was officially consummated when gun industry leader and million-dollar NRA donor Pete Brownell, CEO of gun, ammunition, and firearm accessories vendor Brownells, was elected president of the organization. While it is not possible to ascertain the total amount of money contributed to the NRA by the gun industry, it totals at least in the tens of millions of dollars. In addition, numerous NRA gun marketing and membership programs are “sponsored” by or “presented” by members of the gun industry.

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But perhaps most important, yet least noted, is the fact that the NRA’s political agenda, from statehouses to Capitol Hill, purposefully dovetails with the interests and marketing agenda of the firearms industry. The NRA routinely opposes virtually any gun violence prevention measure as a betrayal of American values and the first step down the oft-cited “slippery slope” to total gun confiscation. This false rhetorical/political argument hides the larger truth, that many current NRA federal legislative priorities are in fact designed to benefit the firearms industry, especially in its efforts to resell the aging white male market. The NRA’s promotion of federally mandated concealed carry—which would allow concealed handgun permit holders to carry their guns across the nation, despite more strict state laws currently on the books of many states—gives the firearms industry not only an opportunity to market pistols designed for concealed carry, but also accessories firearms training (which, in turn, creates an opportunity for NRA recruitment), and insurance. The NRA’s efforts to deregulate firearm silencers, making them as easy to purchase under federal law as a hunting rifle, would be the first step in undercutting the National Firearms Act, the federal law governing silencers, fully automatic machine guns, and other weapons—opening up a whole new range of industry products for easy civilian sale. And while the NRA works to present its opposition to restrictions on assault weapons as protecting the rights of gun owners, its efforts protect one of the few growth areas the industry has seen in the past 15 years. The reality is that today’s NRA is nothing more than a gun industry trade association masquerading as a shooting sports foundation. It’s hard to imagine that this is what the leaders of the Cincinnati Revolt had in mind. While the NRA’s transformation into a gun industry lobbyist and de facto trade association has resulted in the passage of detrimental legislation, like state Stand Your Ground and shall issue Concealed Carry laws, as well as blocking of laws that would negatively impact the gun industry, including federally restricting access to military-bred weapons and expanding background checks to all gun sales, the organization’s influence appears to be diminishing in recent years. In 2012, following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, the group’s influence on elected officials was evident, with bills to ban assault

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weapons and high-capacity magazines and expand background checks, among others, dying in a Republican-controlled Congress unwilling to pass gun legislation (Barret and Cohen 2013). Over 500 pieces of legislation were considered by state legislatures after Newtown, but only 43 proposals became law (Childress 2013b). The NRA’s influence in elections created inertia around gun reform despite strong advocacy efforts by nonpartisan organizations like Brady: United Against Gun Violence, Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety and the Violence Policy Center (USA Today 2013). Historically, the NRA’s influence over voters in contentious districts made Democratic candidates wary of calling for gun reform while Republican candidates touted their high pro-gun ratings by the NRA; in 2018, the political dynamic around guns changed (Khalid 2018). After the massacre in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018 killed 17 people and wounded 17 others, survivors mobilized around the tragedy, culminating in the March for Our Lives demonstration (The New York Times 2018). Tens of thousands of people marched in Washington, DC and throughout the U.S., calling for elected officials to address gun violence (Jamison et al. 2018). Leading up to the 2018 midterm elections, many Democratic candidates made gun violence prevention a key element of their campaign. Lack of support for gun violence prevention policies could be becoming less acceptable for legislators, with an increasing number recognizing that their responsibility to the people includes ensuring communities are protected from gun violence. Furthermore, in August 2020, New York’s Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit, charging the organization with illegal conduct involving mismanagement of funds and violating several state and federal laws. The lawsuit alleges that funds donated to the NRA to advance the organization’s stated charitable mission were used by NRA leadership for personal use. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, to dissolve the NRA, which is registered as a not-for-profit charitable corporation in the state of New York (New York Office of the Attorney General 2020).

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Conclusions and Lessons

A fundamental conclusion derived from our U.S. analysis is that higher levels of gun ownership do not make communities safer. Studies have found that gun ownership increases the risk of gun-related deaths including suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings. The U.S. is an outlier among its peer both in terms of high levels of gun ownership and high rates of gun violence. At the same time, with close to 103 gun deaths per day, gun violence in the U.S. appears to be a public health crisis. This crisis can be mitigated. Gun violence should no longer be the least researched top cause of death. Research and data compilation on gun violence need financial investment so that both the problem can be thoroughly understood, and innovative policy solutions studied so they can be replicated throughout the nation. The ATF, charged with monitoring gun dealers as well as gun trafficking, must be fully resourced, both with funding as well as personnel, to be effective and fulfil their mandate. Violations of gun laws must be prosecuted accordingly. Furthermore, and as presented throughout this chapter, using the available data and resources, researchers and nonprofit organizations have concluded that a series of strong gun policies would help reduce gun violence and trafficking. These include background checks on all gun sales accompanied by measures that ensure their adequate implementation. Lawmakers, both state and federal, should ban assault weapons as well as high-capacity magazines, implement extreme risk protection orders, adopt child access prevention laws, and support communitybased programs. Moreover, policymakers at both the state and federal levels must reject dangerous measures that have increased the risk of gun violence, including poor standards to acquire concealed carry permits as well as stand your ground laws. Most of these efforts are supported by the U.S. population and do not infringe on the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Second Amendment, which per the U.S. Supreme Court grants people the right to own firearms in their home for self-defense. Additionally, many of these policies will not only reduce gun trafficking and violence within the U.S.,

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they will also help reduce the large volume of U.S. guns that flow illegally to other countries, particularly to Latin America. Due to the political system and the gun lobby’s continued grip on some politicians, passing effective gun violence prevention legislation is challenging. However, the 2018 midterm election results indicate that the gun lobby’s political capital can be opposed. This change is due, in great part, to the many organizations and gun violence survivors that raised their voices to demand reform. These advocacy efforts should continue in order to ensure that politicians, both federally and on the state-level, pass common-sense gun laws that will address gun violence in the U.S.

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Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2019d. Safe Storage. https:// lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/child-consumer-safety/safe-sto rage/#state. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2019e. Child Access Prevention. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/child-consumersafety/child-access-prevention/. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2019f. Intervention Strategies. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/other-laws-policies/int ervention-strategies/. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2019g. Concealed Carry. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/guns-in-public/concea led-carry/#federal. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2019h. Stand Your Ground Laws. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/guns-inpublic/stand-your-ground-laws/#state. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2020a. Universal Background Checks. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/backgr ound-checks/universal-background-checks/#state. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2020b. NICS and Reporting Procedures. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/ background-checks/nics-reporting-procedures/. Graf, Nikki. 2018. A Majority of U.S. Teens Fear a Shooting Could Happen at the School, and Most Parents Share Their Concern. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/18/a-majority-of-u-s-teensfear-a-shooting-could-happen-at-their-school-and-most-parents-share-theirconcern/. Grinshteyn, Erin, and David Hemenway. 2016. Violent Death Rates: The US Compared with Other High-income OECD Countries, 2010. the American Journal of Medicine 129 (3): 266–273. Grossman, David C., et al. 2005. Gun Storage Practices and Risk of Youth Suicides and Unintentional Firearm Injuries. Journal of American Medicine Association 293 (6): 707–714. Gun Violence Archive. 2020. Past Summary Ledgers. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 2014. Mass Shootings Becoming More Frequent. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-thenews/mass-shootings-becoming-more-frequent/. Hayes, Christal. 2019. FBI: More Active Shooting Incidents in 2017 Than any Other Year Recorded. USA Today, May 4. https://www.usatoday.com/

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story/news/2018/05/04/fbi-active-shooter-increase-2017-high-death-toll/ 581198002/. Hemenway, David, and Mathew Miller. 2000. Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates Across 26 High-Income Countries. Journal of Trauma 49: 985–988. Hemenway, David, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller. 2001. National Attitudes Concerning Gun Carrying in the United States. Injury Prevention 7: 282–285. Hemenway, David, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew. 2017. Whose Guns Are Stolen? The Epidemiology of Gun Theft Victims. Injury Epidemiology 4 (1): 11. Hemenway, David, et al. 2018. Variation in Rates of Fatal Police Shootings Across US States: The Role of Firearm Availability. Journal of Urban Health 96: 63–73. Humphreys, David K., Antonio Gasparrini, and Douglas J. Wiebe. 2017. Evaluating the Impact of Florida’s Stand Your Ground Self-Defense Law on Homicide and Suicide by Firearm. Jama Internal Medicine 177 (1): 44–50. Jamieson, Christine. 2013. Gun Violence Research: History of the Federal Funding Freeze. The American Psychological Association. https://www.apa. org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence. Jamison, Peter et al. 2018. Never Again! Students Demand Action Against Gun Violence in Nation’s Capital. The Washington Post, March 24. https:// www.washingtonpost.com/local/march-for-our-lives-huge-crowds-gatherfor-rally-against-gun-violence-in-nations-capital/2018/03/24/4121b1002f7d-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html?utm_term=.9fd060594307. Johnson, David. 2016. Charleston Loophole Put 2,892 Guns in Wrong Hands in 2015. Time, October 4. https://time.com/4512255/charleston-loophole/. Khalid, Asma. 2018. A Third Rail No More: Incoming House Democrats Embrace Gun Control. NPR, November 13. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/ 13/666595118/a-third-rail-no-more-incoming-house-democrats-embracegun-control. Karp, Aaron. 2018. Estimating Global Civilian Held Firearms Numbers. Small Arms Survey. https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Bri efing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf. Knopov, Anita, et al. 2019. Household Gun Ownership and Youth Suicide Rates at the State Level, 2005–2015. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 56 (3): 335–342.

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Koper, Christopher et al. 2017. Criminal Use of Assault Weapons and HighCapacity Semiautomatic Firearms: An Updated Examination of Local and National Sources. Journal of Urban Health 95: 313–321. Li, Guohua et al. 1996. Factors Associated with the Intent of Firearm-Related Injuries in Pediatric Trauma Patients. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 150 (11): 1160–1165. Leah, Rachel. 2018. NRATV Host: People Who Kill Themselves with Guns Don’t Count. Salon, January 8. https://www.salon.com/2018/01/08/gun-dea ths-suicide-statistics-nratv/. Luo, Michael. 2007. U.S. Rule Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun. New York Times April 21. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21guns. html. Martinez, Michael, and Chelsea J Carter. 2013. New Details: Loughner’s Parents Took Gun, Disable Car to Keep Him Home. CNN, March 28. https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/justice/arizona-loughner-details/index. html. Mayors Against Illegal Guns. 2013. Access Denied, How the Gun Lobby Is Depriving Police, Policymakers and the Public of the Data We Need to Prevent Gun Violence. https://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/9/c1/6/1017/3/ access_denied.pdf. Miller et al. 2007. Household Firearms Ownership and Rate of Suicide Across the 50 United States. Journal of Trauma 62 (4): 1029–1035. Miller, Mathew, David Hemenway, and Deborah Azrael. 2007. State-Level Homicide Victimization Rates in the US in Relation to Survey Measures of Household Firearms Ownership, 2001–2003. Social Science Medicine 64 (3): 656–664. Miller, Matthew, Lisa Hepburn, and Deborah Azrael. 2017. Firearm Acquisition Without Background Checks: Results of a National Survey. Annals of Internal Medicine 166 (4): 233–239. Moore, Matthew, and CariAnn M. Bergner. 2016. The Relationship between Firearm Ownership and Violent Crime. Justice Policy Journal 13 (1). Nass, Daniel, and Sean Campbell. 2018. New FBI Data Shows Active Shooters Caused Nearly 750 Casualties in 2017. The Trace, May 11. https://www.the trace.org/rounds/fbi-active-shooters-report-las-vegas/. Newport, Frank. 2017. Four in 10 Americans Fear Being a Victim of a Mass Shooting.” Gallup, October 18. https://news.gallup.com/poll/220634/fouramericans-fear-victim-mass-shooting.aspx.

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New York Office of the Attorney General. 2020 Attorney General James Files Lawsuit to Dissolve NRA. https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-gen eral-james-files-lawsuit-dissolve-nra. Nichols, Michelle. 2018. Americans Own Nearly Half World’s Gun in Civilian Hands: Survey. Reuters, June 18. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usaguns/americans-own-nearly-half-worlds-guns-in-civilian-hands-survey-idU SKBN1JE220. Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act. 1997. Public Law 104–208, 104th Cong., 2d sess. (September 30, 1996). Owens, David, Judith Horrocks, and Alan House. 2002. Fatal and Non-Fatal Repetition of Self-Harm: Systematic Review. British Journal of Psychiatry 181 (3): 193–199. Parker, Kim et al. 2017. America’s Complex Relationship With Guns. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/ame ricas-complex-relationship-with-guns/. Parsons, Chelsea. 2018. Stalking as a Risk Factor for Future Gun Violence. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ guns-crime/reports/2018/07/31/453616/stalking-risk-factor-future-gun-vio lence/. Parsons, Chelsea et al. 2018. America’s Youth Under Fire, The Devastating Impact of Gun Violence on Young People. Center for American Progress. Accessed April 18, 2020. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/content/uploads/ 2018/05/03111924/YouthUnderFire-report.pdf. Parsons, Chelsea, and Arkady Gerney. 2015. The Bureau and the Bureau. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ guns-crime/reports/2015/05/19/111386/the-bureau-and-the-bureau/. Parsons, Chelsea, and Eugenio Weigend. 2017. Stolen Guns in America. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ guns-crime/reports/2017/07/25/436533/stolen-guns-america/. Parsons, Chelsea, and Eugenio Weigend. 2018a. Beyond Our Borders. Center for American Progress.https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/ reports/2018/02/02/445659/beyond-our-borders/. Parsons, Chelsea and Eugenio Weigend. 2018b. The Devastating Impact of Stand Your Ground in Florida. Center for American Progress. https://www. americanprogressaction.org/issues/guns-crime/news/2018/10/17/172031/ devastating-impact-stand-ground-florida/. Parsons, Chelsea, Eugenio Weigend, and Jordan Jones. 2016. Hate and Guns, a Terrifying Combination. Center for American Progress. https://static1.squ

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arespace.com/static/575ee187b6aa606d55805d37/t/5965d36bccf210ee00 af70d3/1499845484334/HateCrimes-report.pdf. Peek-Asa, Corinne, Brandon Butcher, and Joseph E. Cavanaugh. 2017. Cost of Hospitalization for Firearm Injuries by Firearm Type, Intent, and Payer in the United States. Injury Epidemiology 4 (20): 20. PICO National Network, Community Justice Reform Coalition, and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2017. Investing in Intervention: The Critical Role of State-Level Support in Breaking the Cycle of Urban Gun Violence. https://lawcenter.giffords.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Invest ing-in-Intervention-12.18.17.pdf. Perano, Ursula. 2019. Congress Approves $25 Million in Funding for Gun Violence Research. Axios, December 17. https://www.axios.com/gun-vio lence-research-congress-cdc-nih-funding-65825f83-5ffa-45b7-b9d7-c905f9 a13719.html. Prickett, Kate, Carmen Gutierrez, and Soudeep Deb. 2019. Family Firearm Ownership and Firearm-Related Mortality Among Young Children: 1976– 2016. Pediatrics 143 (2). Quinnipiac University. 2018. U.S. Support for Gun Control Tops 2–1 Highest Ever, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Let Dreamers Stay, 80 percent of Voters Say. Accessed on November 25, 2018. https://poll.qu.edu/ national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2521. RAND Corporation. 2018a. The Effects of Child-Access Prevention Laws. https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/child-access-prevention. html. RAND Corporation 2018b. The Effects of Concealed-Carry Laws. https:// www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/concealed-carry.html. Rodengen, Jeffrey. 2002. NRA: An American Legend . Fort Lauderdale, Florida: Write Stuff Enterprises. Rudolph, Kara et al. 2015. Association Between Connecticut’s Permit-toPurchase Handgun Law and Homicides. American Journal of Public Health 105 (8). Ruddell, Rick, and Larry G. Mays. 2005. State Background Checks and Firearms Homicides. Journal of Criminal Justice 33 (2): 127–136. Riley, Russell. 2016. Bill Clinton’s Costly Assault Weapons Ban. The Atlantic, June 25. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/when-billclinton-passed-gun-reform/488045/. Sarlin, Benjy. 2018. Midterm Exit Polls: Health Care Is Top Issue for Voters. NBC News, November 6. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/mid term-exit-polls-2018-n932516.

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4 Guns in Latin America: Key Challenges from the Most Violent Region on Earth Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, Jerónimo Castillo, Alex Curry, and Mónica Serrano

4.1

Introductions

The aim of this chapter is twofold: (1) to present a general overview of the problem of guns trafficking in Latin America and its relationship with violence; (2) to propose possible policy recommendations to address this problem. C. A. Pérez Ricart (B) División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] J. Castillo Fundación Ideas para la Paz, Bogotá, Colombia A. Curry Institute of Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, United Kingdom M. Serrano El Colegio de México, Mexico City, Mexico © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_4

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While our perspective recognizes the heterogeneity of the region’s security environment, the objective is to highlight the common regional challenges faced. In other words, our main goal is to identify patterns rather than to focus on specific issues or to examine regional variations.1 Such an endeavor faces some methodological challenges, most notably: the relative absence of ethnographic studies; and the poor, inconsistent, and fragmented official data available (police-recorded crime data, victimization surveys, disaggregated firearms seizure data, time-series data on guns prices). Both problems have precluded longer-term research projects on guns and violence in Latin America. Furthermore, unlike European scholars, Latin American researchers seldom collaborate with police agencies on research projects. This has hampered access to detailed records and the decision-making process in the security sector. The strong culture of national security secrecy in the region does not make things easier. While we have tried to overcome some of these obstacles through our own research—based on primary and secondary sources—these remain significant hurdles when exploring guns and violence in Latin America. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first section provides a background of the security challenge in the region. Section two addresses the most important security challenges and examines key lessons learnt from these challenges. Section three offers three specific policy recommendations in relation to Latin America. The last section furnishes the conclusion.

4.2

Background to the Security Challenge in the Region

Despite a decade of economic growth and the implementation of modest social programs, violence in Latin America has escalated to astonishing levels. The scale of the public security crisis is as never before. Four 1 Regional

variation regarding gun proliferation is high. While some countries like Cuba or Haiti have an average of 2 civilian guns per 100 people, Uruguay has 32.6. Panama, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico are other countries with rates over 20 civilian guns per 100 people (Karp 2012: 6–7).

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figures recently published by the Igarapé Institute give an account of the magnitude of the problem: (1) While only 8% of the planet’s population lives in Latin America, it is the site of 33% of the world’s homicides. Homicidal violence is mostly concentrated in four countries: Brazil, Colombia, México, and Venezuela. In Brazil alone, more than one million people—mainly young men—have been killed in the last thirty years (Misse 2018: 135). (2) As of 2017, Latin America accounted for 17 of the top 20 countries with the highest homicide rates (per capita). El Salvador led the list with an average homicide rate of 60 per 100,000 inhabitants. (3) According to victimization surveys based on 2016 data, 36% of all Latin Americans claim to have been a victim of a crime (Muggah and Aguirre Tobón 2018: 1–9). The damage done by such crime is costly in terms of lives and social (in)stability, but also in terms of regional welfare. For example, the latest report of the Inter-American Development Bank estimated that the annual economic cost of crime was 3.5% of gross domestic product (Izquierdo et al. 2018: 196–197). (4) While the global average of firearm-related homicides is 32%, the proportion of homicides involving firearms in Central America is 67%, 53% in South America, and 51% in the Caribbean. By way of contrast, the proportion of homicides involving firearms in East Asia is as little as 3% (Muggah and Aguirre Tobón 2018: 8). Violence in Latin America is fostered by structural factors such as social inequality, corruption, poor economic development, institutional inertia, high levels of impunity, inefficient coercive forces, and disinterest/inability of the state to build a professional criminal investigation apparatus and law enforcement institutions. We maintain that two different—and seemingly opposing—processes have been taking place in Latin America in recent decades. On the one hand, a movement toward democratic consolidation after decades of struggle to replace authoritarian governments. On the other hand, the (re)emergence of multiple forms of violence, the increase of nonstate armed actors, and declining support for elected governments. To explain this apparent paradox, some scholars have approached violence as resulting from the way in which state power is exercised and class privileges preserved throughout the region (Pearce 2010). Following this perspective, “violent democracies” in Latin America—as the political

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systems of the region have been labeled (Goldstein and Arias 2010)— ought not to be understood as “instances of state failure” but as the result of a variety of interactions “among multiple armed actors that generate varied governance systems and structures of political subjectivity” (Arias 2011: 894). This understanding of violence in Latin America has at least one implication for public policy: specific policy recommendations should not only try to shore up “failed state institutions” but to acknowledge “the links between state officials and armed organizations or the delicate networks and localized orders maintained by these armed groups” (Arias 2011: 894). Current violence in Latin America is characterized by its urban nature. This marks a difference from the violence of the 1960s to the 1990s which was mostly rural, and politically motivated. These legacies of past violence lay the foundation for today’s struggles. This is the case in Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, countries with a past of intrastate conflicts or dictatorships. In these countries, post-conflict and transnational peace processes have not led to peaceful democracies. In all these cases disarmament was incomplete, and economic and political displacements still occur. A key driver of violence in the region is drug prohibition and the militarized approach followed by almost every country to enforce it. Drug prohibition has brought at least two unintended consequences. On the one hand, it has enabled a parasitic relationship between criminal groups and states (Serrano 2002). On the other hand, prohibition and hard security approaches to the drug problem have also established the conditions for the return of the military to internal security missions, which at the same time has promoted the acquisition of guns by both state and non-state actors throughout the region. Producers and transit countries for marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, have been particularly affected by prohibition and its “unintended consequences” (Garzón 2014). The violence perpetuated by the above-mentioned factors, can be measured concretely by the number of guns available in the region. At the end of 2017 the Small Arms Survey estimated that there were approximately 857 million civilian-held firearms in the word (Karp 2018: 3). Brazil (17.5m), Mexico (16.8m), Venezuela (5.8m), and Colombia (4.9m), lead the list of the most heavily armed countries in Latin

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America. Only a small percentage (probably below 10%) of these guns are officially registered. This is despite the fact that gun-related legislation in Latin America is stringent. While personal firearm ownership is permitted in every country, the legal procedure for acquiring a gun is more restrictive than in many other regions. Depending on the country, the process may include receiving psychiatric approval, passing firearm training exams and background checks, justifying the need for ownership, and submitting a new permission request every year or two. In most cases, firearm possession is restricted to small caliber handguns and shotguns with barrels of 0.22 inches or less. Some countries have enacted specific laws to reduce civilian gun ownership. In Venezuela and Brazil, for instance, applicants for gun permits must be over 25 years of age. In Mexico there is only one military-owned small gun store; that is, nowhere else in the country is it possible to acquire arms legally. In all three countries, the carrying of firearms is prohibited throughout the national territory, except by public and private security officers. Sadly, due to the thousands of guns that pour in illegally from the United States (US), strict gun legislation means little in terms of limiting gun violence (Cawley 2013). The correlation between more severe gun laws and the reduction of violence is weak (Moore and Bergner 2016). A recent study undertaken in Sao Paulo (Brazil) suggests that the increase of guns in circulation by one percentage point led to a 2% increase in violence (Cerqueira 2014: 150). However, as illustrated above, gun proliferation is a symptom, rather than the problem in its entirety.

4.3

Key Security Challenges in the Region and Key Lessons Learnt

This section identifies three key security challenges in the region and three key lessons from these challenges: gun trafficking due to institutional corruption, smuggling of small quantities of guns, including their parts and components, and possession of illegal guns by non-state actors.

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4.3.1 Gun Trafficking Due to Institutional Corruption Throughout the region, security officials are implicated in arms trafficking networks. In Guatemala, for example, networks of former generals and high-ranking intelligence officers with strong ties to the political system have monopolized the smuggling of arms in the country (Beltrán 2018; Goodman 2013; Gagne 2016). Similar dynamics are the norm throughout much of Latin America. These operations are only possible due to the full cooperation of corrupt security forces. Cases of guns that were initially bought through legal channels, but which were destined for illegal organizations from the outset, have been well documented in Latin America. A good example of this was the sale of arms from the Peruvian government to the Colombian guerrillas in 1999. That year, the Peruvian Intelligence Services (SIN (its acronym in Spanish)) directed by Vladimir Montesinos (now incarcerated in Peru) bought around 10,000 AK-47s from the government of Jordan. Officially the SIN was the intended end user. However, Montesinos had previously arranged the resale of the arms with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He organized a scheme in which the assault rifles “were air dropped in crates fitted with parachutes over the FARC’s jungle stronghold” (Austin and Felch 2002). That way, the FARC could relaunch their attacks on the government of Colombia in a war that had been the subject of a ceasefire just a few months before. While the Montesinos-FARC connection is an extreme case of illegal trafficking in Latin America supported by state institutions, it is only one of many examples in which corrupt state officials were involved in arms trafficking networks. One specific gun-related challenge that results as a natural consequence of institutional capture is the problem of leakage of ammunition and guns from national stockpiles. Leakages are the result of both a deficit in procedures and standards relating to the management and security of small arms arsenals, and corruption. The problem extends throughout the region and even touches countries with low levels of criminal violence like Uruguay (El País 2015, 2016), Paraguay (BBC News Mundo 2018), and Argentina (Looft 2012), as well as countries with high levels of violence. As a matter of fact, many of the

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weapons used in homicides in Brazil were previously stolen in Bolivia or Argentina, trafficked into Paraguay and then resold in Brazil (Bargent 2016). As research has shown, groups involved in this activity are also involved in cocaine trafficking (Parkinson 2014). In a similar manner, Central American states are particularly prone to such leakages (Small Arms Survey 2016b; UNODC 2012). These have been partially caused by Mexican crime organizations which have acquired arms stolen from military stores in these countries (UNODC 2015: 61). Equally complex is the problem of Venezuela, a country whose security forces have experienced continuous growth in the last two decades which has led to a massive demand for small arms and light weaponry. In 2006, Venezuela completed the purchase of 100,000 AK-103 rifles from Russia. On top of that, the country has a growing domestic industry producing ammunition and guns. There are currently plans for Venezuela to start producing Kalashnikov assault rifles under a Russian license from 2019. Once completed, this would be the largest Kalashnikov factory outside of Eastern Europe (Villiers Negroponte 2019). Despite the scale of its domestic production and recent purchases, little is known about the efforts of the government to safeguard its arms. As a matter of fact, evidence suggests that hundreds of rifles engraved with symbols of the Venezuelan armed forces have been illegally diverted to a Colombian guerrilla organization in previous years (Romero 2009; Karp 2009: 58). Furthermore, the wave of Venezuelan migrants, the poor economic situation, and the lack of oversight over stockpiles of ammunition and guns referred to previously, are creating the conditions for a new route in illicit trafficking at the Brazil–Venezuela border. New reports suggest that major criminal groups such as the Brazilian Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) have started smuggling high-powered firearms from Venezuela to expand its criminal activities (Venezuela Investigative Unit 2018).

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4.3.1.1 Lessons Learnt To avoid leakages of ammunition and guns from national stockpiles, police and military authorities must continually update their inventories, improve management practices, and become more transparent. The creation of effective inventories and the implementation of mechanisms of civilian control over the acquisition, distribution, and control of stockpiles has proved to be successful in reducing the diversion of arms and ammunition. In countries where the surplus of small military arms is significant due to the decline in the size of its armed forces— Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru—the destruction of surplus military arms is particularly recommended. Aaron Karp has estimated that 1.3 million small arms are “indisputably superfluous to any reasonable military requirement” in the region (Karp 2009: 16). Certainly, fewer obsolete guns would mean reduced stockpiles and therefore, less opportunity for theft and diversion. In recent years, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC)—the UN institution in charge of strengthening regional and subregional capacities—and NGOs have worked hand in hand with several countries to develop national plans for stockpile management of firearms and ammunition. Such programs have met their aim of reducing the number of weapons in civilian hands (UNLIREC 2018; GICHD 2012). A second lesson learnt for reducing the availability of arms and their diversion is that gun surrender programs are successful. In 2007, Argentina began a gun surrender program as a result of the dialogue and cooperation between the Argentine Disarmament Network (formed after an incident in which a 15-year-old opened fire at a school) and the then-President Nestor Kirchner. Based on the voluntary and anonymous surrender of firearms and munitions, the plan achieved the destruction of more than 175,000 guns and 1.5 million bullets in less than a decade (Angerosa 2016). In exchange, participants received a financial incentive. Argentina’s National Program for the Voluntary Surrender of Firearms was praised, receiving the prestigious Future Policy Award for the best public policy on disarmament (World Future Council 2013).

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Other countries have replicated the plan with good results. The Mexican plan (Campaña de canje de armas de fuego) has been able to destroy almost 90,000 guns between 2013 and 2017 (Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional 2017), an important quantity albeit small when compared to the estimated 106,000 to 427,000 firearms annually smuggled into Mexico from the United States (McDougal et al. 2013: 5; Pérez Esparza and Weigend 2015). Drawing on a proposal outlined by activists and law students in 1997, Brazil also launched its own disarmament plan (Cavalcanti 2017: 40). As a result of this, between 2003 and 2009, 1.1 million firearms were turned-in (Associated Press 2011). The Campanha do Desarmamento is still the “largest systematic civilian weapons destruction anywhere, and one of the largest of any type since the end of the Cold War” (Karp 2009: 31). The results of these campaigns have not impeded the (re)emergence of pro-gun discourses in Latin America. This is partly due to fragile confidence in public institutions and elevated levels of violence and fear. In general, right-wing politicians have been calling for a more relaxed approach to gun ownership. Very recently, Patricia Bullrich, federal Minister of Argentina, showed her support for looser laws around the ownership of weapons, arguing that “Argentina is a free country” (Jastreblansky 2018). The president of Brazil, the former military Captain Jair Bolsonaro has called for a legislative repeal of Brazil’s 2003 disarmament statute which restricts gun ownership (Albertus 2018), and puts the future of new Campanhas do Desarmamento at risk. As this chapter was being written, a pro-gun bill was discussed in the Brazilian Congress. If it succeeds, it would grant citizens the right to own and bear firearms, cut taxes on guns, and reduce the minimum age requirement for buying guns. In anticipation of this, Brazilian firearm manufactures have already seen their shares more than triple in value in 2018 (Preissler Iglesias et al. 2018). In Mexico, with the support of the National Rifle Association, federal legislators recently presented a similar initiative (Beauregard 2016). Fortunately, many of these attempts and initiatives have been met by opposition. Only time will tell if the current momentum behind progun discourses will be reflected in formal legislation in the region in the coming years.

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4.3.2 Smuggling of Small Quantities of Guns, their Parts, and Components A second key security challenge is the smuggling of small quantities of weapons and components throughout the region. Most of the guns that circulate in the region were previously imported on a small-scale basis. Illegal trafficking of guns is undertaken by both traditional criminal groups and transnational criminal networks with hierarchical structures—which also have interests in other criminal activities such as drugs and human trafficking. It is precisely the varied nature of the trade which makes it difficult to counter. An important number of guns recovered in crime scenes in Latin America were either manufactured in the United States, or first imported to the United States and then illegally trafficked. In countries such as Haiti and the Bahamas this is the case for up to 98% of guns (ATF 2017a). In Mexico, the number has hovered around the 70% mark over the last decade (ATF 2017c). In the seven countries in Central America the average is 50% (ATF 2017b). There is less information on the availability of U.S. arms in South America, although investigations have revealed that U.S. guns are frequently recovered in Brazil (Paraguassu and Brito 2018). While an important percentage of guns are legally purchased in the United States and then illegally trafficked over the Mexican border by car, traffickers also use more complex mechanisms to smuggle arms to the Caribbean and South America (which receive much less attention). One way of doing this is by using maritime shipping services. Hidden in shipping containers of legal goods, guns are broken down into their constituent parts and smuggled (Bargent 2016). Guns typically comprise only a small portion of these shipments and are almost impossible to trace by Customs authorities due to the large size of the containers and the quantity of cargo that passes through the ports of the region (Small Arms Survey 2016a: 8). Other ways of trafficking arms into the region include the use of commercial airliners and postal services as modes of transport (Small Arms Survey 2016a: 8). These last two techniques are on the wane but remain a regular means of transportation for small quantities of weapon parts to Central America (Dudley 2017).

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Trafficking between neighboring states is a major challenge. Besides the U.S.–Mexican border, there are two major hubs for illicit crossborder trafficking. The first one is the triple frontier between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina (Lohmuller 2015). For years, lax regulations in Paraguay made the country a paradise for smugglers trafficking arms into the illicit markets in Brazil. Until very recently, it was possible to buy guns legally “with just the presentation to local police authorities of a photocopied ID” (Dreyfus 2006: 21). The guns—most of them previously imported from the United States—were then illegally trafficked to Brazil. Despite a change in Paraguayan legislation, many weapons of U.S. origin are still easily accessible at the Paraguayan border (Bargent 2016). A second strategic point of entry for guns, and where information on the trade is “scarce and often collected by external actors” (Small Arms Survey 2016b), is Central America. As with drugs, the area plays a significant role as a transit route of guns. The difference is that while cocaine and other drugs transit from the Andean region to the North, arms transit in the opposite direction. Traffickers hide guns in their luggage when they fly in commercial airlines from the United States to Central America, package and camouflage weapons among legitimate goods in containers shipped to the region (see: Notimex 2011),2 or hide the guns in cars driven across Mexico (Dudley 2017). Police reports suggest that traffickers often disassemble firearms—the 9-mm pistol being the most popular—into different parts making it even more difficult for customs authorities to detect them (Lohmuller 2016). The relevance of Central America as a nexus of this so-called “ant trade” is paradoxical, since the region is still swamped with assault rifles imported by the United States and the Soviet Union during three different civil wars: Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador (1980–1992), and Nicaragua (1972–1990). The main center for illicit cross-border trafficking in Central America is the triple border between Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. With an estimated 2.8 million unregistered firearms in the region it is easy to find open sales of arms and ammunition throughout this borderland. The prices are the lowest in the region with AK-47 rifles ranging 2 Panama

has been used as an important port of entry for arms from the United States. The free port status of that country, and its strategic location bordering Colombia, facilitates the smuggling of firearms into the south (UNODC 2012: 62)

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from U.S. $200 to $400 (UNODC 2012: 62–63). Not only Colombian and Mexican organizations have taken advantage of this situation but also local gangs—who are often more violent than big transnational organizations. The immediate consequences of this are extortion, kidnapping, high rates of homicide, and resultant waves of migration (Rodgers et al. 2009).

4.3.2.1 Lessons Learnt Latin American states have learnt some lessons on how to reduce gun trafficking. The first lesson is that efforts to seize guns are not enough. The average number of guns seized in Central America is around 16,000 per year. The number is so low that “even if no more firearms were to enter the market, it would take 188 years to remove all the guns from the Central American streets at this rate” (UNODC 2012: 64). The lesson in this regard is that police efforts in seizing guns is irrelevant if governments do not reduce the demand for these items. Even successful policies in reducing the supply of guns will lead to an increase in the price which leads to new and creative efforts to provide a supply. As long as the demand persists, the impact of security policies will remain limited. Having said that, there are some areas of opportunity where Latin American countries may do something to combat the illegal smuggling of guns. Joint efforts between governments and international organizations have proven fruitful. In collaboration with UNLIREC, many countries have been working on implementing programs to intensify forensic ballistics capacities; develop strategies to investigate and prosecute the trafficking of firearms and ammunition (including courses for interdicting guns in postal shipments); improve maritime and port security; and reviewing/amending legislation related to arms transfers. UNLIREC is not the only organization involved in fighting the smuggling of small quantities of guns. A wide range of regional and international organizations have been involved in similar cooperation and assistance activities (Bromley and Malaret 2017). While the direct impact of these activities is difficult to measure, past experiences show that the smuggling of

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guns can only be partially alleviated within a framework of regional and international collaboration. Another lesson learnt, is that investments in systems designed to monitor borders is worth the money. In recent years, air and land surveillance radars and portable optical and electromagnetic signal sensors are being acquired by some countries to improve border control. Brazil, for example, has invested $6bn in developing an integrated system of land-based radars, unmanned air systems, and ground sensors called SISFRON (Oliveira de Souza and Queiroz Garcia 2014). Surely, enhancing border technology will not resolve illegal trafficking altogether, but it is a much better option than focusing investments on surveilling endpoint destinations.

4.3.3 The Possession of Illegal Guns by Non-state Actors Latin America, both historically and contemporaneously, is a region where idealized notions of a Weberian state monopoly of legitimate violence over a designated territory have never been fully realized. Indeed, as Arias and Goldstein (2010) point out, Latin American states have always co-existed with a diverse range of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) who, via their very existence, problematize notions of a state monopoly of violence, especially when such groups can be seen as exerting a certain degree of territorial control within states. Thus, they posit that violence and the presence of NSAGs in the region, shouldn’t just be seen as an anomaly or deviance from dominant ideals of democratic governance, but rather understood as an intrinsic feature of how democracy and political governance is manifested in Latin America. Consequently, violence is a key resource for political actors (including NSAGs) to define constituencies, mobilize sectors of the population, and construct political and social authority imbued with some form of legitimacy. The possession of firearms is often crucial in this, though their significance—materially and symbolically—varies from group to group. Thus, the variety of NSAGs in the region, and their use of firearms needs to be understood in order to formulate policy responses.

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Firearms in the hands of guerrilla groups such as the FARC in Colombia, can be seen as challenging state authority, central as they were to their ability to combat state forces and exert territorial control. However, firearms can take on a very different significance in the hands of paramilitary groups due to their links to parts of the state, and a shared perception of the guerrilla as a common enemy. In Colombia, paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s in places such as Puerto Boyacá (Mazzei 2009; Medina Gallego 1990), ostensibly to fight against guerrilla groups and often with the support of local political, economic elites, and local Army and Police contingents. While they are a diverse phenomenon in Colombia with specific regional manifestations, such paramilitary groups—though technically illegal after 1989—often enjoyed close communication and cooperation with parts of the state, despite committing gross human rights violations against civilian populations. Thus, while some NSAGs can be seen as directly challenging state rule and authority through possession of arms, others enjoy close relationships with parts of the state and regional political and economic elites, and therefore, can be seen to further state interests to some extent. This is despite the illegality of such groups and the extremely problematic consequences for citizens inhabiting their zones of influence. Armed forms of community policing and self-defense represent another form of NSAG that has manifested itself in Latin America, for example in the cases of the CRAC3 in Guerrero, Mexico, and the rondas campesinas (peasant patrols) of Cajamarca, Peru. Both organizations formed as policing and justice responses by indigenous communities to criminal activity and insecurity. The CRAC became a formal organization in 1997 in response to generalized insecurity and impunity related to drug trafficking in the region (Sierra 2005), while the rondas emerged in the 1970s, initially as a response to cattle theft (Starn 1999). Both groups utilized arms—albeit antiquated firearms which had more of a symbolic and self-defense capability—to achieve their ends of establishing forms of security and justice administration. They have also enjoyed complex relationships with different parts of the state, which initially viewed 3 CRAC—Coordinadora

Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias (Regional Coordinator of Communitarian Authorities).

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such groups negatively, especially at the national level. However, thanks to their perceived effectiveness in providing a degree of security and fulfilling local governance functions, such groups have gained legitimacy in the eyes of local communities. This has led to them being gradually accepted at local and regional levels, and indeed recognized as having some legal basis in national laws. However, in both cases there has been continued wrangling over their functions and legality (for Peru see Gitlitz [1998] and Picolli [2008]; for Mexico see Sierra [2013]). Thus, while initially viewed as illegal NSAGs, their ability to construct legitimacy at the local and regional levels—with firearms playing a key role in their perceived effectiveness—enabled these groups to negotiate with the state at various levels, eventually leading to a form of institutionalization in the regional ambit despite ongoing tensions with the national state. Another type of non-state actor with growing relevance in the region are private security companies (PSCs) with access to guns. These are simultaneously “a symptom, response, partial solution and a potential aggravator of the armed violence” in the region (UNLIREC and DCAF 2016: 5). A recent study estimated that around 2,450,000 employees worked as private security guards in more than 16,000 companies in Latin America in 2015. The same study estimated that 660,000 firearms were in the possession of these companies (UNLIREC and DCAF 2016: 12–13). Overall, Latin America stands out as the region where PSCs are the most armed, “with ratios of arms per employee about ten times higher than in Western Europe” (Small Arms Survey 2012: 102). While most countries in the region have adopted specific regulatory frameworks to oversee the use of these arms, issues of storage, possession, and use of firearms by PSCs remain formidable challenges (Bromley and Malaret 2017: 6).

4.3.3.1 Lesson Learnt One key lesson learned is that the presence of strong laws around gun possession is insufficient (though necessary) in preventing the emergence of NSAGs, nor do they restrict their ability to exert governance over territory and populations, which in some cases is seen as having

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some legitimacy. Thus, in the cases of Guerrero (México) and Cajamarca (Perú), attempts to simply disarm such groups would likely be met with strong local resistance, and even interpreted as an attack on the community itself. Even in cases where such groups aren’t often seen as legitimate—for example the paramilitaries in Colombia—disarmaments do not necessarily solve the underlying issues. This was demonstrated in the Colombian case where the negotiated demobilization of paramilitary groups in the early to mid-2000s saw large quantities of firearms handed over to the government (though reports suggest far from all—see Nussio [2011]) but did little to eliminate the underlying structure or motivations of such groups (Rozema 2008; Civico 2015). Therefore, simply disarming groups—even where this is possible—often does not resolve the underlying issues, nor eliminate their power structures and links to political and economic elites. The underlying political, social, and economic conditions at the local level—including the historical processes and trajectories which lie behind these—together with the way in which the state manifests itself in the local and regional ambit, is crucial to understanding how and why such groups emerge. Furthermore, the historical experience of the state and its treatment of NSAGs helps to demonstrate that—apart from those who express an ontological opposition to the state, such as guerrilla groups— the ability to resist disarmament and defeat at the hands of the state can lead to negotiation and eventually some kind of institutionalization—materially, legally, or ideologically. This can be seen with the legal recognition of the CRAC in Guerrero, the rondas campesinas in Peru, and even with the paramilitaries in Colombia, who, while not being physically institutionalized, saw many of their ideological commitments embodied within the policies of the then-President Alvaro Uribe Vélez. Thus, a crucial point to understand is that the identity and motivation for carrying arms by such groups are crucial in determining the relationship with the state and its constituent parts, as are the local and regional sociopolitical environments in which they exist. Simply seeing NSAGs as challenging the state’s monopoly of violence by being armed underplays the complexity of the situation, the historical experience of such groups, and their relationships with parts of the state. Finally, disarmaments may

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provide a short-term solution but often do little to address the underlying factors behind these groups, nor address the problematic aspects of their governance for subject populations. Regarding PSCs, the lessons learnt are quite straightforward. National legislations must clearly set out conditions and limitations for PSCs’ operations (including the use of force by their staff ), define minimal training requirements for PSC personnel, and include small arms control measures within regulatory PSCs frameworks (UNLIREC and DCAF 2016: 78). The work of UNLIREC to promote and execute these policies throughout the last decade has been significant and should be reinforced in the years to come.

4.4

Specific Policy Recommendations

Even though its core ideas are not entirely new (Garland 1996; Ferri 1917; Garland 1985), Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) has gained prominence and is currently considered one of the most successful approaches to reducing the opportunities for crime. This success has driven the expansion of this approach to tackle not only ordinary or predatory crimes but also terrorism and organized crime (Clarke et al. 2010; Clarke and Bowers 2017; Kleemans et al. 2012). Despite its expansion, the original critiques to this approach remain the same: its theoretical and conceptual limitations, its cosmetic/superficial nature, its loose ethical foundations, and the unintended outcomes of situational interventions (von Hirsch et al. 2004). Furthermore, as has been argued by its critics, SCP does little or nothing “to address the real problem” (Garland 2004: 6). On the contrary, it “sits easily with social and economic policies that exclude whole groups of people, so long as segregation of this kind makes the social system work more smoothly” (Garland 2001: 183). However, since SCP approaches are currently debated and executed in the Latin American context (Jaitman and Ajzenman 2016; Chioda 2017; Muggah et al. 2016) and without disregarding the aforementioned critics, this section aims to use the SCP perspective for discussing some policy recommendations. The first one refers to the implementation of

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hot spot policing (HSP) methods in the Latin American context. The second refers to the necessity of developing a new and reliable system for tracking and marking guns. The third recommendation addresses the necessity of separating the responsibility of those state entities which utilize arms, from those that regulate the production, importation, and exportation of guns.

4.4.1 Where Are the Hot Spots? By using spatial analysis tools and geographic information systems, new research has examined the concentration of crime in a few “hot spots”in Latin America.4 According to Laura Jaitman and Nicolás Ajzenman (2016: 4–5), 50% of crimes in Latin America are concentrated in 3–7.5% of street segments, and 25% of crimes are concentrated in 0.5– 2.9% of street segments.5 These findings are consistent with other studies for developed countries and cities (Weisburd 2015; Curman et al. 2015; Braga and Clarke 2014). Drawing on this, some criminologists and policymakers strive to diffuse the implementation of HSP methods from the U.S. experience to the Latin American context. The assumption is that some techniques like hierarchical hot spot detection; increased deployment of police resources to particularly crime-ridden areas; weapon reporting hotlines; directed or saturation patrols; extensive camera surveillance; and stop and search measures to reduce the frequency of casual gun carrying (traffic stops and pedestrian checks) may be easily exported and executed without significant problems in Latin America. While research for developed countries does show evidence that some of these techniques reduce the use of guns in crimes, and have the capacity to predict where gun crime is likely to occur in the future (Nagin

4A

hot spot is defined as being “an area that has a greater than average number of criminal and disorder events, or an area where people have a higher than average risk of victimization” (Eck et al. 2005: 2). 5 For a similar study for Venezuela and Colombia, see: CAF (2014). See also: Mejía et al. (2015).

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et al. 2015; Koper and Mayo-Wilson 2006; Chainey 2014; Webster et al. 2018), the applicability of these measures for Latin America is less clear. HSP interventions in Latin America have been poorly documented. Some studies suggest a certain degree of success in the applicability of HSP programs in Montevideo, Bogotá, and Belo Horizonte (García et al. 2013; Bonomi et al. 2018; Muggah et al. 2016), albeit not without problems (del Castillo 2017). While the absence of research does not allow any conclusive statements to be made yet, we would like to highlight some problems that HSP may cause due to the previously discussed context of massive inequality and corruption present in Latin America. The first one regards the problem of possible displacement effects, that is, the shifting of crime from one place to another. As the Montevideo experience has shown, the reduction of crime in police-monitored areas between 2012 and 2014 was compensated by an increase in crime in other areas without police-monitored surveillance cameras (Munyo and Rossi 2016). A second problem is the lack of training and professionalization of local and national police forces. This makes Latin America more prone to biased and abusive police practices than other areas of the world. As suggested in the literature, effective application of HSP presupposes the existence of well trained and professional police. A third problem is the poor official data available in most Latin American cities, and the lack of access to information technologies to design, implement, and monitor police forces and programmers. In particular, the lack of reliable police-recorded crime data or victimization surveys makes the definition of “hot spots” rather difficult. Furthermore, in a context where the lack of democratic governance structures and political discretion is common, the question of who decides about the identification, delimitation, and definition of a hot spot acquires relevance (for a critical view on this see: Rosenbaum 2009: 247–248). Finally, HSP may entail risks to constitutional due process, and erode citizen perceptions of the police (Kochel 2011; Rosenbaum 2009). As a matter of fact, a widespread practice of security forces in Latin America is to “plant” guns in the cars or houses of suspects in order to manipulate investigations, blackmail defendants, or simply to fulfill the quotas of arrests or seizures that the police are expected to achieve. In that

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sense, HSP entails the risk of jeopardizing the civil liberties of minority communities and those without access to legal systems. In summary, while we advocate for the use of sophisticated information technology in policing practices and for targeting high-risk places by adopting HSP techniques, we maintain that these methods need “systematic and sustained incorporation of scientific knowledge and crime analysis into decision-making to reduce discretion and inertia” (Izquierdo et al. 2018: 220).6 What is more, HSP must be integrated with approaches that encourage “positive evaluations of police legitimacy” (Weisburd 2016: 661) and other long-term strategies that recognize that “the real story is more complex, more dynamic, and more difficult to summarize” (Rosenbaum 2009: 248).

4.4.2 Toward a Strategy of Effective Marking, Record-Keeping, and Tracing Policy for Guns Every strategy focused on combatting organized crime and illegal guns should address and conceptualize the process of production, commercialization, trafficking, and use of guns as a whole (Albanese 2008). In that sense, we call for a CSP approach capable of addressing all these segments and reducing opportunities for crime. Rather than concentrate efforts in attacking the ownership of guns by the final user, our recommendation is to focus on the illegal and legal production, importation, and commercialization of guns. Latin America has a small but growing regional small arms industry. Countries like Brazil have a well-established defense industry that produces, assembles, exports, and re-exports guns (Dreyfus et al. 2010). Chile, Mexico, and Peru are also growing producers of arms and ammunition (UNLIREC 2018: 5). These factors make the regulation of production and commercialization of guns all the more relevant. Regarding production, we recommend that countries undertake effective measures in marking guns and precise record-keeping. Ensuring the marking of guns “on an exposed surface, conspicuous without technical 6 For

an example of a successful HSP experience in Montevideo, Uruguay: (Bonomi et al. 2018)

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aids or tools, easily recognizable, readable, durable and, as far as technically possible, recoverable” (UNGA 2005: para. 7) is still one of the biggest challenges in the region. Regarding the commercialization of guns, the region still underachieves in the development of a transparent system of end-user certificates or similar documentation. Exporting countries in Latin America rarely require a delivery verification certificate (DVC) to confirm that guns have reached their intended end user and lack procedures for tracing arms (Holtom and Ben Hamo Yeger 2018: 44–45). This is an example of how, even though the region’s countries have developed a set of (sub)regional instruments covering arms regulation,7 and are signatories of the ATT, their record of compliance with those instruments has been weak. Furthermore, levels of reporting of arms importation have declined over the years and some regional instruments “appear to have been almost entirely abandoned” (Bromley and Malaret 2017: 6). We also call for institutional arrangements that separate those bureaucracies in charge of the regulation of arms from those that utilize them. We favor an arrangement under mixed control (civilian-military) with a clear system of checks and balances. In most countries in Latin America the production, commercialization, regulation, and use of weapons are under the control of one single entity, usually the military (for example in Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, Honduras) or the Ministry of Interior/Justice (in Argentina, Peru, Costa Rica, Brazil). This institutional setting has created opportunities for corruption, abuse of power, and lack of transparency regarding acquisition, management, and distribution of arms. To prevent this, the recommendation is to establish national coordination agencies for policy guidance, research, and the monitoring of

7 Among others, the 1997 Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and other Related Materials (CIFTA or OAS convention); the 1998 Southern Common Market Joint Firearms Registration Mechanism; the 2001 Security Information Exchange System; the 2003 Andean Plan to Prevent, Fight and Eradicate Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects; and the 2005 Central American Integration System Code of Conduct on Small Arms, Ammunition, and Explosives Transfers. Latin American and Caribbean states are also active members of International Instruments. As of 2017, 28 states have signed the ATT, and 24 of them have ratified it.

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efforts to prevent the illicit trade in small arms (UNGA 2010: para. II. 4). Finally, as the United States is the primary source of guns utilized in criminal acts in almost all countries of the region, we recommend the creation of diplomatic coalitions integrated by both governments and non-state organizations with the aim of coordinating efforts and advocating for stronger arms regulations in the United States. Such a broad coalition would give Latin American countries more leverage than bilateral negotiation in what it is indeed a very asymmetrical relationship.

4.5

Conclusion

In this chapter we focused our analysis on three main challenges regarding guns: (1) gun diversion as the result of corruption and institutional capture; (2) the smuggling of small quantities of guns, their parts, and components; (3) the possession of illegal guns by non-state actors. For all three challenges we proposed policy recommendations and examined success stories in which local and national authorities worked together with international entities to reduce proliferation of guns in the region. We also addressed the limitations of SCP approaches to reduce gun violence in Latin America. Furthermore, we examined the application of HSP methods. While we agree that the use of sophisticated information technology in policing practices and for targeting highrisk places should be utilized in Latin America, we also enumerated the potential challenges and limitations of this approach. To name but a few: possible displacement effects; biased and abuse police practices; problematic conceptualizations of “hot spots”; and the risk of jeopardizing the civil liberties of minority communities and those without access to the legal system. A second policy recommendation is to switch from the current focus on tackling the ownership of guns by the final user to a new one that focuses on a strategy of effective marking, record-keeping, and tracing of guns. Thirdly, we called for new institutional arrangements that separate state organizations in charge of the regulation of arms from those using them. We maintain that this would reduce opportunities for

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corruption among state officials. Finally, we advocated for the promotion of diplomatic coalitions among countries of the region to advocate for stronger measures with regard to guns in the United States.

References Albanese, Jay S. 2008. Risk Assessment in Organized Crime: Developing a Market and Product-Based Model to Determine Threat Levels. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 24 (3): 263–273. Albertus, Michael. 2018. The Military Is Back in Brazil. Foreign Policy, October. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/29/the-military-is-back-in-bra zil/. Angerosa, Martín. 2016. Demilitarizing Gun Control in Argentina. Small Arms Monitor 8 (5): 3–4. Arias, Enrique Desmond. 2011. Response to Steven L. Taylor’s Review of Violent Democracies in Latin America. Perspectives on Politics 9 (4): 893– 894. Associated Press. 2011. Brazil: Gun Buyback Campaign Begins. The New York Times, 6 May 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/world/americas/ 07briefs-ART-Brazil.html. ATF. 2017a. Caribbean. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/report/firearms-trace-data-car ibbean-cy-16pdf/download. ———. 2017b. Central America. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/report/firearm-trace-datacentral-america-cy-16pdf/download. ———. 2017c. Mexico. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/report/firearms-trace-data-mexicocy-11-16pdf/download. Austin, Kathi, and Jason Felch. 2002. A Colombia Arms Deal and the Perils of Blowback. The Washington Post, 3 March. https://www.washingtonpost. com/archive/opinions/2002/03/03/a-colombia-arms-deal-and-the-perils-ofblowback/6afab9e0-c4f7-4f65-93a7-37720ee1855d/?utm_term=.e3222c 8b7345.

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5 Understanding the Flow of Illegal Weapons in Central America Katherine Aguirre Tobón, Rebecca Peters, and Ana Yancy Espinoza-Quirós

5.1

Introduction

Firearms contribute to many forms of long-lasting direct and indirect damage—economically, socially, and in terms of individual health. Central America presents one of the clearest scenarios of the devastating effects of firearms. The region has the highest homicide rates reported outside of war zones and the highest proportions of homicides committed with firearms. Although information is limited on the availability and distribution of firearms in the region, organized criminal K. Aguirre Tobón (B) Igarapé Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] R. Peters International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), London, UK A. Y. Espinoza-Quirós Fundación Arias por La Paz, San José, Costa Rica e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_5

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groups have easy access to guns from legal markets, leakage from official stockpiles and private security companies, as well as from trafficking rings sourcing firearms from North America, mainly the United States (U.S.). The prevalence of gun violence jeopardizes individual welfare and livelihoods, with implications for socio-economic development in all countries and regions. The cost and consequences include death and injury in interpersonal violence, self-harm, and unintentional shootings. Central American crime guns can be traced to a number of sources. Some are produced domestically and diverted or stolen from public or private entities into local black markets. Many were left over from civil wars, guns that were supplied by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Most of the current crime guns, however, are made in the U.S. and imported, either lawfully or illegally. Most guns begin as legal products, but many find their way into the hands of criminal actors through various channels of diversion. Firearms legally purchased in the U.S. travel in small quantities by commercial airlines or by crossing land borders; or they may be sent through the mail, sometimes broken down into parts. Large numbers of guns leak from official arsenals due to negligent management and action by corrupt officials, as well as from the private security companies that have proliferated in the region. Governments’ inability or unwillingness to enforce laws against arms and ammunition diversion and trafficking have far-reaching consequences. Central America has sometimes been considered solely as a “bridge” for drug trafficking to the U.S. and Mexico; however, the region itself has a complex dynamic of violence, with organized criminal groups directly involved in the illegal arms trade. In fact, there is recent evidence that countries of Central America are also a source of illegal weaponry arriving to Mexico City. Several interventions have been adopted to counter those devastating impacts, by strengthening gun control and especially fortifying barriers between legal and illegal markets. The region has recently seen greater international support for weapons marking, record-keeping, and tracing—measures that help reduce diversion from official stockpiles (police and armed forces) and private security companies.

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This chapter aims to disentangle the general characteristics and interventions of illegal trafficking in the complex region of Central America. It starts with a brief overview of firearm homicide figures in the region. The following section addresses the sources of illegal firearms and reviews the measures and interventions developed to cope with those challenges.

5.2

The Problem

5.2.1 Figures for the Most Violent Region of the World The Americas is the world’s most violent region outside of war zones. According to 2019 data from Igarape’s Homicide Monitor, while the region contains 13% of the world population, it accounts for 42% of homicides worldwide (Igarapé Institute 2020). The regional homicide rate is more than 20 per every 100,000 people, compared with the global rate of 7.5 per every 100,000 people. Each year, the region sees more than 156,000 gun-related homicides as well as many gun suicides and accidental shootings. Data reveals that higher homicide rates are correlated with a higher proportion of homicides perpetrated with guns. That relationship is particularly strong in certain subregions of the Americas: Central America and the Caribbean have higher homicide rates and higher proportions of homicides by firearms than any other subregion. Countries like El Salvador and Jamaica top the homicide ranking with rates over 50 per every 100,000 people, and firearms accounting for more than 70% of homicides. The highest proportions of gun homicides are in Caribbean countries such as Puerto Rico (90%) and The Bahamas (85%). During 2015, El Salvador reached a homicide rate of 103 per every 100,000 people, the highest rate for Central American countries. That same year, 83% of homicides in El Salvador were committed with firearms. In Honduras in 2011 the rate reached 86 per every 100,000 people and gun homicides represented 85% of total homicides that year.

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As shown in Fig. 5.1, high levels of violence in Central America are associated with the highest proportion of homicides by firearms, both at the regional level and across different years. Nevertheless, conclusive evidence is lacking on the relationship between reported gun availability and levels of violence. The relationship is difficult to ascertain due to the lack of information on legal ownership as well as illegal flows. Measuring civilian gun ownership requires comprehensive records on trade and possession in each country. In this regard, available research suggests that the country with the world’s highest rate of civilian gun ownership is estimated to be the U.S. (120 guns per 100 people). The next highest rates of gun ownership in the Americas are in Canada (34) and Uruguay (34), two countries that are not generally associated with high levels of interpersonal violence. Meanwhile, some countries with high rates of homicide report low rates of legal civilian gun ownership, such as Honduras (14), El Salvador (12), Colombia (10), Brazil (8) and Trinidad and Tobago (3) (Karp 2018). Of

ProporƟon of homicides commited by firearm

90%

80%

70%

Belize Costa Rica El Salvador

60%

Guatemala Honduras México

50%

Nicaragua Panama 40%

30% 0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants

Fig. 5.1 Homicide rates and proportion of homicides by firearm, Central American countries 2000–2019 (when available) (Source Igarapé Institute [2020], Asmann and O’Reilly [2020], Dalby and Carranza [2019]. Dots of each represent figures by years a single country. Graph created by the authors)

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course, this is not a causal relation as violence is affected by a variety of factors for example, a much weaker rule of law. Beyond gun ownership, UNODC (2020) reports that within each country of the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras), the highest number of seized firearms are reported in the most violent areas, “suggesting that seizures may be broadly linked with demand for firearms generated by violent crime” (UNODC 2020: 69). For example, 80% of weapons seized in Guatemala in 2017 were related to violent crimes. Large quantities of firearms are also seized at land and sea borders, reflecting “transnational movement of firearms among these countries as well as neighboring countries” (UNODC 2020: 69).

5.2.2 The Scale and Characteristics of the Illegal Firearms Market in Central America Estimates from the Central American Integration System (SICA) suggest that illegal guns outnumber legal weapons in the region. El Salvador is the country that seizes the highest number of illegal firearms, despite ranking fourth in population (Labrador 2015). At least 74% of firearms seized in Central America are handguns, with 9 mm pistols being the most popular guns used by gang members. The weapons most often seized in Guatemala are 9 mm pistols and 38 revolvers, while assault rifles make up only 4% of firearms seized by law enforcement (UNODC 2012: 60). The UNODC Global Study on Firearms Trafficking provides evidence on weapons seized across the world. Pistols are the most commonly seized firearms globally (39%), but in the Americas, this proportion increases to 50%, followed by 24% for revolvers and 14% for shotguns (UNODC 2020: 8–9) In addition to being relatively cheap on illegal markets (around USD $200), handguns can be dismantled into parts, obscuring forensic ballistic analysis (Patzán 2016). Rifles are far less common. Ammunition is also a major problem, because of the high volume of seizures and because there is limited governmental control. From 2010 through 2016, at least 75,000 firearms were seized in the biggest countries of the region, including 27,000 in Guatemala, 22,000

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in El Salvador, and 13,000 in Honduras (IEPADES 2018). Revolvers and pistols were the most commonly seized firearms, making up 96% of weapons seized in Belize, 81% in Costa Rica, 75% in Guatemala, 71% in Honduras, 70% in Panama, 66% in El Salvador, and 55% in Nicaragua (Espinoza 2012). Many seized firearms and crime guns can be tracked to registered legal weapons that later become illegal: in El Salvador these make up 65% of seized weapons (Espinoza 2012). Costa Rica’s National Directorate of Armaments reported the following figures on seized weapons between 2013 and 2018 (NDA, Costa Rica 2018): • 25.8% of seized weapons (2,023) had been legally registered, while 74.2% (5,807) were unregistered. • Of the 2,023 registered weapons, 1,444 (71.4%) belonged to individuals, while 579 (28.6%) belonged to companies. • Of the 1,444 weapons registered to individuals, only 105 (7.3%) had been reported as stolen. In the case of companies, this proportion was 12.4%. Table 5.1 shows the most common types and brands of firearms in the region (Espinoza 2012). Central America is a transit zone for both arms and drug trafficking. The region has limited capacities among local and border agencies and insufficient channels for the exchange of information and coordination. These factors are conducive to the flourishing of multiple forms of organized crime, including an illegal firearms market. But recently, as a result of the controls at the U.S.–Mexico border, new trafficking routes have developed. These run from Nicaragua to Mexico City moving through Guatemala and Belize and arriving in Tepito (El Universal 2019). No regional estimates are available for numbers of illegal firearms. However, a single operation targeting illegal firearms can seize large numbers of weapons. For example, the 2019 Trigger V operation coordinated by Interpol led to 560 arrests and the seizure of almost 900 firearms, plus more than 38,000 ammunition rounds, in a 7-day coordinated action across Central America and Colombia (Interpol 2019). This article considers some of the main sources of weapons used in criminal actions in the region. These include the remnants of civil

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Table 5.1 Most common types and models of firearms seized in the region Types of firearms

Make and models

Pistols

Beretta, Browning, HS2000, Bryco, Sig Sauer, Walther, Intratec Glock, CZ; Derringer High Standard, Jericho, Taurus, Astra, Rossi Rossi, Smith and Wesson, Colt, Ruger, Luger, Pasper, Cebra, Tala, Famae, Jaguar, Italo Marlin Maverick, Boito, Mossberg, Iver Johnson, CBC, Baikal, Rossi, Winchester, Remington, IZH, Sarrasqueta, Centauro AK 47, Galil, M-79, M15, Colt, AR-15, M16, 30 mm, Ruger mini 14, FAL, HK 53, M4, Herstal, Barret cal 50, BSA L, BSA XL, FN, Saiga, Mauser, Cugir, Izhmash, Siga MG, P-90. 7.62 caliber is very common UZI, mini Uzi, SHE, Sten, Thompson FNMAG, AFAG, M6 RPG-7 (Chinese type 69), Armbrust, Lowery, MGL, M16

Revolvers

Carbines Shotguns

Rifles

Submachine guns Machine guns Rocket launcher and grenade launcher

Note Different sources including official presentations and media articles sought to identify the types of firearms circulating in the region and country by country. Not all types of firearms listed in this compilation are present in every country

wars, U.S. weapons crossing the border into Mexico, leaks from official arsenals, private security companies, and large-scale trafficking of ammunition. Gun trafficking does not always rely on large shipments: more mundane small-scale methods are also used to maintain a continuous flow of weapons. Smuggling methods include transporting disassembled weapons in personal luggage, falsely labeled imports, incorporating guns into other products, and hiding weapons in legitimate shipments. Weapons and drugs are also smuggled via underwater routes: the use of small submarines has been detected in Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica (La Calle 2018; ABC 2018; La Nueva 2011; Láscarez 2019). Land trafficking routes include formal and informal border crossings, mainly blind spots and areas with limited supervision, or with the complicity of corrupt agents. Firearms can be hidden within other

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products, especially if they are broken down into parts. In recent years guns have been hidden in shipments of clothing and equipment sent as maritime and land cargo, especially from the U.S. (Fundación Arias 2018). Other strategies include the use of traditional postal systems as well as the “ant trade,” where individuals conceal firearm parts on their bodies or in their belongings before crossing the border (IEPADES 2014). This is because there is no supervision at all border crossings, and because scanners are not used for the passage of people. Parts and ammunition may also be hidden in double linings, false bottoms as well as fuel tanks (Espinoza 2017). The multiple methods for moving illegal firearms are well documented for Honduras (InSight Crime and ASJ 2017) and Guatemala (López 2018). Although specific trafficking points are continually changing, some established routes can be identified. Firearms and drug traffickers are flexible and innovative. Some of the main entry points for arms trafficking are listed in Table 5.2, from Espinoza (2017).

5.2.3 Main Sources of Illegal Firearms in Central America Situated between the cocaine-producing countries of South America and consumers in North America, Central America has become a nexus for drug traffickers and illicit weapons. Over the last two decades, the region has witnessed a crackdown on drug trafficking organizations in Colombia and the rise of powerful Mexican cartels that compete for control in Central America. In addition, the region is home to complex and violent urban gangs, including MS-13 and Mara Salvatrucha. This section discusses the main sources of illegal weaponry in circulation in the region.

5.2.3.1 Remnants of Civil Wars Firearms have a long lifespan and can continue in circulation for decades, moving across the region and among criminal groups. Large volumes of guns and ammunition were imported to Central America during three

El Salvador

From Central America to Mexico

Guatemala

(continued)

From border areas in California, Arizona and Texas, arriving to the states of Michoacán, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa (Sinaloa Cartel), Sonora, Baja California (Gulf Cartel and the Zetas) and Chihuahua (Juarez Cartel). At least 6,700 legal dealers have been identified along the U.S.-Mexico border From Balancán in Tabasco to El Petén in Guatemala; from Tapachula and Ciudad Hidalgo and Ciudad Cuauhtémoc in Chiapas to La Mesilla, Huehuetenango in Guatemala; from Chetumal in Quintana Roo to Corozal in Belize and Petén in Guatemala The municipalities of San Marcos on the border with Chiapas, Mexico; and Chiquimula at the trifinio, the triple Border of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Other hot spots include the cities of Villanueva and Amatitlán. Coastal areas in the South, Puerto Barrios in Izabal and the ports of Santo Tomás de Castilla and Quetzal. Cargoes come from the US, Mexico and Panama From Nicaragua arriving to Mexico (Tepito market at CDMX) through two routes: from Belize to Quintana Roo, and from Guatemala to Chiapas (El Universal 2019) Ahuachapán’s (Las Chinamas,) shared border with Guatemala and Tejutla, Chalatenango (Citalá), both in the triple border area. Through the border with Honduras, Morazán Department and flowing to the center. Other hot spots are Metapán in Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Salvador, La Paz and La Libertad; Gulf of Fonseca, and the border also with Honduras El Amatillo, La Unión, El Poy

From United States to Mexico

From Mexico to Guatemala and Belize

Locations

Routes

Table 5.2 Key points and hot spots for arms trafficking in Central America

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Ocotepeque (triple border area), then Copan where the Valle cartel is very active. Hot spots: El Triunfo, Choluteca and Paraíso in the shared border with Nicaragua. Puerto Cortes is where houseware and other products entered the country by sea, and then mobilize to San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa. Yoro and Colon have become hot spots where firearms are compiled and transported to Olancho and distributed to groups with strong links to organized crime. Puerto Lempira is also identified as a spot where firearms are entering Cárdenas (Rivas) border with Peñas Blancas, Costa Rica and Somotillo (Chinandega), the San Juan River, and Guasaule in the shared border with Honduras. In the Atlantic area: RAN, RAS states. Military firearms are coming from Venezuela (specifically CAVIM), AK47- Catatumbos, among others that are arriving by sea through Puerto Corintio, and by air at the Sandino Airport in Managua Municipalities of Barú and Renacimiento, and the borders of Río Sereno and Paso Canoas; the Sixaola river is also an important hot spot for illicit merchandise. In the border with Colombia, specifically the Darien which is the connection with el Chocó, Colombia From Olancho in Honduras, Managua and the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, San Juan del Norte in Costa Rica, as well as maritime routes that take advantage of the San Andrés islands (Colombia) and other small islands in the Caribbean. Firearms arrive mainly to the Gulf of Urabá in Colombia. In the Pacific: from Santa Ana and Acajutla in El Salvador, or Puerto Armuelles in Chiriquí, Panama. Firearms are trafficked through Chocó and other uncontrolled ports on Colombia’s Pacific coast, including the city of Tumaco

Honduras

From Central America to Colombia

Panama

Nicaragua

Locations

Routes

Table 5.2 (continued)

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armed conflicts: Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador (1980–1992), and Nicaragua (1972–1991). The U.S. government provided weaponry to El Salvador,1 Honduras, and the counter-revolutionary Contras in Nicaragua (Godnick et al. 2002). The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies sent weapons to Cuba, which then passed them to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (Godnick et al. 2002; Stohl and Tuttle 2018). It is estimated that in El Salvador, around 360,000 military-style weapons were not recovered as part of the peace agreement. Only 1,824 firearms were recovered in Guatemala. In Nicaragua, 17,000 weapons were surrendered, a low number considering that 91,000 combatants were demobilized (UNODC 2012). In the post-conflict period, Central America became a source of second-hand weapons. The region provided surplus military armament, supplies and ammunition to insurgent groups of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation or EZLN (1994–1998) in Chiapas in southern Mexico (Espinoza and Meléndez 2011; Ruiz Lagier 2018) as well as to Colombia. An estimated 36% of illegal firearms trafficked to Colombia were remnants of the Central American conflicts, with shipments originating in Nicaragua and Panama (Craigin and Hoffman 2003: 22). Due to the reduction of manpower, one expected result of the peace processes should have been a reduction in the region’s stockpiles of weapons. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Central America, formerly a destination in its own right, became a zone of transit and distribution of weapons, and later, an area of organized criminal expansion and dispute. There is evidence of the use of heavier weaponry including assault rifles (mainly M16, AK-47), most likely remnants of past civil wars (Valencia 2016).

5.2.3.2 U.S. Flows to Mexico and Central America A primary source of firepower for Mexico’s drug cartels and armed gangs is legal gun purchases in the U.S., including gun shows and private sales. For example, “nearly 2.2 percent (between 0.9% and 3.7%) of U.S. domestic arms sales from 2010 to 2012 are attributable to gun 1 Weaponry

to El Salvador included over 32,500 M-16s and 270,000 grenades.

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trafficking in the U.S.–Mexico border, representing 212,887 firearms (between 89,816 and 359,205) purchased annually to be trafficked” (McDougal et al. 2015). The estimated 2.2% of all U.S. domestic firearm sales eventually made their way south of the border to Mexico and neighboring countries. Thus, legally purchased firearms are routinely diverted to unauthorized users across Latin America and the Caribbean. Most firearms seized in Mexico are of U.S. origin. From 2009 through 2014, 70% of firearms seized in Mexico by national authorities were determined to have originated in the U.S. (a total of 73,684 firearms). Approximately 40% of these originated in a single U.S. state, Texas (GAO 2016). The leak is not limited to Mexico: a 2020 report by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) shows that 2,641 firearms recovered in Guatemala were submitted to ATF for tracing, 1,355 for El Salvador, 742 for Honduras, and 537 for Panama. The proportion of U.S. sourced firearms and undetermined source country is nearly half and half, with a higher proportion of undetermined sourced for Guatemala (58%) (ATF 2020). This figure is 57% for Costa Rica (2014–2015) and 47% in Panama (Linares 2018). In fact, UNODC (2020) identified Central America as the most important destination for firearms trafficking (mainly from the U.S.), together with Western Asia and South America. Firearms obtained as a result of straw purchases2 or other methods of trafficking in the U.S. are pouring into countries across Latin America. Between 2014 and 2016, over 50,000 guns from the U.S. were recovered as part of criminal investigations in 15 countries from North America to Central America and the Caribbean (Parsons and Weigend 2018).3 Between 2005 and 2015 around 150,000 firearms and 13,000 grenades were seized in Mexico. The period saw a notable increase in the 2 Cases

where individuals that can legally purchase a firearm do so on behalf of a third person, usually individuals that cannot legally purchase a firearm. 3 Starting in 2006, the ATF has implemented several strategies to cope with arms trafficking, including the controversial Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious. These strategies, based on “gunwalking,” allowed American guns to be smuggled into Mexico and sold to drug cartels. The goal was to track the weapons as a way of locating the cartel leaders. Fast and Furious involved more than 2,000 firearms, including assault rifles and military weapons. Most of the weapons were never recovered, and the expected arrests of high-level criminals did not eventuate (Attkisson 2013).

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seizure of long arms (67% of the total seized in 2014), including AK-47 assault rifles (7.69 caliber), AR15 (0.223 caliber), 0.12 caliber shotguns, UZI submachine guns, and even grenade launchers (Angel 2015). Panama is a gun trafficking hotspot because it permits duty-free arms purchases: “North American weapons can be bought legally in these duty-free shops and are then sent illegally to other Central American countries” (UNODC 2012: 62).

5.2.3.3 Leakage from Official Stockpiles: Robberies and Actions by Corrupt Agents Many weapons are diverted into criminal hands from official stockpiles, either through robbery or leaks facilitated by corrupt security officials. The accumulations of seized weapons have reached 50,000 in storehouses in Guatemala and 30,000 in El Salvador (IEPADES 2018). Excessive stockpiles, poorly managed storehouses, and high levels of corruption among military and law enforcement agencies translate into military- and police-issued firearms and ammunition being routinely pilfered from official stocks. The leakage is considerable and probably one of the key sources of weaponry sustaining criminal organizations, drug trafficking gangs, private security firms, and others in the region. Research by Action on Armed Violence (Parakilas and Overton 2014) highlighted the accessibility of guns from official stocks and from confiscated weapons in El Salvador, either directly via corrupt military personnel or indirectly through middlemen. For example, the president of one of the main parties in El Salvador (ARENA) has been accused of firearms trafficking, including robbery and fraud to the Armed Forces (Flores 2020). In fact, officials at the highest levels of the Armed Forces of El Salvador have been investigated for illegal sale of military weapons, including a former defense minister, a former vice defense minister, a former police director, and a former intelligence director (Cawley 2014). In Panama, the former director of the public security agency DIASP has been charged with illegal importation of firearms, along with at least one other colleague (Panama Press 2020).

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High level military and defense officials in Guatemala have also been involved in trafficking firearms to armed groups in Colombia (Aguirre 2011). In 2006, 26,000 rifles and machine guns owned by the army were sent to the U.S. in a shipment labeled as scrap metal. The weapons were sold to the U.S. company Century Arms and the Syrian arms trafficker Monzer Al Kassar, with the intention of being re-sold to FARC (El Periódico de Guatemala 2010). Allegations have also been made that weapons legally purchased by Central American government agencies have been sent to criminal groups in Mexico(Noticieros Televisa 2011). In 2009 the Los Zetas criminal syndicate seized military weapons including guns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and grenades from the poorly managed arsenals of the Guatemalan army (Castillo 2009).

5.2.3.4 Diversion from Private Security Companies Countries with acute violence problems such as those in the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) have a strong and well-armed private security sector. In all three countries, private security guards outnumber police—by five times in Guatemala and seven times in Honduras (Kinosian and Bosworth 2018). With their high level of gun acquisition, along with weak regulation and enforcement, these firms become a potential source of guns for the black market, both through robberies or leakage (InSight Crime and ASJ 2017). In 2011, the Salvadoran government announced that more than 1,700 firearms used by private security companies since 2009 had been sold on the black market after being reported missing (Ramsey 2012). One study suggests that as many as 40% of illegal firearms in circulation in El Salvador are linked to the country’s estimated 500 private security companies (Kinosian and Bosworth 2018). In Costa Rica, legally imported firearms were sold to private security companies which registered them in compliance with national legal requirements. Later the Panamanian Interinstitutional Directorate of Security Affairs (DIASP) observed that a large number of guns registered in Costa Rica were being seized from criminals in Panama. At the time, Panama had a ban on firearm imports. Nonetheless, legal weapons

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from Costa Rica were illegally trafficked into Panama for use by criminal gangs (Espinoza 2015).

5.2.3.5 Misuse of Legal Documentation Several notorious cases of large-scale arms trafficking occurred in 1999 (Aguirre 2011: 55). In one case, 3,000 AK-47s and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition were diverted illegally from the Nicaraguan Army to the AUC Colombian paramilitaries by Grupo de Representaciones Internacionales or GIR S.A., a Guatemalan-Israeli company. GIR S.A acquired the weapons with a falsified Panamanian police purchase order, masked by a legitimate exchange of Nicaraguan assault rifles for Israeli pistols and submachine guns. Nicaraguan army officials then shipped the weapons on a vessel using the Panamanian flag. The ship later arrived on Colombia’s Atlantic coast without ever having stopped in Panama. The shipment was unloaded by Banadex S.A. (a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands4 ) before arriving in the hands of the AUC paramilitary group (OAS 2003).

5.2.3.6 Organized Crime and Firearms The origins of the first organized criminal groups in the region can be traced “to contraband networks dating back to colonial times and the 18th century” (López 2010: 4). During the region’s civil wars, organized crime grew stronger as the marine trafficking routes in the Caribbean gave way to land routes through Central American countries. Drug traffickers also developed relationships with corrupt local authorities and members of state security forces. From the 1970s, armies developed relationships with organized criminal groups and local drug barons as a way of funding wars, through a mix of licit and illicit activities (Keen 2003; Youngsers and Rosin 2005). In 2002, six years after the Guatemalan conflict, the criminal connections of government members became clear when the “U.S. revoked the 4 Chiquita

Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups

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visas of seven Guatemalan officials for alleged trafficking ties” (Crisis Group 2010: 15). Guatemala was “decertified” for its lack of cooperation on counter-narcotics, meaning that U.S. foreign aid was suspended. Between 2000 and 2008, firearms were exchanged for drugs as a means of payment. With no money involved, the trade functioned as a barter system. Weapons flowed south and drugs flowed in the opposite direction to the north. This process also resulted in a higher volume of drugs remaining in the region. The region was now a zone of transit, stockpiling, redistribution, and exchange for arms and drugs. This dynamic was intensified with the rise of the Colombian conflict, and then the clashes between powerful organized criminal groups in Mexico. Although drugs are the most important merchandise, firearms are always present as merchandise, a means of payment, and a guarantee of protection for illicit activities. Weapons also serve as a means of dissuasion to ensure the custody of illicit goods, mainly drugs. The Mexican group “Los Zetas,” one of most important actors in arms trafficking to all Central American countries, is also involved in drug trafficking and efforts to wrest territorial control from the government (El Confidencial 2009; La Prensa 2011). The Merida Initiative, a security cooperation agreement between the United States and Mexico, rolled out between 2008 and 2015. Plan Merida assumed a shared responsibility in relation to arms trafficking. However, despite the $3.1 billion appropriated for the Merida Initiative (CRS 2020), Mexico experienced an increase in violence, corruption and little progress in reducing the various manifestations of organized crime. The Central American dynamic of arms and drug trafficking also includes Colombia, since the region was an important source of weaponry to insurgent groups, mainly FARC (Aguirre 2011). Arms trafficking from Central America was controlled for many years by the Colombian drug dealer Ethalson Giovanni Mejía (killed in 2007 in Tegucigalpa). He was the main link to Central America enabling the FARC’s 14th and 16th fronts to obtain weapons (El Tiempo 2007). This role was later played by other actors, such as a network providing arms to groups of former paramilitaries in Colombia. The payments were around 5 pistols for a kilo of cocaine (Noticias RCN 2015).

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Since 2015, the presence of organized criminal groups has increased in the region. As a result, larger quantities of ammunition are being seized. Many countries have seen legal firearms move into illegality, coming from official security stockpiles, private security companies, and civilian users. An important role is played by maras (gangs), both as participants in trafficking but also as a destination for illegal guns. In 2012, a source in the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that weapons passed from the hands of gangs to drug traffickers and vice versa without the two structures having direct contact. This is possible because they use different networks of intermediaries (López 2018). Forbes (2019) reported on how the Mara Salvatrucha has access to weaponry from Mexico and Honduras. An investigation by Plaza Pública (López 2018) indicated that gangs in Guatemala have a wide range of sources, including the trafficking of weapons from Mexico to El Salvador. Mara Salvatrucha was said to buy its firearms in the department of Guatemala (near the capital), while Honduran gangs buy them in northern and eastern areas of the country. One survey examined the sources of weapons from active and former gang members from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (Demoscopía 2007). Respondents claimed that the principle source of arms and ammunition were corrupt members of the security forces; in Guatemala, 36% of respondents cited military and police as key sources. The next most likely source of weapons was robberies of official stockpiles; in Honduras, 26% of respondents cited this method.

5.3

Strategies to Reduce Illicit Arms Trafficking in Central America

Influenced by the provisions of international agreements and supported by multilateral organizations such as the OAS and the UN’s regional center for disarmament, UNLIREC, countries in the region have made efforts to improve arms control regulations and institutions. The improvements were mainly to build national capacity, for example in

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marking firearms and including registration, key features in preventing diversion from stockpiles. Despite some advances, significant challenges arise from distrust among authorities in the region, undermining the exchange of intelligence information. Regional information exchange mechanisms are underdeveloped. Even within individual countries, mistrust among institutions affects law enforcement. Considering the constant movement of firearms across the border between the U.S. and Mexico, these two countries have taken limited actions against trafficking—especially the U.S. In 2009, U.S. authorities intercepted 5,000 firearms, while Mexican agencies seized 32,000 (Goodman and Marizco 2010). It is estimated that Mexican authorities are able to intercept around 14.7% of the illicit trade at the border; compared to just 2% on the U.S. side (McDougal et al 2015). The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has developed controversial strategies such as the notorious “Operation Fast and Furious,” in which guns were allowed to be diverted with the aim of identifying and tracking the sellers, purchasers, and routes (see Footnote 2). The catastrophic results of this strategy included hundreds of weapons disappearing into Mexico and the hands of criminal groups (Attkisson 2013). The Mexican government has continually requested the U.S. government to strengthen measures to control the leakage of firearms over the border (Melgar 2019). Binational agreements have included technological developments to identify weapons and ammunitions at the border (VOA 2020). Nevertheless, the U.S. government has not implemented strong measures to oversee the thousands of gun shops along the border, or the other identified sources of illegal firearms to Mexico. The U.S. is one of the world’s biggest weapons producers, and its gun laws are generally permissive in comparison to Latin America and the Caribbean countries. It is necessary to improve binational cooperation among the two countries’ security and arms control agencies, in addition to strengthening border control. As part of the Plan Merida framework, Mexico acquired x-ray equipment to detect explosives and firearms, trained dogs to detect weapons, and invested in infrastructure to improve border capacity (Expansión 2017). Mexico also sends tracing

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requests on seized firearms to the U.S. National Tracing Center through the electronic eTrace system (ATF 2019). Tracing is a powerful tool used by countries around the world to identify the sources of firearms. In fact, the largest numbers of tracing request sent to Interpol were reported by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. For Central America, it is common to have several requests between neighboring countries, as indicated by UNODC (2020: 49): “El Salvador reported sending more than of 4,000 requests to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and receiving more than 3,500 requests from Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica.” In terms of its own national controls, Mexico requires verification of firearms trade activities through the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) and the Ministry of Economy. Weapons of the military forces and State security agencies are marked to identify the manufacturer, type, model, caliber, and serial number. Surplus firearms may be destroyed, transferred to other official agencies, or sold or transferred to entities like museums and private security companies. Central American countries have also attempted several mechanisms of cooperation in matters of security and defense. For example, the 1995 Framework Treaty on Democratic Security included commitments to information sharing and harmonization of security and defense regulation among the states of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama (SICA 1995). Cooperation continues to be crucial for strategies against arms trafficking in the region. Nevertheless, these interventions have not been enough to control movement of weapons through the porous borders. In relation to the international framework of arms control, the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama have signed or ratified the main international agreements, including the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and report regularly on their implementation. End use certificates are required in some countries like Costa Rica. There are differences in marking practices, technology acquisition such as the IBIS ballistic identification system (López 2016), and Honduras where the ATF has provided computers, training and access to the eTrace system (La Tribuna 2017). Costa Rica has a registration platform, called Control Pass (Ministerio De Seguridad Pública 2020).

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Panama provides an innovative license to carry a weapon, with a chip and security hologram to thwart forgeries and improve control. The back of the license lists the serial numbers and details of up to 10 firearms registered to the user (Gallo 2018). On the other hand, Nicaragua lags behind and has limited data on firearms and crime (García 2015). Its last report on UN-PoA implementation was submitted in 2012 and it has not considered signing the ATT. Some challenges include how to handle the surplus of 51,000 guns in Guatemala (Muñoz 2017), or 30,000 surplus guns in El Salvador (Gordillo 2018). This accumulation of firearms has been recognized as a high risk for diversion to the illegal market. Destruction of firearms is another issue. For example, disposing of guns in Guatemala requires a specific court order. However, in 2018, authorization was given to destroy more than 2,200 firearms (Larios 2018). El Salvador melted down 1,300 firearms in 2018 (Hernández 2018); and in Honduras firearm destruction has been defined as part of the national strategy. Some 13,000 firearms were seized between 2010 and 2016, and nearly 11,000 were destroyed between 2014 and 2018 (La Prensa 2018). Costa Rica is the most dynamic country in its efforts to promote peace and reduce arms proliferation. Since 2006, Costa Rica has destroyed more than 50,000 firearms and more than 2 million rounds of ammunition, more than any other country in the region (Presidencia de la República 2015). An urgent challenge is the necessity to improve stockpile security, including training, infrastructure support, innovation and technology and, of course, political will and coordination among the countries of the region.

5.4

Discussion and Conclusions

Most firearms and ammunition circulating in Central America did not originate in the region. Large portions of the illicit arsenal are a legacy of the region’s civil wars or were diverted from the holdings of state agencies, private companies, and civilians. Craft production is also common in

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the region. A vigorous international trade in firearms is motivated by transnational organized crime, domestic gangs, and collectors. Firearms move between countries in this region with large and porous borders, extensive coastlines, and vast jungles with thousands of unmarked airstrips and clandestine ports. Arms trafficking in the region has become more complex during the latest decades. Central America’s role has shifted from being a transit route for drugs and weapons to having its own dynamics of production, storage, and distribution of drugs and weapons to the north. Land-based routes are now complemented by air and maritime routes, often with the involvement of local communities. Diversion of weapons is fueled by high levels of corruption, often driven by profits associated with the drug trade. Robust and widespread organized criminal groups exacerbate and facilitate corruption. The armed forces and other public agencies are frequently involved in the diversion of guns to criminal groups. The large private security industry also plays a role, operating throughout the region with very little supervision or regulation. There are also historical and political factors linked to the wars, causing persistent mistrust and wariness among Latin American governments toward their neighbors, especially the U.S. Deep levels of mistrust in the region lead to inadequate intelligence sharing and information exchange among and within countries on policing and law enforcement concerns. More recently, the drug trade has fueled unprecedented spending on weapons by cartels and organized criminal gangs who transship and retail cocaine across the region as well as to Europe and the U.S. Recent research has highlighted how the unregulated and expanding private security sector is linked to the rise of violence and crime in the region (Kinosian and Bosworth 2018). Limited, weak regulations leave the door open for abuses of power and violent extralegal forms of informal justice and policing. The leakage of weapons to the illegal market occurs at all stages of the life cycle of firearms, including the legal trade (false documentation), poorly managed stockpiles and corrupt agents in the security and defense sectors, as well as private security companies. The flourishing of organized crime linked to drug trafficking

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and gangs in the region impose complex challenges for control of the production, distribution, and criminal use of weapons. Countries have experimented with measures against illegal trafficking and weapons misuse, focusing on the investigation of criminal gangs, seizure of material and strategies to combat transnational trafficking. Binational agreements have included technological developments to identify weapons and ammunitions at the U.S.–Mexico border, but they have failed to recognize the sources of those weapons in the U.S., such as gun shops and straw purchases. The region has extensive experience dealing with arms control due to the DDR processes in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. But these countries have also seen the devastating long-term effects of incomplete disarmament processes. The region still carries the burden of incomplete registration of weapons received, of poorly managed stockpiles and limited security and justice sector reforms. Important advances have been made in stockpile management, weapons marking, and registration. Modifications to the laws should also include restrictions on access to weapons, including provisions incorporating gender perspectives. However, these interventions seem to be falling short of a comprehensive solution, given that gun proliferation, and the resulting high rates of violence, continue at crisis levels. Progress toward effective implementation, institutional strengthening, and proper cross-national cooperation are vital if levels of armed violence are to be reduced.

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idencial.com/mundo/2009–04-16/los-zetas-extienden-acciones-en-guatem ala-al-trafico-de-armas-dice-fiscal_999055/. El Periódico de Guatemala. 2010. 26,994 armas salieron del almacén del Ejército ilegalmente. Republished by Mafia & Co., 3 August. Accessed 30 April 2018. https://mafiaandco.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/guatemala26994-armas-salieron-del-almacen-del-ejercito-ilegalmente/. El Tiempo. 2007. Matan a colombiano señalado por autoridades como supuesto enlace de las FARC en Honduras, 9 July. Accessed 30 April 2018. http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/CMS-3631805. El Universal. 2019. País de armas: La ruta Centroamérica-Tepito, 17 September. Accessed 29 July 2020. https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/ de-centroamerica-tepito-la-ruta-del-trafico-de-armas. Espinoza, Ana Yancy. 2012. Tráfico de armas en América Latina. Una perspectiva cualitativa del fenómeno. Unpublished Working Paper for UNODCINEGI. ———. 2015. El fenómeno de la seguridad privada en Costa Rica. Unpublished Working Paper for DCAF-UNLIREC. ———. 2017. Tráfico de Armas en América Central. Unpublished Working Paper for Fundación Arias. Espinoza, Ana Yancy, and Javier Meléndez. 2011. El crimen organizado en América Central: actualización mapeo 2009–2010. In Seguridad regional en América Latina y el Caribe: Anuario 2011, ed. Hans Mathieu and Catalina Niño, 193–214. Bogotá: Fundación Friedrich Ebert. http://library.fes.de/ pdf-files/bueros/la-seguridad/07600/2011.pdf. Expansión. 2017. 10 años de la Iniciativa Mérida: un recuento de la cooperación entre México y EU, 10 April. Accessed 14 June 2019. https://expansion.mx/nacional/2017/04/09/10-anos-de-la-iniciativamerida-un-recuento-de-la-cooperacion-entre-mexico-y-eu. Flores, Judith. 2020. Renuncia presidente del partido ARENA tras acusaciones por tráfico de armas. Diario de Las Américas, 17 February. Accessed 28 July 2020. https://www.diariolasamericas.com/america-latina/renunciapresidente-del-partido-arena-acusaciones-trafico-armas-n4193189. Forbes. 2019. Célula de MS-13 de El Salvador traficó armas desde México y Honduras: testigo, 31 October. Accessed 29 July 2020. https://forbescen troamerica.com/2019/10/31/celula-de-ms-13-de-el-salvador-trafico-armasdesde-mexico-y-honduras-testigo/.

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Fundación Arias. 2018. Entrevista a representante de Aduanas Honduras [Interview with a customs official from Honduras]. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Costa Rica y Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano. Gallo, Andrea. 2018. Los portadores de armas tienen un nuevo carné. La Prensa, 30 March. Accessed 18 June 2019. https://impresa.prensa.com/pan orama/portadores-armas-nuevo-carne_0_4996000433.html. GAO (United States Government Accountability Office). 2016. Firearms Trafficking: U.S. Efforts to Combat Firearms Trafficking to Mexico Have Improved, but Some Collaboration Challenges Remain. https://www.gao.gov/assets/680/ 674570.pdf. García, Lizbeth. 2015. Nicaragua sigue sin modernizar registro de control de armas. El Nuevo Diario, 29 June. Accessed 3 June 2019. https://www.eln uevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/363507-nicaragua-sigue-modernizar-registrocontrol-armas/. Godnick, William, Robert Muggah, and Camilla Waszink. 2002. Stray Bullets: The Impact of Small Arms Misuse in Central America. Occasional Paper No. 5. Geneva: Small Arms Survey. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/ docs/B-Occasional-papers/SAS-OP05-Central-America.pdf. Goodman, Colby and Michel Marizco. 2010. U.S. Firearms Trafficking to Mexico: New Data and Insights Illuminate Key Trends and Challenges. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego. https://www.cwagweb.org/wp-content/upl oads/2016/08/U.S.-Firearms-Trafficking-to-Mexico-Goodman-Final.pdf. Gordillo, Ivone. 2018. ONG Pide una legislación que permita destruir armas mas rápido en Guatemala. Emisoras Unidas, 10 July. https://emisorasunidas. com/2018/07/10/ong-pide-una-legislacion-que-permita-destruir-armasmas-rapido-en-guatemala/. Hernández, Francisco. 2018. Defensa destruye 1,256 armas de fuego y artesanales. La Prensa Gráfica. 15 de noviembre de 2018. https://www.lap rensagrafica.com/elsalvador/Defensa-destruye-1256-armas-de-fuego-y-artesa nales-20181114-0122.html. IEPADES. 2014. REDCEPAZ: Seguridad fronteriza: Apuntes regionales. Unpublished Working Paper. ———. 2018. Destrucción de armas en Centroamérica y el Caribe: panorama de la destrucción de armas de fuego en Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica y República Dominicana. http://www.funpadem.org/app/webroot/files/ publication/files/289_destruccio_ndearmascompletofinal.pdf.

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Igarapé Institute. 2020. Homicide Monitor. Accessed 17 August 2020. https:// homicide.igarape.org.br/. InSight Crime and ASJ (Asociación para una Sociedad Más Justa). 2017. Firearms Trafficking in Honduras. Accessed 17 April 2019. https://www.ins ightcrime.org/images/PDFs/2017/Firearms-Trafficking-Honduras.pdf. Interpol. 2019. Americas: INTERPOL operation nets 850 firearms, 560 arrests. Accessed 30 April 2019. https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Eve nts/News/2019/Americas-INTERPOL-operation-nets-850-firearms-560-arr ests. Karp, Aaron. 2018. Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers. Small Arms Survey Briefing Paper, June 2018. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fil eadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf. Keen, David. 2003. Demobilising Guatemala. Crisis States Programme Working Paper No. 37. London School of Economics. London: LSE. https://www.lse.ac.uk/international-development/Assets/Documents/ PDFs/csrc-working-papers-phase-one/wp37-demobolising-guatemala.pdf. Kinosian Sarah, and James Bosworth. 2018. Security for Sale: Challenges and Good Practices in Regulating Private Military and Security Companies in Latin America. Inter-American Dialogue, Rule of Law Program. https://www.thedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ Security-for-Sale-FINAL-ENGLISH.pdf. La Calle. 2018. Interceptan minisubmarino con casi una tonelada de cocaína en Guatemala, 28 April. Accessed 15 May 2019. http://lacalle.com.ve/ 2018/04/28/interceptan-minisubmarino-en-guatemala-con-casi-una-ton elada-de-cocaina/. La Nueva. 2011. Honduras incautó 22 toneladas de cocaína y 3 minisubmarinos en 2011, 13 December. Accessed 15 May 2019. https://www.lan ueva.com/nota/2011-12-13-22-28-0-honduras-incauto-22-toneladas-de-coc aina-y-3-minisubmarinos-en-2011. La Prensa. 2011. Guatemala ha incautado a Zetas armas de Honduras, 3 August. Accessed 12 June 2019. https://www.laprensa.hn/especiales/381 875-273/guatemala-ha-incautado-a-zetas-armas-de-honduras. La Prensa. 2018. En proceso de destrucción 3200 armas en Honduras, 29 July. Accessed 2 June 2019. https://www.laprensa.hn/honduras/1202338-410/dec omiso-armas-pistolas-revolveres-escopetas-. La Tribuna. 2017. En Honduras siete mil balas de escenas del crimen se analizan al año, 25 January. https://www.latribuna.hn/2017/01/25/hondurassiete-mil-balas-escenas-del-crimen-se-analizan-al-ano/.

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Labrador, Gabriel. 2015. En Centroamérica el mayor número de armas es ilegal. El Faro, 27 April. Accessed 30 March 2018. https://elfaro.net/es/201 504/internacionales/16913/En-Centroam%C3%A9rica-el-mayor-n%C3% BAmero-de-armas-es-ilegal.htm. Larios, Brenda. 2018. Ejército destruye más de 2200 armas de fuego decomisadas en Guatemala. Agencia Guatemalteca de Noticias, 10 July. Accessed 10 June 2019. https://agn.com.gt/ejercito-destruye-mas-de-2-200armas-de-fuego-decomisadas-en-guatemala. Láscarez, Carlos. 2019. Semisumergible con 81 bultos de aparente cocaína encalla en playa Llorona de Corcovado. La Nación, 11 May. Accessed 15 May 2019. https://www.nacion.com/sucesos/narcotrafico/semisumer gible-con-81-bultos-de-aparente-cocaina/YXIBL2CLORGKPB3XCXC56 SKEYE/story/. Linares, Albinson. 2018. Cada año, 213.000 armas llegan ilegalmente a México desde Estados Unidos, según un informe. New York Times, 5 February. Accessed 15 June 2019. www.nytimes.com/es/2018/02/05/cadaano-213-000-armas-llegan-ilegalmente-a-mexico-desde-estados-unidossegun-un-informe. López, Jaime. 2016. En 318 de 4,458 homicidios se identificó el arma utilizada. El Salvador.com, 14 May. Accessed 18 June 2019. https://www. elsalvador.com/noticias/nacional/188687/en-318-de-4458-homicidios-seidentifico-el-arma-utilizada/. López, Julie. 2010. Guatemala’s Crossroads: Democratization of Violence and Second Chance s. Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/attach/102/102440_Organized%20C rime%20In%20Guatemala%20-%20WWICS.pdf. ———. 2018. Un arma de fuego es incautada cada dos horas en Guatemala. Plaza Pública, 10 January. Accessed 15 June 2019 https://www.plazapubl ica.com.gt/content/un-arma-de-fuego-es-incautada-cada-dos-horas-en-gua temala. McDougal, Topher L, David A. Shirk, Robert Muggah, and John H. Patterson. 2015. The Way of the Gun: Estimating Firearms Traffic Across the USMexico Border. Journal of Economic Geography 15 (2, March): 297–327. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbu021. Melgar, Ana. 2019. México pide al Gobierno de Estados Unidos congelar tráfico de armas. CNN, 12 September. Accessed 29 July 2020. https://cnn espanol.cnn.com/2019/09/12/mexico-gobierno-estados-unidos-congelar-tra fico-armas/.

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Ministerio de Seguridad Pública. 2020.Control Pas: Portación, Control de Armas y Seguridad Privada. https://www.controlpas.go.cr/Inicio/Inform acion. Muñoz, Geldi. 2017. Digecam no tiene recursos para destruir 30 mil armas de fuego. Prensa Libre, 5 April. Accessed 11 June 2019. https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/justicia/digecam-no-tiene-rec ursos-para-destruir-armas-de-fuego/. Noticias RCN. 2015 Una red de tráfico de armas al servicio del ‘Clan Úsuga’ operaba desde Centroamérica. 27 July. Accessed 30 April 2019. https://noticias.canalrcn.com/nacional-pais/una-red-trafico-armas-alservicio-del-clan-usuga-operaba-desde-centroamerica. Noticieros Televisa. 2011. El “tráfico de armas desde Centroamérica hacia México”, 1 April. Accessed 30 April 2019. http://noticierostelevisa.esmas. com/internacional/274537/el-trafico-armas-centroamerica-hacia-mexico. OAS (Organization of American States). 2003. Report of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States on the Diversion of Nicaraguan Arms to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia. Washington: OAS. Accessed 12 April 2018. https://fas.org/asmp/campaigns/sma llarms/OAS_Otterloo.htm. Panama Press. 2020. Ovidio Fuentes y dos más a juicio por tráfico de armas y otros delitos, 17 January. Accessed 8 June 2020. https://panamapress.com. pa/ovidio-fuentes-y-dos-mas-a-juicio-por-trafico-de-armas-y-otros-delitos/. Parakilas, Jacob, and Iain Overton. 2014. The Devil’s Trade: Guns and Violence in El Salvador. Action on Armed Violence, AOAV. https://aoav.org.uk/ 2014/devils-trade-guns-violence-el-salvador/. Parsons, Chelsea, and Eugenio Weigend. 2018. Beyond Our Borders: How Weak U.S. Gun Laws Contribute to Violent Crime Abroad. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/guns-crime/rep orts/2018/02/02/445659/beyond-our-borders/. Patzán, José Manuel. 2016. Prolifera trasiego de pistolas 9 milímetros. Prensa Libre, 19 September. Accessed 30 March 2019. https://web.archive.org/ web/20170926130643/https://www.prensalibre.com/guatemala/comuni tario/prolifera-trasiego-de-pistolas-9-milimetros. Presidencia de la República 2015. Costa Rica es el país que más armas destruye en Centroamérica. Press release, 16 November. Accessed 3 June 2019 https://presidencia.go.cr/comunicados/2015/11/costa-rica-es-elpais-que-mas-armas-destruye-en-centroamerica/. Ramsey, Geoffrey. 2012. Private Security Firms are Unfortunate Necessity in Central America. Insight Crime, 22 October. Accessed 17

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April 2019. https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/private-security-nec essity-central-america/. Ruiz Lagier, Verónica. 2018. Los refugiados guatemaltecos y la frontera-frente de discriminación, explotación y desigualdad. Alteridades 28 (56): 47–57. SICA (Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana). 1995. Tratado Marco de Seguridad Democrática en Centroamérica. Accessed 29 July 2020. https:// www.sica.int/documentos/tratado-marco-de-seguridad-democratica-en-cen troamerica_1_110795.html. Stohl, Rachel, and Doug Tuttle. 2008. The Small Arms Trade in Latin America. NACLA Report on The Americas 41(2). https://nacla.org/article/smallarms-trade-latin-america. UNODC. 2012. Transnational Organized Crime in Central America and the Caribbean: A Threat Assessment. https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/reports/ TOCTACentralAmerica-Caribbean.html. ———. 2020. Global Study on Firearms Trafficking 2020. Accessed 28 July 2020. https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Firearms/ 2020_REPORT_Global_Study_on_Firearms_Trafficking_2020_web.pdf. Valencia, Roberto. 2016. Las maras se arman con fusiles de la guerra civil. El Faro, 7 September. Accessed 30 Mar 2018. https://elfaro.net/es/201609/sal anegra/19208/Las-maras-se-arman-con-fusiles-de-la-guerra-civil.htm. VOA. 2020. EE.UU. y México acuerdan plan binacional para reducir tráfico de armas y drogas. 16 January. Accessed 29 July 2020. https://www.voanot icias.com/america-latina/eeuu-y-m%C3%A9xico-acuerdan-plan-binacionalpara-reducir-tr%C3%A1fico-de-armas-y-drogas. Youngsers, Coletta, and Eileen Rosin (eds.). 2005. Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner.

6 A Hidden Time Bomb? Policing Illegal Firearms in Europe Peter Squires, Helen Poole, Jo Chilton, Sarah Watson, and Helen Williamson

6.1

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the security challenges associated with firearm possession (legal and illegal), weapon trafficking, and firearm misuse in Europe and then to explore how these challenges might be most effectively addressed. Some of the discussion, primarily reflecting the research and experience of the authors, will involve the trafficking of firearms for criminal purposes from mainland Europe and into the UK. In developing this analysis, we will explore the main security challenges identified and the efficacy of proposed solutions. Two separate, P. Squires (B) School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton, Brighton, East Sussex, UK e-mail: [email protected] H. Poole School of Law, Policing and Forensics, Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_6

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but related, aspects of these issues will be explored. The first, concerns the regulation of ‘domestic’ gun ownership and, the second, the policing of illegal firearms and the disruption of their supply. While these are, to some extent, separate issues, they can be connected in important ways. For example it is often remarked that most firearms begin life as legal products, but cross into illegality in a variety of ways (Spapens 2007) furthermore, in 2014, the European Commission estimated that there were ‘almost half a million firearms lost or stolen in the EU [still] unaccounted for’ (European Commission 2013). In 2018 the Small Arms Survey (2018) published a report identifying a significant growth of gun ownership in Europe. The years immediately preceding this report had seen a number of leading right-wing politicians, anticipating crime and disorder threats associated with the so-called ‘migrant crisis’, promoting the liberalization of firearms control laws while encouraging self-defensive arming by citizens (Rogers 2017). In Italy, Matteo Salvini, in Germany, Frauke Petry, and in the Czech Republic, President Milos Zeman, have all advocated citizen firearm ownership for ‘defensive’ purposes (Christys 2017). Even in the UK, former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, has spoken about ‘relaxing’ Britain’s ‘ludicrous’ gun laws (Mason 2014). Commentators were not slow to draw out some potential implications of this development. ‘Europeans in a number of countries are seeking to arm themselves with guns and self-defense devices in growing numbers following a series of attacks by militants and the mentally ill’ (Miller and Copley 2016). A number of elements seemed to be combining. These included migration, political intolerances, terrorism, with firearms as the spark that could potentially ignite a hidden time bomb. In recent years, Europe has suffered a series of mass shootings perpetrated by jihadist J. Chilton West Midlands Police, West Midlands, UK S. Watson Criminology, Newman University, Birmingham, UK H. Williamson University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

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terrorists in possession of illegal firearms, specifically in Paris and Brussels during 2015. At the same time, there has also been an emerging trend of racially motivated mass shootings, most recently in Hanau, Germany. Many of the latter incidents involved perpetrators with legal or licensed firearms and extreme right-wing or neo-Nazi sympathies. In exploring gun-related challenges in Europe, the UK experience between 1987 and 2010 can be instructive. The ‘British experience’ reveals several features of firearms law, weapon regulation, and policing practice directly relevant to the wider EU context. During this time Britain experienced three ‘mass shootings’, all of which involved firearms which were, at the time of the incident, legally held. Not all of these incidents resulted in substantial changes to firearm policies (Hurka 2017).1 Likewise, during this time, England and Wales, and to a lesser extent Scotland, witnessed important shifts in gun crime trends, primarily centered upon major conurbations and the activities of street gangs (Squires et al. 2008; Squires 2014). Certainly until 2008, gun policy assumed a major priority in most large urban police forces (London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside). Over time, an improved capacity for firearms intelligence management was achieved. By European standards, even before the handgun ban introduced in 1998,2 the UK had one of the world’s stricter firearms control regimes and relatively low rates of firearm ownership (Squires 2000). Gun crime, especially when air weapon offences were excluded, never amounted to more than 0.3% of recorded crimes (Squires 2014). This level of gunenabled crime has seldom been enough to sustain the interests of many criminological researchers. Throughout a large part of this period, the UK was also negotiating a ‘Peace Process’ in Northern Ireland, a process with its own particular firearms control legacies beyond the Good Friday Agreement secured in 1998. Successor organizations to the paramilitary groups active during 1 Hurka’s

(2017) policy analysis research shows that a number of factors influence the likelihood that mass shootings will result in tighter licensing laws. These include strong and active grass roots campaigns, the extent to which proposals are adopted by leading political actors and parties, the strength and coherence of the gun lobby itself, and the way the incident connects into the cycle of electoral politics. 2This ban was introduced following the school shooting at Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, when 16 five-year old children and their teacher were killed

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‘the Troubles’ continue to give rise to crime and security concerns, including weapon trafficking and an uptick, around 2015, in numbers of firearms seized, weapons offences, and firearm discharges. However, intelligence assessments appear not to draw major connections between such Northern Irish ‘legacy’ firearms and weapon supply to mainland Britain (Holtom et al. 2018).3 Yet even as the UK grappled with these different aspects of the ‘firearms question’, a number of issues became clearer. The involvement of legally owned firearms in mass shootings and domestic homicides asked questions of the process by which firearms were licensed by the authorities, especially as gun ownership was creeping upwards. Secondly, as regards illicit firearms, even as the police and security agencies developed new methods to disrupt firearm trafficking, criminal entrepreneurs found new ways to supply and transport illegal firearms. This was as true of loopholes in the legislation (reactivated firearms, converted weapons, recycled antique weapons, and home-made ammunition) as it was of methods of illegal firearm advertising, delivery, and payment (including social media, the dark web, fast parcel services, and bitcoin). Thirdly, while a great deal of the policing effort was directed toward illegal firearm supply, attention also had to be directed to the cultures and communities—especially those harboring organized criminal activities and gangs—where a demand for illegal firearms existed. It was important to better understand the functioning of localized ‘gun cultures’. Finally, it became obvious that better investigative capacity, ballistic intelligence development, resourcing, analysis, and sharing to enable more effective firearm tracking and tracing would be necessary to support firearms control operations and prosecutions. In due course, recognition of the need for a more strategic approach to illegal firearm intelligence sharing led to the establishment of the National Ballistic Intelligence Service (NABIS). In turn NABIS works in liaison with the UK National Crime Agency and other European policing agencies to help combat firearm 3 One

important aspect of the Good Friday Agreement had involved the ‘de-commissioning’ of all weapons held by paramilitary organizations. The leaders of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning confirmed, in September 2005, that all firearms held by the IRA had been ‘put beyond use’ but critics have challenged the credibility of these claims (The Guardian 2005; McAleese 2016).

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trafficking especially into the UK. However, the issues arising within the UK, not to mention the lessons to be derived from them, also applied across Europe as a whole. For while gun trafficking has periodically been addressed at the European level, several challenges arising from distinct and separate national ‘gun cultures’ and legal systems, varying degrees of political will, sometimes incompatible ballistic analysis capabilities and differing levels of enthusiasm for intelligence sharing (Hellenbach et al. 2018), have meant that firearms control across Europe still resembles something of a patchwork with numerous loopholes. As Savona and Mancuso (2017: 21) have noted, ‘relatively little is known about the structure of the threat that firearms pose to European security. Therefore, in the first section which follows, we address the scale and nature of firearm ownership across European societies. This section includes an analysis of the balance between licensed or unlicensed (or legal and illegal) firearms comprising the various societies’ firearm holdings; the chief uses to which these firearms might be put, and the security challenges and social harms associated with higher gun ownership, including firearm homicides, firearms suicides, and other gun-enabled violence. From this general perspective, firearm regulation, crime prevention, and incident investigation typically falls within the broad scope of ‘routine’ policing and crime control activity. In section two, we will investigate various institutional features of firearm production, exchange and distribution, including particular configurations of political actors. These might include—especially the firearm industry, lobbyists, and gun owners—as well as cultural and geographic incidents and relationships including wars and patterns of conflict. Consideration also extends to especially crimogenic ‘gun cultures’ (such as gangs, organized crime groups, terrorist organizations) which generate a demand for illegal firearms. Finally, in section three we are concerned with the structural or institutional features of gun control regimes themselves (see Squires 2014: 23–39) creating opportunities for significant criminal or terrorist trafficking opportunities (Savona and Mancuso 2017: 33–34). This latter area corresponds to what is often referred to as the ‘high policing’ agenda (Brodeur 2007; Sheptycki 2007), including questions of intelligence development, surveillance, proactive security management, and risk assessment. In this case it also extends

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to the quality of firearm tracking and tracing, and the retrieval, analysis, and sharing of ballistic and intelligence data. As we have noted, it is also important to acknowledge, that while the two aspects of firearms control—the licensed and the unlicensed—are addressed separately here, they overlap in many important ways. We will firstly describe the broad availability of firearms in the European region, focussing in particular on homicides and suicides, the symbolic significance of mass shootings and the emerging issue of terrorist access to illegal firearm supplies. Following this we will consider some of the strategies adopted or proposed for tackling these security deficits, the lessons learned in implementing them and the concerns which still remain. For the purposes of this discussion we are referring, in the main, to the geographical region of Europe; that is, the 40 countries represented in Fig. 6.2, while recognizing that not all of them are members of the EU or, indeed, the Schengen area, although the EU represents the primary political actor in the region.

6.2

The European Context: Rates of Firearm Possession and Firearm Fatalities

As a region, Europe has some of the lowest international rates of intentional homicide (UNODC 2019). The UNODC Global Homicide Report estimates that 54% of global homicides are committed with firearms (UNODC 2019: 77) with Europe recording the lowest firearm homicide rates (around 20% of homicides). The UNODC data on intentional homicides excludes what are referred to as ‘conflict deaths’, ‘killings in self defence’, and deaths resulting from law enforcement interventions. Yet if such killings were included in the comparison, the comparative European ‘safety margin’ would be even greater. Furthermore, Eastern and Northern Europe appear to have the lowest rates of gun homicides (UNODC 2013). Even so, as Duquet and Van Alstein (2015) revealed, there were around 1,500 intentional firearm homicides each year in the thirty-three European countries in the decade to 2012 and a further 5,000 suicides.

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As Fig. 6.1 shows, Western and Southern Europe have a higher proportion of firearm-related homicides than Eastern and Northern Europe. This finding suggests its own story and cautions against over generalization of the region. In any event, while the UNODC analysis (2013) acknowledges a greater uncertainty regarding the upper ranges of homicide estimates in Eastern Europe. By contrast the data for the rest of Europe is regarded as more reliable. This notion is supported by Lysova and Shchitov (2015) who have demonstrated a systematic under recording of homicides in Russia, for example. This seeming ‘relative safety’ of Europe, as indicated by the above figure, and especially the relatively limited exposure of European societies to firearm violence, can be attributed to a wide range of historical, political, and cultural factors. Nevertheless, as a report for the European Commission (2013) has noted, notwithstanding some of the ambiguities in the ways by which legal ownership of firearms is recorded, there are still estimated to be some eighty million civilian owned and legally held firearms in the countries of the European Union. And although, given its very nature, illegal firearm possession does not lend itself to clear and precise estimation; there have been a number of attempts to Global average

Southern Europe Western Europe Northern Europe Eastern Europe

Americas Asia Europe 0

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60 Sharp object

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Fig. 6.1 Distribution of percentage of homicides by mechanism, in selected regions and globally 2017 (Source UNODC 2013, 2019: 77)

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assess the size and nature of the illegal firearm supply in Europe. This has been, prompted initially by concerns about gangs, organized crime, and weapon trafficking, and then, in the wake of terrorist attacks in France and Belgium, by concerns about terrorist access to more powerful military specification and ‘mass casualty’ weapons (Duquet 2018). Although recognizing that official data on the scale of illegal firearm possession in European societies is limited, one official European publication estimated the number of illegally held firearms in Europe as lying somewhere between a low of 81,000 and a high of 67 million weapons (CSES 2014). The figure of 67 million illegal firearms in Europe is derived from data collated by the Gun Policy News website. The advantages of this data set concern the breadth and variety of data available and the opportunity to compare ownership rates with firearm mortality data. As Fig. 6.2 shows, the Gun Policy News data also suggests that for eighteen of the forty countries identified, the estimated number of unregistered (‘illegal’) firearms exceeds the number recorded as being in lawful possession. The Small Arms Survey has confirmed this seeming disproportion, with the number of unlicensed or unregistered firearms in Europe as a whole exceeding registered firearms by a ratio of around 4 to 3 (Small Arms Survey 2018). In Albania, Hungary and the Ukraine there were estimated to be four times as many unregistered firearms as registered ones; in Italy, Belarus, and Macedonia roughly three times as many, and approximately twice as many in Switzerland, Russia, Lithuania, France, Belgium, Austria, Bosnia, and Latvia. In Kosovo, clearly reflecting its recent civil war, illegal weapons are thought to outnumber legal firearms by a ratio of around nine to one. The wars and regional conflicts resulting from the break-up of Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Soviet Union have been, in large part, responsible for the high weaponization of the region (Dragovi´c et al. 2018). As Greene and Marsh (2012) have argued, there is nothing quite as effective as war for sponsoring the indiscriminate dissemination of firearms. This helps account for the continued significance of the region in assessments of organized crime, trafficking, and illegal firearm supply (Carapic 2014). As Savona and Mancuso (2017) have pointed out, firearm seizures chiefly occur in border areas. This is

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Poland Netherlands Romania Moldova Greece E&W Estonia Belarus Slovakia Ireland Spain Bulgaria Denmark Ukraine Hungary Northern Ireland Albania Russian Fed Czech Rep. Belgium Lithuania CroaƟa Italy Slovenia Luxembourg Germany France Portugal Sweden Kosovo Switzerland Liechtenstein Norway Macedonia Austria Bos&Herz Iceland Finland Serbia Montenegro 0

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Fig. 6.2 Estimated overall firearm ownership rates (per 100 people) in European Countries (Note Red columns indicate societies in which unregistered firearms are thought to predominate. Source GunPolicyNews database)

especially so ‘in regions close to countries with stockpiles, in the proximity of large ports, and in regions with a strong presence of organised crime groups’ (2017: 15). Especially significant among the countries, or regions, supplying the majority of firearms into Europe have been the

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Balkans (former Yugoslavia), former Soviet states and other Eastern European countries and the Middle-East and North Africa. Key transition states for weapons entering Europe are said to be Belgium, the Netherlands, Croatia, Greece, and Italy (Savona and Mancuso 2017: 56–57), the first two of which, as well as France, are relevant in the transhipment of firearms to the UK. That said, until recently, firearm tracing by NABIS (UK) had indicated that the single most common source for illegal firearms recovered in the UK was the United States (Head 2016). And until recently, the National Crime Agency (NCA) annual ‘Threat Assessments’ had identified the U.S. as the source of over fifty percent of criminal firearms traced in the UK, although the most recent NCA assessments now emphasize the European origins of illegal firearms recovered in the UK (NCA 2019). Schwander-Sivers and Cattaneo (2005) have challenged the assumption that the prevalence of (even non-registered or illegal) firearms in a society, necessarily equates to the existence of a monolithic or homogenous ‘gun culture’ which inevitably spells violence and disorder. After all, many of the forty countries represented in Fig. 6.2 might acknowledge some form of ‘gun culture’ (for example grouse shooting in the Scottish Highlands following the 12th of August)—so, by itself, the idea may explain relatively little. However, compounded by regional and ethnic conflicts, inequality and social division, weak governance, widespread social tensions, compromised policing systems and flourishing criminal opportunities, then the existence of freely available firearms can certainly exacerbate social problems. This can result in especially crimogenic gun cultures characterized by contraband and weapon trafficking, organized criminal enterprises and violent gang cultures. For many years, research on the correlation between firearm ownership rates and gun violence was dominated by American research where a combination of the unique character of firearm research and, on occasion, some remarkably partisan research projects, undermined the degree to which research results might be generalized. More recently, international research evidence has begun to point to a clear international correlation between rates of gun ownership and firearm deaths. For example, in 2013, Bangalore and Messerli reported, from a sample

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of twenty-seven ‘developed’ countries (twenty of them European countries), a ‘significant positive correlation between guns per capita and the rate of firearm-related deaths’, the majority of these being suicides. They concluded that, ‘the number of guns per capita was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related death in a given country’ (Bangalore and Messerli 2013: 876). A year later, Van Kesteren’s analysis of a series of international data sets found clear evidence to ‘support the notion that gun ownership acts as a risk-enhancing rather than as a protective factor’. In particular, evidence from twenty-six developed countries (including most major European countries) showed that ‘owners of a handgun [also] show increased risk for victimization by violent crime’ (van Kesteren 2014). Taken together, both surveys reiterated an emerging global finding that, all things considered, higher rates of gun ownership and possession correlated with higher rates of firearm misuse—suicide and homicide. Handgun possession, in particular, for reasons of convenience and weapon concealability—the firearm of choice of the criminally inclined—was more helpfully understood as a risk factor, rather than a protective factor, for society at large. Figure 6.3 records the total number of firearm deaths (and the subset of firearm suicides) in twenty-eight different European countries. As we can see, compared with Fig. 6.2, firearm deaths are more prevalent in societies with higher rates of firearm ownership and, while suicides generally comprise the overwhelming majority of firearm deaths, the proportion of firearm deaths recorded as homicide appears relatively higher in a number of Southern European and Eastern European societies. This is especially the case in countries in which rates of unlicensed firearm possession appear highest. Such findings correspond with Duquet and Van Alstein’s evidence from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS), comprising longitudinal data from 1989 to 2005, and the Eurobarometer poll of 2013. This noted that, in countries which were EU member states before 2004, firearms were more typically owned by older white males, living in rural areas. Shotguns and rifles tended to predominate, with hunting and sports shooting as the most common reasons given for firearm ownership. The data examined by Duquet and Van Alstein confirms the range

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Poland Netherlands Romania Greece E&W Estonia Slovakia Ireland Spain Bulgaria Denmark Hungary Czech Rep. Belgium Lithuania CroaƟa Italy Slovenia Luxembourg Germany France Portugal Sweden Switzerland Norway Austria Finland Serbia 0

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and variation in rates of gun ownership across different European countries, and the diversity of existing firearms control regimes. Their work also addresses a range of cultural and ideological differences in popular attitudes toward guns. Between 1989 and 2005 they identified rates of firearm ownership that were, by international standards, relatively high (in Belgium, France, Norway, Switzerland) and in which legal gun ownership appeared to be falling, but also societies in which ownership appeared to be rising (especially Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK—the ICVS data did not include data from the former Yugoslavian countries) and societies with unusually low rates of firearm ownership. Turning to another aspect of domestic firearm ownership that has risen to prominence in recent years, the mass or ‘rampage’ shooting phenomenon is often primarily associated with the U.S. but, Europe has also had its share of such tragedies (Lankford 2015; Hurka 2017). Reflecting the enormous symbolic impact of such incidents in Europe, mass shootings have often been associated with significant ‘step changes’ in firearms control legislation in European societies, for example the banning of civilian ownership of handguns in England, Wales and Scotland after the school shooting at Dunblane. However, legislative change does not always follow a mass shooting. Hurka (2017) has examined a number of European ‘rampage shootings’ in an attempt to discern which factors make legal changes more or less likely including, for instance, the strength and political leverage of national gun lobbies, the scale of gun ownership and the existence, or not, of established shooting traditions. The extent to which the gun control issue is taken up by national political parties is also significant. Figure 6.4 presents a timeline of ‘mass shootings’ in Europe, beginning with the 1987 incident in Hungerford, England (using the FBI standard definition of continuous shooting incidents involving 4 or more victims, not including the perpetrator). The timeline illustrates a number of points: first, the increasing frequency of these incidents in Europe; second, the fact that most incidents, especially until 2011, were thought to be carried out by perpetrators armed with legal or licensed firearms (the pale columns indicate legal firearms, dark columns illegal weapons); third, the firepower—in particular semiautomatic firearms—available to private citizens which can dramatically

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Fig. 6.4 Timeline of mass shooting incidents in Europe (Source Open Source data and Duquet 2016)

increase the death toll during these events; and, finally, terrorist access to illegal supplies of mass casualty military firearms, which represents a major escalation of the threat posed by such incidents (Duquet 2016). A number of incidents occurring in recent years, especially since 2010, have also begun to involve right-wing or neo-Nazi sympathizers targeting members of ethnic minority or perceived ‘immigrant’ communities. We will address these issues later in the chapter. In 2018, the Small Arms Survey reported a thirty-two percent increase in the global civilian ownership of personal firearms in the ten years before 2017. While only ten percent of this increase is attributed to a growth in Europe, politicians, lobbyists, and commentators have sought to interpret the significance of these trends, and not least where and why they may be occurring. Globally, the National Rifle Association has never been slow to promote the ‘right to bear arms’ as a foundational American ‘freedom’ (Squires 2018) and now a number of right-wing parties and populist movements have come to advocate for a similarly European nationalist right to bear arms. Firearms have become a means to embolden followers through a call to arms against perceived crime, terror, or especially supposed migrant ‘threats’ (Wagstyl 2016). In one case, a far-right German activist was arrested in Hungary on a European extradition warrant, on suspicion of illegally selling guns over the internet, marketing them as ‘migrant deterrents’ (Huggler 2018), while

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a self-declared right-wing extremist in Italy was convicted for a racially motivated gun attack on African immigrants (The Guardian 2018). As the recent collection of articles by Bjorgo and Mares (2019) reveals, however, such examples may only be the visible tip of a loose but extensive network of right-wing vigilante movements. Politicians in Hungary, and Italy’s former interior minister Matteo Salvini, have also advocated extending gun laws to allow private citizens to defend themselves (Tomlinson 2018; Ott and Doane 2019). Similarly, the Czech Republic recently passed legislation advocating a partial ‘right to bear arms’, and while Vladimir Putin had initially blocked laws permitting armed self-defence in Russia, he subsequently announced support for the new measures (Porter 2014). Firearms for self defence have also been echoed by the Alternative for Germany’s former leader, Frauke Petry, while sales of less lethal ‘defensive’ weapons (known as ‘basic weapons’, alarm guns, flares, irritant sprays, and stun guns) have reportedly been increasing in Germany. A combination of issues— terrorism, crime, and the ‘migration crisis’—are typically deployed to explain these developments. Correspondingly, Finland, Austria, Norway, Germany, Belgium, and France have also seen increasing rates of firearm ownership (Small Arms Survey 2018). In England, two elected Police and Crime Commissioners sparked controversy by appearing to suggest that private gun owners might help defend rural areas from terrorist attacks (Morris 2017), a suggestion promptly rejected by senior police officers. Reference to ‘less lethal’ self-defence weapons which are available in many countries also necessitates a comment on the apparently widespread practice of weapon conversion whereby blank-firing pistols or weapons designed to discharge irritant powder toward would-be attackers might be converted to fire live ammunition. Florquin and King (2018) have undertaken a survey of the scale and nature of firearm conversion and reactivation in Europe and they point to firearm manufacturers in Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the Russian Federation producing substantial numbers of these weapons (2018: 20). Concern has also focused upon the ‘recycling’, servicing, and repurposing of antique firearms, and the manufacture of homemade or modified ammunition, in a variety of calibres, to fit these newly converted or recycled firearms. De Vries (2012) presented a useful case study featuring the

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production, trafficking, conversion, trade and end-use of a number of makes of alarm pistols. These were originally manufactured in Turkey and Italy, before being converted in Portugal. Around a thousand were recovered between 2002 and 2006, in the Netherlands (De Vries 2012). In similar fashion, over twenty percent of illegal firearms submitted to the National Firearms Forensic Intelligence Service of England and Wales, between 2003 and 2008, were recorded as ‘converted’. The converted firearms appeared in waves, initially entering the market in smaller numbers, gaining acceptance and buyers but then facing interceptions, leading to analysis and, in the UK, prohibition on grounds of their ‘ready convertibility’ (Hannam 2010). Hales, Lewis, and Silverstone, concluded that ‘converted firearms [were] both more widely available and cheaper than purpose built firearms’ in their 2006 analysis of the illegal market in firearms in England and Wales (2006: 52), whereas a NABIS study in 2015 noted that, ‘a third of the firearms that examined by UK police were converted blank-firing, modified, or reactivated firearms’, indicating that these weapon types contributed significantly to the pool of illegal firearms (Holtom et al. 2018). Converted handguns were involved in two of the most controversial British police shootings of recent times, the deaths of Azelle Rodney, in 2005, and Mark Duggan, in 2011, the immediate precursor of the English Riots of that year (Squires 2014: 67–68). Such examples of illegally converted firearms establish further connections between the legal production, possession and use of various types of firearms and their illegal misuse. Data analysed by Duquet and Van Alstein found evidence from respondents in 11 countries, primarily post2004 EU states, indicating that more than 50% of gun owners reported owning handguns (either only handguns or in addition to rifles and shotguns). Almost thirty percent of respondents cited ‘professional reasons’ (security or military employment) especially in Romania, Estonia, and Bulgaria, while ‘personal self-defence’ was mentioned by 14% overall, but most frequently in Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Duquet and Van Alstein 2015). Findings of this nature correspond closely with a more detailed local study of the country identified in Fig. 6.2 as having the highest firearm ownership rates, Montenegro. Florquin and Stoneman (2004) unearthed

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some rather troubling attitudes to firearms among Montenegrin people. Firearms, especially handguns, were most often misused by young men participating in ‘late evening bar or gang fights, but also in celebratory shootings and suicide s’ and, while survey respondents readily acknowledged that they believed there were ‘too many guns’ in Montenegrin society, they also tended to see gun ownership itself as traditionally endorsed and legitimate in the context of concerns about the high crime rate. Although there was support for the police, ‘protection of one’s self and family’ was the primary reason given by Montenegrins for owning a firearm, and for that reason, men in particular seemed reluctant to give them up (Florquin and Stoneman 2004). Comparable patterns of gun ownership and similarly gendered, symbolic, cultural, and practical attachments to firearms (Arsovska and Zabyelina 2014) have been found in other Balkan societies—Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and Kosovo, all of which, as figure two reveals, record some of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe, with (see Fig. 6.1) Southern Europe recording the highest rates of gun homicide (Paes, et al. 2004; Taylor et al. 2005; Sokolová et al. 2006; Grillot et al. 2006). Of course, one of the ironies of the relatively peaceful and safe conception of the ‘European homeland’ (Squires 2014), is the fact that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries European empires were primarily responsible for distributing firearms, generating the conflict and ethnogeographic divisions, imposing exploitation, genocide, and slavery upon many of the underdeveloped regions of the Southern hemisphere (Walter 2017). Priya Satia’s recent book, Empire of Guns: The violent making of the industrial revolution (2018), a detailed and rigorous analysis, describes the foundational role of gun-making to the European industrial revolution. More critically, she demonstrates how the production and procurement of firearms, the stockpiling and dissemination of weapons, and the deployment of military firearms around the world, sustained the pursuit of empire and the achievement of military conquest. Other commentators have likewise drawn attention to this cultural ‘legacy’ aspect of firearm production, for the ‘countries where a significant proportion of gun-possessing households own a handgun, are also the European countries with the largest firearms production’ (Duquet and Van Alstein 2015). Such countries include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,

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Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and the authors speculate that countries with a significant recent history of firearms production may also tend to have less restrictive legal frameworks for civilian firearm ownership. Such countries may also be less willing to endorse European-wide firearms control measures such as the Schengen Two alert and data-sharing arrangements4 regarding lost or stolen firearms, ballistics intelligence sharing (which we will discuss later) or implement the 2017 amendments to the European Firearms Directive, which sought to tighten up European-wide firearms laws and weapon classifications in the wake of the 2015 terrorist outrages. It is suggested that the partial ‘right to bear arms’ established in the Czech Republic is, to some degree, explained as ‘resistance’ to the new Directive; Finland also expressed reservations regarding the impact of the new regulations, hinting at an ‘opt-out’ (Reuters 2017; Stur 2015). Satia also commented upon one of the rather less celebrated sideeffects of a thriving national gun trade, exposing an important disconnection between the production of arms and the assumption of moral responsibility for their use and misuse. For frequently, in the aftermath of wars, conquests and conflicts, the state and the gun trade have conspired to dump, sell, and otherwise off-load old, obsolete, and surplus military firearms, both openly and covertly, to a range of legitimate and illegitimate purchasers. This often occurs in pursuit of political or economic alliances or in furtherance of particular influence (Satia 2018: 375, 397). Such developments undoubtedly continue to have their modern day parallels, for as a European Commission report from 2013 noted, ‘large amounts of powerful military grade weapons have since the mid-1990s reached the EU from the Western Balkans and former Soviet Bloc countries, often trafficked in small quantities and hidden in vehicles like long distance coaches to avoid detection’ (European Commission 2013). The EC went on to reflect that recent conflicts in North Africa and

4The Schengen Information System (SIS) essentially comprises an inter-governmental datasharing protocol between the 31 full and partial members of the agreement regarding crime and security issues maintained by the European Commission. Data on suspected, wanted, or missing persons is shared, along with extradition requests. Information relating to lost, stolen, or misappropriated firearms is also shared.

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the Middle-East pose an equivalent risk that surplus and stolen military firearms might enter criminal firearm markets in Europe via similar channels, drawn especially by the price dividend that illegal commodities can often command in high regulation regimes.

6.3

Major Security Challenges and Social Harms

Having established these broad underlying relations between patterns of firearm ownership and possession across European societies, including the varying types of orientations toward firearms, and the resulting rates of firearm-enabled violence, it is important to turn to what might be called the institutional and strategic connections between firearm supply and demand, control regimes and enforcement issues and specific security challenges and social harms. Having noted how surplus military weapons are often off-loaded into civilian markets, a particular case in point arose in 2015. This was the year in which a number of Kalashnikov type assault rifles, originally manufactured in Serbia, purchased deactivated5 from a firearm dealership in Slovakia (ostensibly destined for the European souvenir market), were subsequently reactivated and then employed by terrorists to kill 12 people in the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in January 2015 (Florquin and Desmarais 2018: 208). Prior to this time, although there had been reports of similar ‘mass casualty’ weapons being trafficked from the Balkans and falling into the hands of terror cells or organized crime groups in mainland Europe (Squires 2015; Savona and Mancuso 2017), there appeared little evidence of such firearms reaching the UK. Then, in the Summer of 2015, twenty-two further AKM assault rifles and nine Skorpion machine pistols (potential ‘mass casualty attack’ weapons) along with around a thousand rounds of ammunition, purchased from the same Slovakian dealership, were intercepted by UK police and the 5These weapons were not deactivated to UK standards, but were referred to as ‘accoustic expansion weapons’ (AEWs or blank firers). The issue points to the varying European standards hitherto adopted for firearm deactivation, an issue that has been addressed in the 2017 European Firearms Directive.

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National Crime Agency as a criminal gang attempted to smuggle them by boat, from France, into Kent. At the time this was the largest haul of illegal weapons ever seized in the UK (Whitehead 2016). This quickly led to a number of police and security efforts to reassess the vulnerability of national firearm inventories, especially illegal firearm supply networks, to terrorist acquisition, and to reflect upon the robustness of the police and security measures to prevent, detect, and secure intelligence regarding illegal firearm trafficking. Only three years later an even larger haul of weapons, 60 semi-automatic pistols, among them converted blank-firers, were intercepted at Dover, having been concealed in a car’s rear bumper and interior panelling (NCA Press release, 6.9.19). The weapons were destined for sale to criminal gangs, confirming both the existence of significant illegal supplies and a domestic demand for them, not to mention individuals willing to run the risks associated with transporting them. The Project SAFTE report (Duquet 2018) was a first research effort to explore the potential for criminal firearm supplies in European countries to be accessed by terrorist groups. The project developed nine detailed national and regional analyses of the scale and nature of illegal firearm supplies in a diverse range of European societies as well as a study of North Africa, chiefly taking in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Mali, and Tunisia (Strazzari and Zampagni 2018). Libya, previously acknowledged as a source of illegal firearm supply to the IRA during ‘The Troubles’, following the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in 2011, gained a much contested label as the ‘Tesco of the world’s illegal weapons trade’ (Strazzari and Tholens 2014). Other countries in the region were characterized by a familiar range of ineffective firearms control regimes, including official corruption, state failure, conflict and civil war, often becoming a virtual magnet for illegal weapon supplies, with weapon surpluses and highly porous borders with often just as poorly regulated neighboring states. The European countries studied by Project SAFTE , were selected to reflect the diversity of their geo-political histories, regime characteristics, their proximity to former conflict regions, established organized crime cultures, their law enforcement traditions and firearm regulatory practices and, importantly, what was already known about the scale of

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illegal weaponry in the country. Finally, and not to be overlooked, their recent experiences of terrorist activity were also considered. The primary objectives of Project SAFTE had been, first, to generate a better-informed intelligence picture concerning illicit firearms markets in Europe in general and potential terrorist access to these markets so that more effective, evidence-based, interventions might be developed. Secondly, the project sought to explore the differing regulatory regimes and operational strategies adopted to prevent illegal and unregulated firearm dissemination in order to more effectively combat firearms trafficking and weapons acquisition by terrorists. Finally, recognizing that, even in the most restrictive firearms management regimes with the most extensive data and intelligence, law enforcement institutions typically collect far more information than they ever analyse, let alone share, the third aim of the project was to contribute to the further development of an independent (academy and civil society) research community focusing on firearms-related topics in the European context (Duquet 2018: 17– 18). To the extent that this research community has already begun to emerge, a number of significant areas of interest and concern have begun to emerge regarding: weapons trafficking, illegal supply chains (and their sources), the scale and distribution of unregistered firearms in a given country and deficiencies in surveillance, regulatory practices, and enforcement. Many of the particular security deficits identified relate to the scale and nature, patterns of use, culture and traditions of firearm possession already considered in the first part of this chapter. In recent years, in particular, two fairly ‘mundane’ and seemingly low-key misuses of firearms have surfaced as causes of concern. The first has involved avid collectors amassing large firearm stocks, collected over many years, and comprising guns both legal and illegal. Often these are stored in private homes, with limited security. Such collections could prove highly dangerous in the wrong hands. In a related sense, a thriving antique firearm trade has also contributed to the illegal supply chain. Weapons are often considered antique, in obsolete calibres, when there is no longer thought to be any suitable ammunition available for them to fire. The absence of any clear and agreed legal definition of an antique firearm has also hampered regulation and enforcement efforts, providing a

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loophole through which ingenious illegal entrepreneurs have seized criminal opportunities. By re-engineering antique weapons, re-chambering firearms or simply inserting metal tubes into existing barrels, firearm calibres might be re-sized to suit available ammunition. Other criminal armourers have simply resorted to manufacturing their own bespoke (home-made) ammunition (Squires 2014: 65–82). During 2018, the UK National Ballistics Intelligence Service profiled a number of operations which had successfully disrupted a series of antique firearm and illegal ammunition distribution networks. One notable ‘security’ challenge, however, pointed to a more strategic issue concerning the potential role of both new technologies, global free trade, the internet (and perhaps especially the ‘dark web’), crypto currencies and the logistical difficulties of effectively scrutinizing ‘fastparcel’ services and deliveries. An article in Vice magazine in December 2019 presented evidence of firearms and ammunition being offered for sale on the social media platform ‘Snapchat’. Although common in the U.S., where such sales and endorsements are common and might well be legal, protected by the First and Second Amendments (Hassett-Walker 2019), these weapons (including semi-automatic pistols such as Glock and Beretta and an AR-15 assault rifle), were being offered for sale from London, along with ammunition, which leant some credibility to the claim that the weapons were genuine (Lott-Lavigne and Dhondy 2019) (Fig. 6.5). Similarly, a study for the Rand Corporation in 2017 (Paoli et al. 2017) explored the role of the ‘dark web’ in facilitating the trafficking

Fig. 6.5 Gun and ammunition sales on social media in 2019 (Note Screengrabs from Snapchat of the firearms and ammunition offered for sale. Source Open Source data)

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of firearms and explosives. A related pair of developments, the advent of remote 3D printing (Lindstrom 2014; Daly et al. 2020), and the rising significance of composite firearms (Jenzen-Jones 2015) and (legal and illegal) markets in gun components, have resulted in the phenomenon of untraceable ‘ghost guns’ in the U.S. (Van Brocklin 2015). Taken together these developments point to the possibility of would-be gun purchasers accessing hidden and encrypted websites, paying in crypto currencies, for unmarked or untraceable guns, components and ammunition, contained and delivered in parcels designed to defeat scanning and surveillance technologies. As the Rand survey put it, contraband is ‘shipped by post using special shipping techniques to minimise the risk of detection. In the context of firearms, these techniques often involve disassembling the weapon and shipping different parts in multiple packages’ (Paoli et al. 2017: xii). Of eighteen crypto-markets reviewed by the study, ‘firearms represented the most common category of product sold. Within the firearms category, pistols are by far the most common firearm type’. Ammunition was often sold accompanying the firearm and, while many of the destinations of the shipped items could not be discerned, the U.S. appeared to be the primary source of most of the firearms sold, while ‘Europe appears to be a key recipient of firearms sold on the dark web’ (2017: xiii– xiv, 29–32). Reflecting ongoing concerns regarding the effect of loose firearm regulation regimes upon regions and countries with tighter gun control, in this case the U.S. as ‘global bad neighbour’. The Rand study concluded that the ‘Dark Web’ and related developments, while constituting a relatively limited ‘present danger’ represented a likely growing source of black-market firearms and a potential vehicle for illegal diversion of privately owned weapons. The authors recommended continuous monitoring, trend analysis and rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of existing national and international weapon trafficking regimes, policies, laws and regulations, for addressing the new challenges presented by emerging technologies such as 3D printing and online marketing of firearm components.

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Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations

As well as attempts to tighten EU-wide laws and the regulations pertaining to different firearm classifications (EU Amending Directive (EU) 2017/853) attention has also been drawn to efforts to ensure concerted and collaborative enforcement of European and national firearms laws, and appropriate security intelligence sharing to address weapon trafficking. Far be it for criminologists to think that new laws alone will be sufficient to combat crime. For some time, forensic and ballistic scientists have been examining computer platforms for analysing and sharing ballistics intelligence data across Europe (Yates et al. 2011; Gagliardi 2012) with a view to tackling cross border crime and weapon trafficking throughout Europe. In 2015, the European Commission published an action plan for developing more effective security collaboration in respect of firearms and explosives trafficking. This was followed a year later by the publication of a research report, the EFFECT project (Bowen and Poole 2016). This comprised a series of research operations exploring the adoption and use of ballistics technologies, data-sharing, systems inter-operability and the extent to which existing intelligence sharing arrangements facilitate proactive policing operations to detect and disrupt firearm trafficking (Hellenbach et al. 2018). This research was, in part, motivated by the observation that, in Europe, while criminals, terrorists, guns, ammunition, and evidence frequently moved across borders, intelligence data held by police and security agencies in member states did not appear to do so with anything like the same facility, even when it was collected (Bowen and Poole 2016: 81). Police agencies in differing member states, depending upon their various national priorities, commitments, and resourcing, tended to submit more or less ballistics data to their intelligence systems. Furthermore, four or five different and incompatible ballistic intelligence systems were in use across the EU, leading researchers to comment that ‘there is currently no single shared European database, … at present, the potential for linking databases on an EU basis is restricted due to the use of reportedly incompatible systems’ (Gerard et al. 2017: 389). This resulted in a significant loss of intelligence capacity. Europol is currently helping co-ordinate

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European-wide efforts to foster improved operational collaboration and more effective sharing of firearms intelligence and ballistic evidence. In all, the EFFECT project made thirty recommendations for improving data gathering, intelligence sharing and police and security operation across Europe as well as harnessing best practices from existing available systems for tracing and tracking illegal weapons. The recommendations covered three main inter-related areas concerning: Firstly, this included research to improve the picture we have of firearm availability across Europe, the crime and societal harms arising. Secondly it entailed the development of more consistent firearm legislation, including firearm standards, marking and tracing and weapon type specification across Europe as a whole. And, thirdly, that higher priority should be given to police and security collaboration on firearm trafficking and improved systems for ballistic intelligence sharing across Europe (Bowen and Poole 2016: 87–95). In a related sense data on the full economic costs of gun crime are not adequately collated in European countries, nor are the health care implications of the five to six-hundred thousand annual patient appointments resulting from gun-shot injuries. Despite broad commitment to the idea of a holistic ‘public health’ approach toward tackling serious violence, the collation of essential data to underpin such work remains incomplete. The EFFECT Project authors acknowledged that at present it remains particularly difficult to catalogue the full extent of ‘gun-crime’ across Europe because the notion of ‘gun enabled crime’ is neither consistently defined in the legislation of European states nor a notifiable offence category in many. As many as twenty different offence categories may involve firearm misuse although not all countries record the presence of a firearm, even when one may have been used during the commission of an offence. When firearms are recorded in offence data, however, neither the type(s) of weapon(s) used (handgun, rifle, shotgun, and make and model) are consistently recorded, still less the legal status of the weapon (legal/licensed, licensed but stolen, illegally trafficked). Finally, even the category ‘gun-enabled crime’ tells us nothing about the type of crime (a shooting may be a gang murder, a political assassination, a domestic murder, a terrorist incident, or a ‘professional’ organized criminal killing). The situation in the UK offers a useful illustration.

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A ‘gun-enabled’ crime is recorded when a weapon is used to facilitate another crime (‘gun crime’), but simple illegal possession of a firearm (seized following a police ‘stop and search’, for instance) is not recorded as a gun crime. Arguably, this disconnection between illegal gun possession and illegal gun use undercounts the size and scale of the illegal firearm problem by around 50–60% (Squires 2014: 58–59). Furthermore, the firearms laws which establish the firearm licensing regime in England and Wales, and thereby regulate the country’s legal firearms, establish 55 regulative offences (from false statements to obtain a gun licence, failure to store weapons securely, all the way to shortening a shotgun) none of which are recorded as ‘gun crimes’ either. But breach of these rules helps facilitate the slippage of weapons into criminal hands. Effectively, the tendency to see gun regulation within these distinct legal silos inhibits the ability to understand how illegal gun supply in its entirety varies in response to different regulative or enforcement conditions. On a larger scale, the same kinds of issues are replicated across Europe as a whole. Regarding the consistency of firearm legislation, standards and definitions, some of the ‘legal silo’ effects impact here too, alongside important questions of political process and consent. While most gun crime involves illegal (never licensed in the country of use) weapons, firearm regulations tend to be focused around the regulation of legally held, or licensed, weapons. Even so, certainly until 2015 the majority of European mass shootings appeared to be perpetrated with weapons that were in legal possession at the time of the incident. And as Hurka (2017) has shown most significant steps forward in European gun regulation have followed major incidents and mass shootings, giving a particular complexion to firearms control and safety initiatives. ‘Event driven’ legislation may lack consistency, and might not secure buy-in by all affected parties. Where a country has a thriving firearms industry, sports shooting traditions and a large number of gun owners, any new weapon legislation may be resisted if it is presumed to be directed toward ever tighter controls on legal weapon ownership. Problems of this order may have hampered adoption of the UN Firearms Protocol definition of what constitutes a firearm in different countries (air/compressed gas weapons, alarms guns, stun guns; and lethality thresholds). This may seem a

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rather arcane point, but the firearms referred to earlier, being marketed as ‘migrant deterrents’ in Hungary by a German neo-Nazi, were gas powered weapons, sold legally in Germany, but not permitted in many other European countries (Huggler 2018). In similar fashion, legislation regarding definitions of antique or obsolete firearms; ‘readily convertible weapons’ and specifications for ‘deactivated’ and souvenir weapons may vary from country creating a regulative patchwork with loopholes capable of criminal exploitation. Finally, the EFFECT researchers proposed a greater harmonization of basic firearms licensing requirements. However, as is often the case with proposals for legal convergence, countries with what are considered the most stringent controls are often reluctant to relax them as the price to be paid for harmonization. Concerning the recommendations involving police, security, and ballistic intelligence co-operation, a number of issues arose with a direct bearing upon national police cultures and priorities. In one sense this involved the priority to be given to a firearm as opposed to the crime it was used to commit; more generally this issue has impinged on the balances to be struck between security, prevention and crime investigation, and the respective resourcing of each within differing police jurisdictions. The authors noted that relatively limited emphasis was given to the proactive policing of firearms, reflected in part by the limited time and resources allocated to such work. The EFFECT authors advocated a more coordinated approach be devoted toward identifying high risk firearms, upstream supply networks, and emerging organized criminal and terrorist threats. Inevitably this involved better training and resourcing, improved inter-agency working and data-sharing. In particular the report called for improved investment in ballistic capability and greater ballistic intelligence sharing, using compatible technologies. They noted a number of strategic limitations with such existing intelligence sharing as already occurred. They characterized it as largely reactive, exceptional, and ‘case by case’ in nature. The intelligence systems to improve information sharing might themselves need further enhancing ‘to support a cross-national ballistics information system and its associated activities’ (2017: 92). Such proposals appear to be gaining traction across the firearms control and research community and within the EU itself. For example,

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the EU funded, Project Fire (Savona and Mancuso 2017) made eleven similar, although rather more generic, recommendations prioritizing regulative harmonization. These also included comprehensive tracing and tracking of weapons, more effective police and security collaboration and intelligence sharing, tighter weapon stockpile management, more consistent training of police, judicial and security personnel and more effective monitoring of illicit weapons markets, especially those hosted on the ‘Dark Web’ (2017: 18–19).

6.5

Conclusions

Taken together a series of tragic events, including both mass shootings and terrorist outrages, have sharpened the focus of European policy makers regarding a number of social harms and security challenges associated with both national firearms control policies and cross European firearm regulations. At the same time, when regulators turned to address these challenges it has often been some of the less prominent (or less publicly recognized) features of European firearms controls that have garnered their attention. Nevertheless, as has been argued already (Squires 2014), it is frequently the case that some of the more mundane regulatory breaches are precisely the means by which legal firearms cross over into illegality (Spapens 2007) and into the hands of those who would use them for criminal purposes. As we have seen, such security challenges have included: the gradually increasing stockpile of civilian-held firearms in Europe. The largely unrecognized extent of firearm suicide (as opposed to homicide) across the continent (a public health issue in its own right (Duquet and Van Alstein 2015), now allied with growing concerns about the involvement of domestic firearms in cases of fatal domestic violence). Related concerns have included the many varying shades of ‘due diligence’ in local firearm licensing arrangements—even when laws are themselves strict, police enforcement practice might be rather more variable (HMIC 2015). As the EU expanded eastwards and even as the conflict in the Balkans subsided, researchers have claimed that insufficient attention has been paid to the stockpiles of redundant military firearms (Gobinet

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2011; Carapic 2014). Similarly, the conflict in the Ukraine has reawakened many parallel concerns, the disruption weakening the country’s already limited control over firearm distribution, incentivizing criminal entrepreneurs and accelerating illicit weapons flows in the region (Buscemi et al. 2018). Across Europe as a whole, firearms laws still resemble something of a patchwork quilt with more or less strict regulations concerning who can own what weapons and for what reasons. Differing regulatory thresholds as regarding (souvenir) firearm deactivation (the subject of an EU Firearms Directive in 2017),6 and regarding the ‘convertability’ of a range of firearm types (blank-firers, athletics starting pistols, and alarm guns) never intended to fire lethal ammunition, has supported a cottage industry of criminal armourers and traffickers supplying firearms to criminals and gang members across western Europe. As the various research initiatives we have considered earlier have shown, regulatory weaknesses of this order are compounded by varying levels of priority afforded to firearm tracking and tracing in different countries. The willingness of police in different cultural contexts to share intelligence and the compatibility of the ballistic analysis and information systems adopted by different states are also significant issues. Finally, of course, writing from the perspective of a state that has recently opted to leave the European Union and cut ties with a wide range of European regulatory systems, the consequences of ‘Brexit’ (especially for the UK) for police co-operation and intelligence sharing through Europol remains an open question. Gun crime is rising once more in the UK; a demand exists for illegal weapons, incentivizing illegal supply. The UK continues to be a destination for many of Europe’s trafficked firearms. These will likely remain as continuing concerns. The various research projects, analyses, and directives we have considered in this paper do take us several important steps forward in recognizing and addressing many of the security challenges providing opportunities for the criminally motivated or the terrorist. However, as we have noted throughout, even strategic national security provisions are 6 Although

the generic standard proposed was less rigorous than deactivation requirements already in place in the UK. Directive (EU) 2017/853 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

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shaped and structured by traditions, histories, and cultures, including variations in national data-protection laws which affect the types of information that might be recorded, collated, or shared. What the pattern and scale of firearm ownership, weapon use and misuse, reveals about the governance of guns in particular societies is also reflected in how those societies legislate for and police their gun cultures, as well as how effectively they collaborate regionally and internationally (or choose not to do so). Ultimately, whether the gun control regimes currently in place— or even those envisaged or proposed in recent reports—will succeed in keeping a lid on the supply of illegal firearms throughout Europe and in a weaponizing world remains to be seen.

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7 Africa Armed Violence and the Illicit Arms Trade Brian Wood and Peter Danssaert

7.1

Introduction

The roots of armed conflict and violence in parts of Africa are deep and complex, centered around weak and failing states stemming from the legacy of colonial domination and coming to terms with post-Cold War political, economic, and cultural changes. Generally speaking, Africa’s 54 countries1 are by far, the least documented region in terms of data collection on crimes, violence and small arms trading. Nonetheless, by analysing quantitative data and reliable case studies with appropriate B. Wood (B) Independent Consultant on the Arms Trade, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] P. Danssaert International Peace Information Service (IPIS), Antwerpen, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] 1The political independence of two other countries in Africa, Somaliland and Western Sahara, is disputed.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_7

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caution, researchers have attempted to uncover and explain recurring patterns and variations of pervasive armed violence and arms trafficking in many African countries. Research on armed conflict and violence has focused on the interplay of various factors including widespread extreme poverty and marginalization, patrimonial governance by elites, ethnic, and religious factionalism, the high dependency on natural resource extraction, and the use of excessive force to address dissent (Burgis 2015; Williams 2016). Arms embargo investigation teams from the United Nations as well as researchers from non-governmental organizations and journalists have carried out detailed case studies of illicit trafficking in Africa over the past three decades. This chapter outlines the general context that shapes security challenges in Africa, including armed conflict and other forms of armed violence involving the demand and supply of weapons. Four major security challenges are highlighted, two related to excessive demand for small arms and light weapons, and two related to the illicit supply and diversion of such weapons. These challenges are associated with gaps in the regulatory systems and capacity of African states to control such trade. It is argued that, in order to contribute to the prevention of serious crime, conflict and abuse with such weapons in Africa, governments will have to at least address the following crucial challenges: on the demand side: (i) dysfunctional governance and ‘the weak state’; and (ii) violent conflicts over natural resources; and on the supply side; (iii) leakages from stockpiles; and (iv) the covert arming of opposition groups in neighboring states.

7.2

Patterns of Armed Violence

Most African states have not developed sufficient capacity to successfully prevent and eradicate armed conflicts and recurring patterns of gun violence and crime This is reflected in the high incidence of internal and regional armed conflicts and patterns of other recurring armed violence in Africa. The World Bank listed 39 fragile situations and armed conflictaffected situations globally of which 21 were in Africa (Word Bank 2020). Another indication of armed threats to international peace and

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security is the fact that out of 13 UN peacekeeping operations in 2020, seven were in Africa (United Nations Department of Peace Operations n.d.). In addition, out of 14 current UN sanction regimes in 2020, eight relate to conflicts in Africa (see Table 7.5 in Annex).

7.2.1 Armed Conflicts Among world regions over the past three decades, Africa has consistently suffered the largest burden of non-state armed conflict globally (ACLED 2019).2 Between 1980 and mid-2000, no less than 28 subSaharan African states had experienced armed conflicts (Straus 2012; IISS 2016; Furley and May 2006). The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCPD) reported 52 active ‘state-based armed conflicts’3 worldwide in 2018 of which 23 were in Africa. In addition, UCDP reported 76 ‘nonstate conflicts’4 worldwide in 2018 of which 46 were in Africa. Three quarters of these conflicts took place in DR Congo, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, and South Sudan. Such data is approximate. One reason is that the definition of ‘armed conflict’ is not the same as that in international humanitarian law.5 In addition, it is rarely the case that an armed conflict engulfs the entire territory of a country, and the location, duration, and nature of armed conflicts change over time. Nevertheless, the UCDP 2The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) collect data assiduously on armed conflict and violence but the data relies on media sources and public reports. 3 A ‘state-based armed conflict’ is defined by UCDP as a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in one calendar year (https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/definitions/). 4 A ‘non-state conflict’ is defined by UCDP as the use of armed force between two organized armed groups, neither of which is the government of a state, which results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year (https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/definitions/). 5 For example, the UCDP definitions used for ‘armed conflict’ and particularly ‘violence’ do not correspond to definitions in international human rights law and standards concerning ‘arbitrary killings’ and ‘the arbitrary use of force’ nor with the definition of ‘non-international armed conflict’ in international humanitarian law which where hostilities reach the level of ‘protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such armed groups’ (International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia v Tadic, IT-94-1AR72, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 2 October 1995, para. 70, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions).

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and ACLED data can be used cautiously and in fact is widely used in scholarly work. In the late 2000s and the early 2010s the number of large-scale protracted armed conflicts in African countries involving well-structured armies holding territory against one another had declined. In contrast, low-level insurgencies by mobile armed groups operating in border areas and on the peripheries of states using small arms who typically could not hold significant territory became more characteristic (Straus 2012; Furley and May 2006). Armed conflicts were not spreading to many new geographical areas in Africa except for West Africa (Mali, Niger, Nigeria) and Southern Africa (Mozambique). However, new actors and motivations are arising in existing conflict areas such as the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa (Straus 2012; Williams 2016). During 2019 the following 15 sub-Saharan African countries experienced active armed conflicts: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Eight of those were low-intensity, subnational armed conflicts, and seven were high-intensity armed conflicts (Nigeria, Somalia, the DRC, Burkina Faso, Mali, South Sudan, and Cameroon). Almost all those armed conflicts were internationalized, including as a result of foreign interventions by state actors (whether directly or through proxy armed groups) or resulting from the transnational activities of violent Islamist groups, other armed groups, and criminal networks. Worsening armed conflicts were occurring in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Nigeria (Allison 2020; SIPRI 2020; Institute for Peace and Security Studies 2020a).

7.2.2 Other Armed Violence Armed crime and other forms of armed violence were more pervasive and persistent, but received less attention (Straus 2012). According to UCDP data, there were 32 cases of one-sided violence6 worldwide during 2018, 6 UCDP

initions/.

data on ‘one sided violence’ is available here: https://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/def

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of which 24 were recorded in Africa. Half of those 24 cases took place in the Central African Republic, DR Congo, and Mali (Pettersson et al. 2019). The term ‘one-sided violence’ is defined by UCDP as ‘the deliberate use of armed force by the government of a state or by a formally organized group against civilians which results in at least 25 deaths in a year. However, UCDP excludes extrajudicial killings in government facilities.7 Armed violence outside actual conflict situations in Africa takes many forms. For instance, the number of terrorist attacks has increased in almost all parts of Africa but has been particularly pronounced in eastern, western, and northern Africa, while central and, in particular, southern Africa have been less affected (von Soest and De Juan 2018) These attacks on civilians overlap with armed conflicts and are linked to the rise of violent extremism and the proliferation of armed non-state groups, such as Boko Haram, which has spread from Nigeria across the Lake Chad region. The security situation in Mozambique has been exacerbated by the emergence of an Islamist militia in October 2017 and has since gained strength in northern Mozambique. The violent extremist groups are interwoven with rural insurgent groups, feeding off intercommunal tensions and exploiting grievances of marginalized communities (SIPRI 2020; Institute for Peace and Security Studies 2020b). According to OECD data, the ‘cost paid by civilians to modern conflicts has increased by more than 500% between 2011 and 2018 in Western Africa, where the number of civilian deaths reached 4,645 victims in 2018, an all-time record. The number of victims of direct attacks, kidnappings and sexual assaults now exceeds the number of deaths associated with armed battles between state forces and armed groups’ (OECD 2020). Political violence has been concentrated in the border regions of North and West Africa. Ten per cent of the victims registered since 1997 can be found in the 10-kilometers border strip that separates the countries in the region. ‘This is far more than the proportion of the population that lives in these regions in North and 7The omission of extrajudicial executions from its definition of ‘one sided violence’ may lie behind UCDP claiming that ‘with a few exceptions, most notably Rwanda in 1994, non-state actors have targeted civilians more frequently than states have’ (Pettersson et al. 2019).

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West Africa (3.5%), which suggests that the regions located in close proximity to borders are proportionally more dangerous than others’ (OECD 2020). Recorded numbers of non-violent protests and violent riots in Africa increased 12-fold since 2001. Other forms of social violence emerged often involving the threat or use of firearms. This included increased armed crime by gangs, enforced parallel economies, youth violence, cross border and gender-based and sexual violence (Cilliers 2018; Amnesty International 2019). For example, in South Africa common crimes in which the threat or use of firearms is present include murder, rape, armed robbery, carjacking, home invasion, property theft, smash and grab, and ATM robbery. Armed robbery is the most prevalent major crime in South Africa, most often involving organized gangs armed with handguns and/or knives (South African Police Service 2020; Lamb 2020; BBC Reality Check Team 2018). The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported almost as many homicides were perpetrated in Africa as in the Americas during 2017, and that ‘the limited data for Africa suggest that firearms are also a prominent mechanism for perpetrating homicide in the region, roughly on a par with mechanisms other than sharp objects and firearms’ (UNODC 2019b). Nevertheless, drawing sweeping inferences on trends and country or regional comparisons of firearms homicides and injuries in Africa using the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) datasets can give a distorted picture because of missing or incomplete data, especially for populous countries. For example, it is alleged that if Nigeria counted all ‘legal intervention deaths’ during police operations, its homicide rate could probably rise by more than 40% (Kleinfeld 2017). Far fewer states report health statistics than police statistics, and homicide counts are particularly weak in countries suffering from armed conflicts. Since 2004 UNODC has persistently described Global Homicide Statistics data coverage as poor in Africa: ‘Some countries have neither reliable criminal justice data on homicide nor accurate mortality statistics that can be used as an alternative’ (UNODC n.d.). Post-apartheid South Africa is a notable exception since the national police service

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publishes detailed data on firearm homicides and other aspects of criminal justice.8 That data is supplemented by public health statistics. For example, a study published in the South African Medical Journal in July 2017 revealed that as many as 20 people were killed in gun-related incidents every single day (Martin et al. 2017).

7.3

Small Arms Supply and Demand

Demand for small arms and ammunition in African and other countries varies across time and location and is heavily influenced by perceptions of the threat of armed violence and the type of guns that may be posing a threat, as well as by changes in the supply and diffusion of weapons. For example, through a flood of low-price arms being released from government stocks in the sudden aftermath of a regime collapse, thereby provoking a heightened demand (Atwood et al. 2006). One such case followed in the wake of the collapsing regime of Colonel Gadaffi’s in Libya when arms and ammunition from the very large Libyan army stocks were diverted to armed groups and criminal gangs in several sub-Saharan countries. Populations in the Sahel region had been badly affected with successive droughts, food insecurity, and severe poverty. Armed groups in the region seized upon the new supplies of small arms and light weapons from Libya resulting in widespread destabilization, military interventions, and increased demand for weapons, in particular around the border areas between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger (UNSG 2017).

7.3.1 Demand Factors Important factors affecting the demand for small arms among civilians in African countries vary considerably. These factors include a severe lack of trust in the security sector and the judiciary and rule of law. This can occur amidst high levels of crime or violence, or civil unrest, amplified 8 Annual

Reports of the South African Police Service for the years 2000/2001 to 2016.

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by weak security forces which are unable—or are seen to be unable— to provide security to a population. Additional factors such as corrupt and undemocratic government authorities, the presence of gang cultures, civil conflict, racial and ethnic tensions, and the glamorizing of firearms (and other weapons) in popular culture can exacerbate demands for weapons, especially among those fearing attacks or harboring deep seated and unresolved grievances (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2019a). Research in South Africa on violence shows that socioeconomic inequality, frustrated masculinity, and lack of social cohesion connect to drive violence, especially in combination with alcohol and firearms. The injustices implied by displays of wealth amidst poverty and high unemployment, and the pervasiveness of gender norms of ‘masculinity’ that are difficult to live up to in the absence of resources and life opportunities, are among the conditions conducive for male violence (Langa and Bowman 2017). These factors have been present in abundance in Africa countries where institutions for conflict prevention and management do not exist or have been eroded. Their interplay, as well as the actual availability of small arms, light weapons and ammunition, shapes the motives, preferences, prices and resources to acquire and ultimately use those weapons (Muggah and Sang 2013). Escalating and organized armed threats to the livelihoods of communities can easily trigger decision to acquire weapons. An example was the arming pastoralist groups competing for land and water resources in the border areas of Uganda and Kenya (Matthysen et al. 2010). Armed groups originally motivated by grievances may simultaneously be inspired by the opportunities afforded from predation and criminal activity, for example in areas where minerals, timber, fish, and narcotics can be easily exploited (Muggah and Sang 2013). Moreover, the growth of armed opposition groups in an area can trigger the growth of government-backed militia, leading to increased demands for small arms. In Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, for instance, the presence of armed Salafist terrorist groups has in turn given rise to numerous armed selfdefence groups adding to the incidence of armed violence (Ahmed 2018; Jeune Afrique 2018b). The high incidence of grave human rights abuses by state security forces carried out with the threat and use of arms is also a major

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factor in triggering the start or an increase in violent armed opposition, and hence demands for weapons, in African countries. Numerous detailed reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have, over the past three decades, documented patterns of arbitrary killings, torture, sexual, and gender-based violence, impunity for state officials and institutions, and discrimination in the allocation of public resources. Many states have agreed that death and injury resulting from firearm-related violence is a major human rights issue (OHCHR 2016; OHCHR 2017). Impunity for grave human rights violations, especially by state security forces, but also by others, can increase demands for armed retaliation and the resort to obtain arms. In her analysis of the 103 countries that experienced some form of civil war between 1945 and 2009, Walter (2010) concluded that ‘Governments that are beholden to a formal constitution, that follow the rule of law, and that do not torture and repress their citizens are much less likely to face renewed violence in any form.’ She also found that significant reductions in the number of political prisoners and extrajudicial killings made the renewal of civil war between two and three times less likely than in countries with higher levels of human rights abuses (Walter 2010). The threat of terrorist attacks has led to overzealous law enforcement actions, alienating communities from the authorities. Relationships between the police and Muslim communities in some countries such as Nigeria and Kenya have deteriorated following increased surveillance of communities, arrests, detentions, and killings of individuals suspected of terrorism. Communities where the police and security agencies have implemented these counter-terrorism measures have grown increasingly suspicious of the police. This has undermined community-police cooperation measures and policies such as community policing (Alemika et al. 2018). Research carried out by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and published in 2017 found that a sense of grievance toward—and limited confidence in—government are widespread among young men in the parts of Africa associated with the highest incidence of violent extremism. Their views include the belief that government only looks after the interests of a few; a low level of trust in government

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authorities; and experience of paying bribes. Grievances against security force and law enforcement actors, as well as politicians, are particularly marked, with an average of 78% of respondents expressing low levels of trust in the police, politicians and military (UNDP 2017). In some instances, heavy-handed security operations against the local population have contributed to additional resentment toward government institutions and a resort to armed violence. UNDP researchers conducted almost 500 interviews with individuals in remote areas of Africa who had been recruited by ‘violent extremist groups,’ the largest ever survey conducted (UNDP 2017). A total of 51% of respondents selected ‘religion’ as a reason for joining such a group but 57% also admitted to limited or no understanding of religious texts. Unemployment and underemployment were major sources of frustration. If individuals were studying or working, they would be less likely to become members of an extremist organization. However, the ‘tipping point’ that pushed individuals from the ‘at-risk’ category to actually taking the step of joining a violent extremist group was neither economic nor religious. A striking 71% of respondents gave ‘government action,’ including the ‘killing of a family member or friend’ or the ‘arrest of a family member or friend,’ as their reason for joining a violent extremist group.

7.3.2 Supply Factors African states are largely dependent on imports of small arms, light weapons and their ammunition to replenish stocks, and in recent years the value of these imports have been steadily growing (Table 7.1). Small arms and light weapons have mainly been traded and imported from countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. For sub-Saharan African countries, UN Comtrade and national data for 2013–2015 indicate that South Africa, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, and Namibia, were the largest small arms importers during this period. Other open data sources point to considerable small arms deliveries to Angola, Nigeria, Niger, and Uganda, although this list cannot be regarded as comprehensive (Holtom and Pavesi 2018) (Table 7.2).

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Table 7.1 Value of small arms supplied to African sub-regions, as reported by Comtrade, 2001–2014 Value of reported small arms import (USD million) North Africa West Africa Southern Africa East Africa Central Africa North Africa

2001

2014

22 20 17 17 6 22

93 41 58 36 9 93

Note Only 22 sub-Saharan African states out of 46 submitted import data for the years 2013–2015 to the United Nations. For limitations of such data, see Sect. 5 below Source Florquin et al. (2019)

Table 7.2 Main trading partners for 5 largest small arms importers in Africa (2001–2014) Importer

Trading partners

Cote d’Ivoire Egypt Morocco South Africa Sudan

France Czech Republic, Italy, Serbia Italy, USA, Spain USA, Italy, Czech Republic Turkey, Russia, Cote d’voire

Source Florquin et al. (2019)

In addition, China, Russia, and Turkey are considered important suppliers of small arms to Africa, despite limited publicly available data (Florquin et al. 2019; Roth 2019). Those governments are not inclined to support strong international legal restrictions (Bromley et al. 2013). At the same time local production of arms and ammunition in some African countries has been increasing over the past three decades. The majority are state-owned companies. Ammunition production capability for small arms and light weapons is claimed in at least 18 countries (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe). Another seven countries have claimed they produce small arms and light weapons

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(Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe), although some of those claims are not verified (International Peace Information Service and Omega 2018). In addition, craft manufacturing of single shotguns and crude weapons are carried out in small, unregulated workshops in many countries, particularly in West Africa (Florquin et al. 2019).

7.4

Small Arms Diffusion

A common thread in the recurrence of armed conflicts and other armed violence in Africa is the weakness of national regulations on arms transfers and their enforcement. One result is persistent diversion of small arms, light weapons and their ammunition to illicit markets, and to prohibited or unauthorized end users and end uses. In addition to demand factors, this is mainly due to their ease of concealment, relatively low cost, the porosity of borders, and the lack of adequate legal frameworks and enforcement capacities (Florquin et al. 2019; Dube 2020; Falode 2020; Keili 2008). The diffusion and diversion of weaponry and ammunition in Africa is carried out in number of ways, licit and illicit. According to Muggah and Sang (2013) a general typology of modes of transfer includes: (1) authorized trade between states; (2) unauthorized or grey transfers between states; (3) transfers pursued between an intermediary or third party; (4) authorized transfers to non-state groups; (5) unauthorized transfers to non-state groups; (6) illegal international and domestic trafficking; (7) illegal transfers between non-state armed groups; and (8) illegal transfers and recirculation on local markets and between groups. However, data on both the authorized and illicitly held small arms is hard to find: of the 21 states in Africa that responded to the Small Arms Survey– AU questionnaire, fewer than half were able to provide any figures or estimates on the licit and illicit firearms held by civilian actors in their countries. Official data on small arms held by the continent’s law enforcement and military forces is even more incomplete. The vast majority of member states (15 out of 19 who responded to this question) ranked

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cross-border trafficking by land as the most prominent type of illicit arms flow affecting their respective countries (Florquin et al. 2019).

During 2002–2017 a total of 26 African states out of 54 which are members of the UN reported under the Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons that they had laws to exercise effective control over the export, import, transit, or retransfer of such arms; 22 reported that a person or an entity who transfers such arms require a licence or other form of authorization to transfer them from or into the country; and 23 made it an criminal offence to trade such arms without a licence or authorization (Holtom and Yeger 2018; UNGA 2001b). Yet even committed African states have not developed sufficient capacity to implement such laws to regulate trading activities relating to the spread and the uses of arms, especially in small arms, light weapons and their ammunition (UNIDIR 2017a). One aspect is the relative inability or failure to fully monitor and enforce UN arms embargoes when imposed on entities in Africa as is evident from UN arms investigation reports. In 2020 the UN and the European Union (EU) had imposed twelve arms embargoes of which seven were on entities in Africa and 5 were in Asia9 (see Table 7.4 in Annex for a list of such embargoes). Another closely related aspect is the failure of most African states to implement in their national regulations and practices according to the legal standards set out in treaties to which they are party. Highly relevant obligations are contained in the Arms Trade Treaty, the UN Firearms Protocol, and four African sub-regional treaties on small arms (da Silva and Wood 2015; UNGA 2001a) (see Table 7.5 in Annex). Numerous empirical studies show that African governments, as well as foreign states and businesses they trade with to procure arms, do not often or fully comply with those international laws or implement those standards (United Nations Security Council 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; Amnesty International 2005, 2012a, 2012b, 2013a).

9 For

the 2020 list of UN and EU arms embargoes, see GRIP https://embargo.grip.org/.

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The control of arms brokering is especially a challenge for African states, which have to import arms, yet lack capacity to fully regulate businesses and to control borders and ports. (Bulzomi et al. 2014) This was tragically demonstrated in the case of the international arming of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide in the early to mid-1990s (Wood and Peleman 1999). Yet, according to their submissions to the UN under the 2001 Programme of Action to curb the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, by 2011 only eight states in Africa had a specific law on arms brokering, while eight more African states had their law under review. By 2017 these totals had barely changed (UNODA n.d.). Large numbers of firearms are held, and circulate internally, among civilians in many African countries, yet law enforcement capacities are limited so posing a challenge to regulate such firearms effectively. Reliable official data on such circulation is sparse and totals should only be treated as very rough estimates. The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCTC 2020) estimated there are 100 million ‘uncontrolled small arms and light weapons’ in Africa. Based on a partial survey returns from 21 African states in 2017, the Small Arms Survey suggested that private individuals, registered businesses such as private security companies, and also non-state armed groups in Africa, held over 40 million ‘small arms,’ of which almost 6 million were officially registered. This compared to less than 11 million ‘small arms’ that armed forces and law enforcement agencies claim to hold - although the authors noted that ‘official data on small arms held by the continent’s law enforcement and military forces is even more incomplete’ (Florquin et al. 2019). For example, in South Africa, where official data is more readily available, the country was estimated to have had about 1.75 million licensed civilian gun owners in 2015, a reduction of about 200,000 since 1999 due to legislative and policing measures, and over three million firearms were registered to those civilian owners (South African Police Service 2015). A 2014 baseline survey in Ghana reported that between 1981 and 2013, the Police Firearms Bureau registered 1,236,128 weapons to civilians (Pokoo and Jaye 2014). However, data on registered weapons sent to the headquarters of the Police Firearms Bureau was irregular according to the head of the Bureau. In Ghana where a national survey has been undertaken, the smuggling of illicit small arms across the country’s

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porous borders stems from armed conflicts waged in neighboring countries (UNODC 2012) as well as from illicit markets associated with crime, ethnic tensions and local craft production (Ghana National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons 2017). Cross-border trafficking of small arms, light weapons and their ammunition in Africa is regarded as a significant problem by many African governments. Terrorist networks, criminal gangs including poachers and drug traffickers, local manufacturers, corrupt security officials, and returning peacekeepers have reportedly been involved (Florquin et al. 2019). Such trafficking can sometimes involve the carriage of larger consignments of concealed cargo by land and occasionally by air or sea transport. It can also involve frequent smuggling of small numbers of items in the so-called ‘ant trade’ which can mount up to significant totals over time. In the border areas of some African countries, armed groups have jointly established illicit arms markets. For example, salafist groups engaged in a series of terrorist acts have benefited from the presence of pre-existing illicit arms, narcotics, and migrant trafficking networks in Mali, Mauritania, and Niger (UNSG 2017). The result is that African governments are facing crucial challenges from the proliferation, illegal trade, and unlawful uses of small arms, These challenges are associated with gaps in the regulatory systems and capacity of African states to control such trade. In particular, to reduce excessive demand they have to address (i) dysfunctional governance and ‘the weak state’; as well as (ii) violent conflicts over natural resources. To reduce unregulated supplies and eradicate the diversion and illicit trafficking of small arms African governments need to (iii) prevent leakages from small arms and ammunition stockpiles; and (iv) end the covert arming of opposition groups in neighboring states.

7.4.1 Dysfunctional Governance and ‘the Weak State’ Professional capacities in many African countries to prevent, detect, and prosecute illicit trafficking and possession of weapons and associated crime are weak. Most African countries do not have an adequate

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police force for their populations. Only five African states provided data for the 2015 United Nations Crime Trends Survey: Madagascar (34 police officers per 100,000 of the population), Kenya (81), Tanzania (88) Cape Verde (347), and Algeria (435). These ratios can generally be contrasted, for instance, with those of Argentina (809), Mexico (333), Myanmar (143), Canada (190), USA (198), Russia (471), Italy (450), Belgium (334), and France (324), although different reporting systems and definitions of ‘law enforcement agencies’ mean that individual comparisons should be treated with caution10 (Karp 2018). Greater numbers of police personnel do not necessarily translate into effective policing since that depends on the maintenance of adequate systems of professional training, accountability, standards, management, equipment, and deployment, but those elements are often lacking (Alemika et al. 2018; Amnesty International 2013b). Access to justice for most people in Africa is either absent or left to informal means. In many African countries, the police are supplemented by paramilitaries and large numbers of private security guards. However, those paramilitaries would not normally investigate crimes and the guards are largely deployed to protect businesses and residences of those on high incomes (Amnesty International 2002; Gumedze 2007; Gumedze 2008). Where soldiers are deployed to conduct policing operations, or when police officers are made to use military combat methods in non-conflict situations, they usually lack professional policing skills, so can exacerbate or prolong violence rather than quell and eradicate it (Alemika et al. 2018). These weaknesses of African states are often compounded by the presence of vast borders, remote borders, and/or inhospitable border regions. The limited presence of guards, police, customs, and immigration results in porous land borders between many African countries as well as weak custom and security controls at seaports and airports (Amnesty International 2005; Amnesty International 2006; Bulzomi et al. 2014). Border control, already difficult, becomes an insurmountable endeavour under the rule of poor governance—particularly, then there is corruption and nepotism. If added with socioeconomic exclusion, deprivation, poverty, 10 Unfortunately the majority of African countries had not reported on the numbers of their police—see https://dataunodc.un.org/data/crime/Police%20personnel [accessed 10 May 2020].

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and underdevelopment, a toxic mix is created that is easily exploited by criminal networks and armed groups (UNSG 2017; Varin and Abubakar 2017). Security priorities tend to be distorted by corruption, excessive secrecy, ethnic rivalries, and authoritarian practices (Annan 2014; Africa Center for Strategic Studies 2015; Williams 2016). It is not uncommon for senior political figures and representatives of the security forces to dole out arms and ammunition to their ethnic affiliates (Muggah and Sang 2013). Sub-Sahara Africa is the lowest scoring region on the 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index and the groups or institutions perceived to be most corrupt included the police (47%), government officials (39%), parliamentarians and business executives (36%), and offices of the president or prime minister (34%) (Transparency International 2020). Examining the top 20 countries with very high levels of corruption,11 they are disproportionately more likely to have experienced conflict: 11 of the 20 most corrupt countries have been affected by violent conflict, often lasting many years (Pyman 2014). Linked to this, ethnicity and religion can become dividing factors used to drive quests for political power. This has resulted in civil strife and armed violence, as experienced in West Africa (Annan 2014; OECD 2020), the Great Lakes Region (Nasong’o 2015; Reyntjens 2009; Pottier 2010), and the Horn of Africa (Etefa 2019; Yusuf 2019). The combination of extreme poverty,12 domination by foreign corporations, ethnic marginalization, competition to control enclaves of natural resource extraction, and weak state institutions fused with patronage and clientelism, has resulted in an intense and sometimes violent competition for the control of the state’s stream of rent and royalties in many African countries (Burgis 2015; Williams 2016; World Bank 2019). According to Burgis (2015) when political and military leaders have accessed or raided those revenues, they didn’t have to seek taxes and hence, obtain the consent of the wider population. In addition, as 11 As

reflected in low scores in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index or in the World Bank’s Control of Corruption scores. 12 Most of Africa’s population live in what the World Bank calls ‘extreme poverty’ defined as less than $1.90 per day According to World Bank data, 56% of the poorest people in the world live in Sub-Sahara Africa.

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world market prices changed, large and rapid fluctuations in national revenue funds have increased dependence on foreign aid, often giving major foreign powers a greater role in shaping security needs in Africa. For example, over the past ten years, rents and royalties had dropped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) and Côte d’Ivoire to less than a quarter of their peak, and in Cameroon that revenue dropped to 32.8% of their peak (OECD 2019). A vicious cycle can set in which is extremely hard to escape (Humphries et al. 2007). In the context of extreme poverty and fluctuating revenues, security has been undermined by a lack of democratic accountability and professional law enforcement practices. These issues severely limit institutional capacities to resolve disputes, ethnic tensions, and conflicts aggravated by intense competition between deprived communities over water, land, and other scarce resources. (Cilliers 2018; Straus 2012). Since the Cold War, Africa has averaged 2.6 military coups per year with a 40% success rate (Geopolitical Futures 2019), often resulting in violent wars, mass killing, and population displacements (Annan 2014).

7.4.2 Recurring Violent Conflict Over Natural Resources Case studies indicate that the exploitation of natural resources, insecurity and weak governance in many African countries is also a driving force behind the demand for and illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons. (Sachs and Warner 2001; Spittaels and Hilgert 2008; International Peace Information Service 2018). Debate is open about whether the control of exploitation of the natural resources by armed groups is outcome or cause of the conflict (Cuvelier 2010; Cuvelier et al. 2013). Nevertheless, insecurity at mining sites, or control and access to mining sites drive the diversion and illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons. For example, illicit arms transfers are fuelled by the ‘increasing insecurity related to the discovery of several goldfields in the areas of the Niger bordering with Libya and Algeria’ (UNSC 2018b). Armed attacks on artisanal gold miners have increased the demand for small arms

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in northern Niger. Most of the weapons confiscated by the Nigerien security forces at gold sites originate from Libyan stockpiles but have also included arms from Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Ammunition from Nigerian stockpiles has also been found on the illicit market., The artisanal gold mining has also allegedly increased the demand for explosives in northern Niger. The Small Arms Survey reported on the smuggling of explosives from Ghana in 2016, and their potential misuse by armed groups (de Tessières 2018). Burkina Faso has various gold mining sites scattered across the country, predominantly in the north and southwest of the country. The Essakane gold mine in the northern Oudalan province is under constant pressure from the terrorist group Ansarul Islam (Sollazzo 2018). Another potential source of income is the exploitation of artisanal gold in the Kidal region in northeast Mali (UNSC 2018b). In August 2018 the Conseil de commandement militaire pour le salut de la République (CCMSR), a Chadian armed group based in Libya, attacked northern Chad, a region under minimal control of the Chadian government. The violence was probably linked to gain control over the artisanal gold mining in the region (VOA Afrique 2018; Jeune Afrique 2018a). An extreme example of natural resource plundering involving the use of armed violence is the DR Congo. The country has for decades been characterized by a deeply rooted political culture of violence, institutionalized corruption, and predation. Bad governance and the pillaging of natural resources by the local elites lie at the root of DR Congo’s problems (Spittaels and Hilgert 2008; Cuvelier 2010; Trefon 2011). The redistribution of arms and ammunition is directly linked to the organization of insecurity in certain areas to maintain chaos and allow for unregulated taxation and/or exploitation of natural resources (Murairi et al. 2017; Jaillon et al. 2016). When the security apparatus of a state is severely underpaid or not paid at all, as in DR Congo, this opens the door for corruption, and misuse of power. EU military observers in the DRC Congo viewed rifles in the hands of individual FARDC soldiers being used in effect as ‘credit cards’: possession of a weapon means that the soldier is assured to get access to daily subsistence, money, or other demands from civilians. Also, the EU military observers did not

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rule out that (captured) weapons, clothing or ammunition were not sold (Danssaert 2008a).13 In several countries numerous armed roadblocks have been set up and are used for instance to impose unofficial taxes on those exploiting natural resources. These have become a major source of finance for armed state and non-state actors and another factor in driving demand for weaponry and obtaining funds to secure supplies. In the DR Congo roads without roadblocks are a rarity. A November 2017 study by the International Peace Information Service has identified at least 798 roadblocks in North and South Kivu alone. State groups controlled 569 roadblocks (including 379 by Congolese army, 97 by traffic police, 80 by National Intelligence Agency), and armed non-state groups controlled 174 roadblocks. 75% of all the roadblocks have at least one person present bearing arms. At 513 roadblocks transit traffic was taxed, at 239 roadblocks taxes on natural resources were levied, and at 161 roadblocks access to markets was taxed. A 2009 confidential UN study had shown that 95% of all the roadblocks operated by state actors in South Kivu were illegal. Profitable roadblocks are a source of conflict between the various armed state and non-state actors (Murairi et al. 2017).

7.4.3 Leakages from Stockpiles The lack of security and poor management of stockpiles and holdings of small arms, light weapons and their ammunition is a significant problem in many African countries which is also acknowledged by the European Union (EU 2014). Problems of diversion arising from the absence of appropriate physical infrastructure, the failure to destroy surplus stocks, and scarcity of trained security personnel have been amplified by corruption and political conflict. Only 12 states in Africa reported to the UN that they had destroyed surplus stocks during the reporting period, and only seven states reported that government stocks are marked when transferred to civilians or private companies, while only 21 said they had standards and procedures for record keeping (Holtom and Yeger 13 For

recent cases of individuals being under investigation see UNSC (2017b).

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2018). Small arms and ammunition have been sold, rented out, or otherwise transferred directly by soldiers, police, and other security sector personnel from their arsenals and from government stockpiles to criminal groups and other non-state armed groups (Danssaert and Wood 2017). Research in the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire (during time of war), Niger, and Somalia has found that national stockpiles, either of the State itself or of its neighbors, were the main source of small arms, light weapons and ammunition for non-state armed groups, including terrorists (UNIDIR 2019). Stockpiles have also been attacked and looted or abandoned. Diversion to such groups also takes place at the individual level through defections from the armed forces. A bigger problem relates to those who are supposed to ‘manage’ the official arms and ammunition stockpiles of the armed forces. For example, corrupt senior and junior officers in Niger’s security forces have supplied Boko Haram with conventional arms diverted from the national stockpile. Boko Haram’s attack in June 2016 on the Boso military base also resulted in the group’s capture of significant quantities of military materiel from the national stockpile (de Tessières 2018). Another case became public when in June 2016 an ex South African Police Service (SAPS) colonel was sentenced to 18 years prison. He admitted he stole 2,400 guns and ammunition from police stocks to sell them to a trafficking network that was supplying Western Cape and other gangsters. The weapons had been confiscated by or surrendered to SAPS and marked for destruction (Mzantsi 2016; Petersen 2016; Thamm 2016). Ballistic testing linked 888 of the police colonel’s guns to 1,066 murders in the Western Cape between February 2010 and 31 May 2016, including the murder of 261 children (de Wee 2016; Gun Free South Africa 2017a). The UN Group of Experts on the DR Congo identified the existence of criminal networks within the Congolese armed forces, which provided material support to armed opposition groups (UNSC 2012). Senior officials in Kinshasa were aware of the material support these networks had provided to non-state armed groups (UNSC 2009). But monetary gain from corruption is not always the driving force. Sometimes diversion relates to failed integration of such armed groups into the regular army (UNSC 2009).

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In Somalia weapons and ammunition exported to the Federal Government have been found to be in the possession of local arms dealers. It is possible weapons and ammunition were sold by unpaid individual security forces, and/or in large quantities by senior officials (UNSC 2018c; UNIDIR 2017b).14 In 2014 the United Nations Monitoring Group reported that some of the weapons and ammunition supplied to the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces, by Djibouti and Uganda, appeared to have been diverted to Al-Shabaab through sales to the local arms markets (UNSC 2014d). The UN Monitoring Group then accused a former key adviser of the Somali President to have been a facilitator in the diversion of arms and ammunition from the government stockpiles to Al-Shabaab (UNSC 2014d). The United Nations Security Council has stressed the responsibility of the Federal Government of Somalia to ensure the safe and effective management, storage, and security of their stockpiles (UNSC 2014c). The most extreme example of diversion from stockpiles in recent years has been Libya. Large stockpiles accumulated over years by the Gaddafi government have since 2011 fallen into the hands of armed militias. Poor security and stockpile management measures at current interim government’s stockpiles pose a severe risk for arms and ammunition diversion. Also, due to demand for weapons arising from insecurity in the country, a booming civilian illicit market for handguns has been developed. Moreover, arms and ammunition continue to enter the country, including with the support of some UN Member States, largely driven by regional rivalries which fuel the instability (UNSC 2016). Meanwhile Libya has become an important hub for illicit arms flows to neighboring countries. The UN Panel on Libya reported investigations of illegal transfers to 14 countries, including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Gaza, Niger, Mali, and Syria (UNSC 2014b). Still the Libyan authorities consistently claim that it lacks sufficient armaments for the forces under its control despite the fact that the interim government is unable to securely procure and stock its armaments. The armed groups engage in a variety of illegal activity enabled by the proliferation of armaments and lack of a stable government. Human trafficking, prostitution, illegal export of oil, drugs, 14 On

diversion from stockpiles see also annexes 6.1 and 6.2 (UNSC 2014d).

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and misappropriation of Libyan state funds have become a lucrative business for the Libyan armed groups (UNSC 2018b). In December 2008 the UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported that non-governmental armed groups sourced their arms and ammunition predominantly from the Congolese army holdings (FARDC) (UNSC 2008). Since the publication of that report the situation has not changed significantly (UNSC 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014a, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a). Also problematic is the procurement of arms and ammunition by the Congolese armed forces in breach of the requirements of UN Security Council embargo regime, which requires notification prior to delivery of the arms and ammunition in DR Congo (UN Security Council Resolution 1807 (2008)). Several states repeatedly failed to notify the UN Security Council according to this notification procedure, thereby hindering the UN efforts to monitor, detect, and stop the diversion of weapons and ammunition. In particular, they failed to help create a clear inventory of arms and ammunition in possession of the Congolese armed forces. Incoming arms cargoes belonging to the Ministry of Defence at the ports of Boma and Matadi were not subjected to independent screening by Congolese Customs (UNSC 2014a). Nor did the DR Congo government allow the UN mission in the country to inspect the government’s incoming arms and ammunition shipments on the grounds that the DR Congo is a sovereign country. Nevertheless, UN mission in the DR Congo provided logistical support (e.g., air transport) to the Congolese army and that allowed the UN Mission to check for diversion from stocks (Danssaert 2008b).

7.4.4 Covert Arming of Opposition Groups in Neighboring States Destabilizing processes fuelled by illicit covert arms supplies across borders to support armed groups has taken place in several African countries. One notable example has been destabilization in the DR Congo and specifically its vast eastern borders. Since the end of the ‘Second Congo War’ waged from August 1998 to July 2003, UN and other investigators have uncovered instances of senior officials in Rwanda continuing to facilitate the supply of arms, ammunition, and other materiel

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to armed groups in eastern DR Congo. For example, in 2012 the UN Group of Experts on the DR Congo reported that the Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) had received large amounts of arms and ammunition from Rwanda (UNSC 2012). Four years earlier the UN Group of Experts had reported that the predecessor of M23, the Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP), had received political and logistical support from Rwanda (UNSC 2008). Amnesty International (2005) in its detailed report ‘Arming the East’ highlighted ways that Rwandan authorities and allied foreign business entities and brokers were breaking the UN arms embargo on eastern DR Congo between December 2002 and August 2003 by actively arming various proxy armies. Another state that has been in breach of the UN embargo on armed groups in DR Congo has been Uganda. At times the Ugandan government has directly organized arms shipments into eastern DRC and also allowed networks of Ugandan army officers and businesses to do so, for example, when in 2012, the M23 armed group procured weapons from Ugandan army officers (UNSC 2012). In 2017 the Group of Experts spotted Ugandan manufactured ammunition in the hands of the Force de résistance patriotique de l’Ituri (FPRI) operating in the Ituri district of eastern DRC thereby suspecting possible deliveries from Uganda (UNSC 2017a). Small-scale arms trafficking with the acquiescence of military authorities has also occurred between Burundi and the DR Congo, which was reportedly taking place in 2018. The UN Group of Experts has an ongoing investigation against several members of the Burundian army. The Burundi government has denied any involvement (UNSC 2017a, 2017b, 2018a). In addition, during its investigation in 2009 the UN Group had found evidence that the Hutu rebels of FDLR (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda) during that year had received ‘significant deliveries’ of arms and ammunition via Lake Tanganyika from the United Republic of Tanzania. These deliveries were carried out in close coordination with officers of the Congolese army. UN investigators alleged that one such network was linked to a Congolese businessman residing in Tanzania with ties to the ruling party in Burundi (Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie, CNDD-FDD) (UNSC 2009).

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One type of response by African governments has been to deploy, if possible, security forces in remote border areas including at rural airports. Foremost, coordinated border management strategies need to emphasize respect for human rights, especially of border communities, and adherence to international standards in border management,15 as well as to seek assistance from international assistance programs.16 However, only three African states requested assistance for ‘customs and borders’ in their latest reports to the United Nations Programme of Action on small arms and only three noted that they had received such assistance (Holtom and Yeger 2018). Additional measures that guarantee food security, development, and empowerment of civilians through the use of conflict resolution techniques are also needed.

7.5

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

Initially from the 1980s, most national and international efforts in Africa to address the proliferation of small arms and light weapons used in armed conflicts were concentrated on post-conflict disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of combatants. The recognition that proactive measures to prevent armed conflicts were equally necessary, led to initiatives increasingly linked to security sector reform (SSR) and transitional justice (TJ) using integrated UN standards (UN Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration Resource Centre, n.d.) In order to curb non-state armed violence and armed crime, it is increasingly recognized that more concerted measures are needed to control the small arms and ammunition trade and to reduce civilian demand for, and misuse of, firearms.

15 See

African Union Convention on Cross-Border Cooperation (https://au.int/en/treaties/ african-union-convention cross-border-cooperation-niamey-convention); African Union Border Programme (http://www.peaceau.org/en/page/27-au-border-program-aubp); Relevant policy and program commitments for all States are found in the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) of 2001 and the provisions of the International Tracing Instrument (2005), as well as the International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS series 05.60). 16 For example, see the European Union Support program for integrated border management in Burkina Faso (PAGIF-BF) (https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/node/108679_pl).

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There was a formal recognition that to achieve these changes will requires more collective political will on the part of African governments as well as international technical assistance and cooperation. The African Union Peace and Security Council—supported by the AU Economic Social & Cultural Council (ECOSOCC)—met African regional organizations, and civil society representatives in Lusaka in November 2016 to devise a “Master Roadmap of Practical Steps to Silence the Guns in Africa by 2020” (African Union 2016; Dube 2020). Although the timeline was unrealistic, these practical steps are wide ranging and were supplemented by a ‘First Ten Year Implementation Plan 2014–2023’ to modify the timeline. The Roadmap includes political and legal aspects, not only related to stopping illicit flows of weapons, but also to address operational capacity and agreements for deployment of the African Standby Force. In addition, the Roadmap called for early warning signs for looming crises, and measures to address the ‘deficits in enhancing and deepening democracy, respect for human dignity, human rights and good governance, sanctions and punitive measures in cases of proven violation of AU instruments on governance and corruption that lead to conflict’ (African Union 2016). To translate such words into concerted action, specific commitments need to be made by AU members that have not have done so to ratify the ATT, the Firearms Protocol, and the four sub-regional treaties, and all AU members must establish national systems and take practical measures to implement the binding obligations and recommendations in the provisions those treaties (see Table 7.5 in Annex). Such systems and measures should be applied to all stages of the chain of transaction during the lifecycle of the weapons and ammunition—before the transfers, during the transfers, and after the transfers. For example, states need to define in regulations their national arms transfer or trade control list, and the arms trading activities requiring authorization; define in the criminal code arms trade-related offences, including corrupt practices, and indicate penalties; and elaborate the necessary administrative procedures and documentation required for anyone involved in arms trading including applications for transfer authorizations and recordkeeping requirements (UNIDIR 2020). However, a broader approach is also needed to address arms trafficking and armed violence.

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7.5.1 Improving the Collection and Availability of Relevant Data on Arms and Violence Data on the definitions and the effects of armed conflict and other armed violence need to be improved. Reporting by African states on small arms killings and injuries is patchy. Without adequate data being recorded and made available from African states, research to identify solutions will be difficult. In recognition of such shortcomings, in 2013 the UN Statistical Commission and the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice developed a two-part program to improve such statistics. This was initiated through a new protocol known as the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS). The ICCS would include terrorist murders, killings by police officers using excessive armed force, and extrajudicial killings. The protocol would improve and standardize how homicide data are collected—provided that Member States collect and report such data accurately, which is an objective to which all African states should be committed. Moreover, African and other states do not always provide adequate reports on their imports and exports of small arms, light weapons, ammunition and accessories to enable parliamentary scrutiny, or to meet their commitments under the UN Register of Conventional Arms and the UN Statistics Division for inclusion in the Comtrade database. Although such reports are post-facto generic records, the Register and the Comtrade database can assist states and others in identifying arms diversions and risks. The Comtrade database is composed of customs data reported by Member States on their international import and export of a very wide range of goods. However, some Comtrade categories are too broad and need to be made more consistent and visible to enable all states to report their international trade especially in small arms, light weapons, and their ammunition and accessories. African states could then report arms and ammunition imports and exports more comprehensively and regularly, Meanwhile, the totals should generally be regarded as containing under-estimates.

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7.5.2 International Assistance to Strengthen National Regulations on Transfers Despite their statements, it is evident from the pattern of arms embargo violations that some African and other foreign leaders lack the political will and foresight to see that it is in their country’s security interests to comply with those agreed international legal standards. In addition, most states in Africa lack institutional capacity and resources to achieve these objectives and so need substantial assistance from the international community. If they are parties or committed signatories to the ATT, African states can seek international assistance through a voluntary trust fund including for legal or legislative assistance, institutional capacity-building, and technical, material, or financial assistance. Ten African states (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, Zambia) received such assistance in 2019 and five did so in 2018 (Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Madagascar, Senegal) (UNODA n.d.). In recognition of the need to build capacity and implement agreed regulatory standards, fifteen African states also made requests for international assistance in their reports during the period 2012–2017 under the UN Programme of Action on the illicit trade small arms and light weapons. Those requests were for assistance to develop laws, regulations, and/or administrative procedures to exercise effective control over transfers (the export, import, transit, trans-shipment), and brokering of small arms (Wood and Danssaert 2020). In addition, nineteen African states requested assistance to develop standards and procedures for stockpile management. Seventeen states requested assistance to develop capacity to destroy weapons. Sixteen states made requests to confiscate and seize illicit small arms and twenty-one states asked for assistance to build capacity for record keeping (Table 7.3). It should be noted, however, that only one African state requested law enforcement assistance. Unfortunately, the PoA reporting system did not include a section to report on whether such requests for international assistance were actually received from international donor countries and implemented in the requesting state (Holtom and Yeger 2018). Nevertheless, there is a clear need for targeted international assistance to

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Table 7.3 Number of African states seeking international assistance to strengthen selected regulations on small arms and light weapons, according to their national reports to the United Nations, 2012–17 Number of African States out of 54 that requested international assistance To regulate international transfers To regulate brokering For stockpile management For capacity to destroy weapons For capacity to confiscate and seize illicit small arms For capacity on recordkeeping

Total seeking assistance on [this aspect]

Number indicating type of assistance required

Number with prepared proposals for assistance

Number that requested such assistance

35

30

11

15

34

32

5

15

33

30

15

19

34

31

15

17

36

31

10

16

40

37

9

21

Source Holtom and Yeger (2018)

be stepped up and for greater political understanding to be developed internationally regarding the need for stringent arms controls. Regulation in Africa could improve if foreign states that export arms and whose nationals trade in arranging arms transfers to African states, also improved their regulations. States involved in the importation and/or the transit and trans-shipment of arms emanating from within and from outside Africa, should establish and maintain robust regulatory systems that include provisions to proactively address arms brokering and closely related activities. The definition of arms trading, brokering, and other activities covered by national legislation should be as wide a possible and include persons and entities who buy, sell or arrange the transfer of such items from their own country, or from a third country to any other third country (Wood and Holtom 2020; Wood and Danssaert 2011).

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7.5.3 Restricting the Local Circulation and Reducing Demand for Small Arms Stockpile management, security, and destruction needs to be improved by African governments in four main areas (Danssaert and Wood 2017). First, the capabilities for tracing serial numbers on weapons and packaging should be improved. Second, the relevant authorities should re-evaluate methods of destruction and decommissioning of surplus and dangerous stocks to ensure that all parts of disposed weapons are rendered beyond use and obsolete ammunition is safely destroyed. Third, storage facilities and personnel arrangements need to be improved to prevent theft, explosions, or other incidents relating to insecure infrastructure, poor management, and corrupt practices. Fourth and finally, official bodies responsible for overseeing disarmament and surplus destruction processes need to be held more accountable by improving their record keeping, tracing, reporting and monitoring in order to heighten the effectiveness of disarmament efforts. African states require support to invest in cross-border infrastructure and institutions. More border posts should be built, and more customs, security, and immigration officials trained in border management, anti-corruption measures, cultural sensitivity, and data collection with assistance of the World Customs Organization. In addition to conducting joint patrols along borders, new technologies can be used to monitor borders remotely. Local authorities can use development incentives to establish neighborhood watch schemes to protect borderland communities. This should include cross-border access to goods and services, creating investment and employment opportunities in border regions, ensuring the interests of cross-border communities are considered at the national and regional levels.17 Crucially, all border security providers should be trained and accountable in systems consistent with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms for Law Enforcement Officials and other relevant UN criminal justice standards.

17 See for example, proposals by ACCORD—https://www.accord.org.za/conflict-trends/securityconflict-management-african-borderlands.

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The regulation of civilian possession of firearms needs to be improved in most African countries. For example, the new regulatory system for civilian firearms owners in South Africa is considered to have had a significant positive impact in reducing firearms-related deaths, injuries, theft, and illicit trade. In addition, the new system has helped to improve police investigations and police safety, despite instances of diverting firearms to criminal gangs through corruption (Lamb 2020). During a six-year period following the introduction of firearms controls, gunrelated crimes fell by just over 20%. According to the South African police, over 1.2 million guns were destroyed between 2000 and 2016, an average of 70,600 guns a year (Gun Free South Africa 2017b). In June 2018, South Africa’s Constitutional Court reaffirmed that gun ownership is not a fundamental citizens’ right but a privilege that must be regulated in the interests of public safety so that gun licenses must be renewed on a “regular basis” (Case CCT 177/17, 2018). Similarly, in June 2017, after a spate of mob justice, Ghana’s National Commission on small arms announced that in order to keep guns out of the hands of people with history of mental illness, drug addicts, domestic abusers, convicted felons and terrorists, the police would in future conduct mental screening and analysis of all applicants before approving gun applications. Background checks for all gun sales and possession would be undertaken to track the whereabouts and use of all small arms (Adams and Cudjoe 2017). In addition, to actively help reduce demand for weapons, concerted efforts by national and local authorities are needed to promote a culture of peace and respect for human rights, particularly during internal security and law enforcement operations when armed force has to be used to protect lives. Personnel must be trained and accountable to that those actions are consistent with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms for Law Enforcement Officials. (United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders 1990). Moreover, active measures to include gender equality and mainstreaming in disarmament and arms control activities are imperative, particularly in order to counter cultures of violence and the dominant masculine assumption that possessing weapons brings ‘manhood’ and strength. Those toxic values encourage the proliferation and misuse of weapons.

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Relevant government bodies, including parliamentarians, local authorities, and police, have in some countries agreed to initiate joint projects with civil society organizations, business associations, traditional leaders, and media to support illicit weapons collection projects and to promote values of peace, equality, and justice. Such projects should be actively encouraged and resourced as should educational programs to integrate arms control efforts into national development agendas in line with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG), especially SDG 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions. Amplification of such partnerships could reach out especially to young men to ‘deglamourize’ weapons, promote community safety, and develop skills at community and national levels for the non-violent resolution of disputes.

7.6

Conclusion

Armed violence in Africa is a multi-faceted problem shaped by legacies of foreign domination and weak political, economic and cultural structures and institutions. Recurring conflict and pervasive gun violence take place in the context of widespread extreme poverty and marginalization, patrimonial governance by elites, ethnic and religious factionalism, cultures of toxic masculinity, the high dependency on natural resource extraction, and consequent foreign influence and control. Direct causal factors of such armed violence are the weakness of state regulatory authorities, lack of access to justice and conflict prevention institutions, the use of excessive and abusive force to address dissent, and the proliferation of small arms, light weapons and related ammunition. A major driver is the weakness of national systems of regulation and their lack of capacity to prevent, detect and eradicate the illicit trade and diversion of small arms, light weapons and ammunition. This is compounded where the criminal justice system is weak, and corruption is rife. African governments have joined several important international and regional treaties over the past two decades designed to improve control of the conventional weapons trade. They have also regularly participated in regional and international discussions on practical measures to counter the illicit circulation and diversion of small arms to unauthorized

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non-state actors. However, the majority of states in Africa lack critical capacities to implement those treaty obligations and practical measures, illustrated by the ongoing violations of UN arms embargoes. Donor efforts to help African states build such capacities appear woefully underpowered relative to the scale of the problem. Likewise, efforts to establish the rule of law regarding arms transfers and uses often avoid tackling human rights violations and corrupt practices. It has been argued above that, in order to contribute to the prevention of serious crime, conflict and abuse, African governments are facing crucial challenges to curb the proliferation, illegal trade and unlawful uses of small arms. These challenges are associated with gaps in the regulatory systems and capacity of African states to control such trade. In particular, to reduce excessive demand they have to address (i) dysfunctional governance and ‘the weak state’; as well as (ii) violent conflicts over natural resources. To reduce unregulated supplies and eradicate the diversion and illicit trafficking of small arms African governments need to; (iii) prevent leakages from small arms and ammunition stockpiles; and (iv) end the covert arming of opposition groups in neighboring states. Meanwhile, such violence looks set to continue in many countries, whether in the form of conflicts between warring fighters, terrorist attacks, gang domestic or transnational crime by gangs, groups or individuals, or state repression by soldiers and police. The motives of the perpetrators will vary, as will the intensity, duration, and scale of destruction and suffering of victims and survivors, depending on counter measures taken. Whether critical national control systems and practical measures are established—and the guns can be silenced as the African Union has called for–depends ultimately on the political will of African leaders and the international assistance they can muster and direct into developing effective institutions and programs of disarmament and arms control in all its aspects.

Annex See Table 7.4, 7.5

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Table 7.4 International arms embargoes imposed on African countries Name

Type of Embargo

Year

Comment

Started

Ended 2002

Angola

UN

Mandatory

1993

Central African Republic Central African Republic Cote d’Ivoire Cote d’Ivoire DRC

UN

Mandatory

2013

EU

Mandatory

2013

UN

Mandatory

2004

2016

EU

Mandatory

2004

2016

EU

Mandatory

1993

DRC

UN

Mandatory

2003

Egypt Eritrea Eritrea Eritrea Eritrea Eritrea Ethiopia Ethiopia Ethiopia Guinea Liberia

EU UN UN EU UN UN UN EU UN EU UN

Mandatory Non-mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Non-mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory

2013 1999 2000 1999 2009 2010 1999 1999 2000 2009 1992

Liberia Libya Libya Libya

EU UN EU UN

Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory

2001 1992 1986 2011

Libya Nigeria Rwanda

EU EU UN

Mandatory Mandatory Mandatory

2011 1995 1994

Non-governmental forces Non-governmental forces

Non-governmental forces, since 2003 Non-governmental forces 2000 2001 2001 2018 2018 2000 2001 2001 2014 2016

Non-governmental forces, since 2009

2016 2003 2004 Non-governmental forces 1999 2008

Non-governmental forces, since 1995 (continued)

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Table 7.4 (continued) Name Sierra Leone Sierra Leone Somalia Somalia South Africa South Africa South Sudan South Sudan Southern Rhodesia Sudan (Darfur) Sudan Zimbabwe

Type of Embargo

Year

Comment

Started

Ended

UN

Mandatory

1997

2010

EU

Mandatory

1998

2010

UN EU UN

Mandatory Mandatory Non-mandatory

1992 2002 1963

1977

UN

Mandatory

1977

1994

UN

Mandatory

2018

EU

Mandatory

2011

UN

Mandatory

1966

UN

Mandatory

2004

EU EU

Mandatory Mandatory

1994 2002

Non-governmental forces, since 1998 Non-governmental forces

1979

Source https://www.sipri.org/databases/embargoes, https://www.un.org/securityc ouncil/sanctions/information, https://sanctionsmap.eu

18/06/18 7/10/15 (a)

25/03/15

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes Yes

Cabo Verde

Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Comoros Congo

23/09/16

Yes

Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi

11/7/2016 7/6/19 (a) 6/3/2014

Yes

Yes

Yes

Signatory

Signatories

6/10/06 (a)

15/05/02 24/05/12 (a) 15/07/04 (a)

Ratified/ Acceded (a) 25/08/04 (a) 19/09/14 (a) 30/08/04

(as of 26 September 2018)

(as of 6 December 2018)

Ratification/ Accession (a)

UN Firearms Protocol

Arms Trade Treaty

Angola

Algeria

States

R

0

SADC Protocol on the control of firearms, ammunition and other related materials

R

R

R

ECOWAS Convention on SALW, their ammunition and other related materials

Relevant Regional Treaties

S

Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa

R

R

R R

0

R

Kinshasa Convention on the control of SALW, their ammunition and parts and components

Table 7.5 African states’ membership of the Arms Trade Treaty, UN Firearms Protocol and regional treaties on arms transfer controls, August 2020

224 B. Wood and P. Danssaert

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Gabon

Gambia Ghana

Guinea Guinea-Bissau

Kenya

Yes

21/10/14 22/10/18

22/12/15

26/02/15

24/09/13 (a) 5/01/05 (a)

14/01/14 (a)

22/06/12 (a) 22/09/10 (a)

25/10/12 (a) 28/10/05 (a)

(as of 26 September 2018)

(as of 6 December 2018)

Yes

UN Firearms Protocol

Arms Trade Treaty

Djibouti Egypt Eq. Guinea Eritrea Ethiopia

DR Congo

Côte d’Ivoire

States

S

SADC Protocol on the control of firearms, ammunition and other related materials

R R

R R

R

ECOWAS Convention on SALW, their ammunition and other related materials

Relevant Regional Treaties

S

S S

S

S

Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa

(continued)

A

R

0

Kinshasa Convention on the control of SALW, their ammunition and parts and components

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Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Libya Madagascar Malawi

Maldives Mali Mauritania

Yes

Yes Yes Yes

Mozambique

Namibia Niger Nigeria

Morocco

Mauritius

Yes

Liberia

4/28/2020 24/07/15 8/12/2013

12/14/2018

23/07/15 (a)

27/09/19 (a) 12/3/2013 23/09/15

22/09/16

21/04/15

25/01/16

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

3/3/2006

5/3/2002 22/07/05 (a) 24/09/03 (a) 08/04/09 (a) 20/09/06 (a)

24/09/03 (a) 22/09/04 (a) 18/06/04 15/09/05 17/03/05 (a)

(as of 26 September 2018)

(as of 6 December 2018)

Yes

UN Firearms Protocol

Arms Trade Treaty

Lesotho

States

Table 7.5 (continued)

R

R

R

R

R

SADC Protocol on the control of firearms, ammunition and other related materials

R R

R

R

ECOWAS Convention on SALW, their ammunition and other related materials

Relevant Regional Treaties Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa

Kinshasa Convention on the control of SALW, their ammunition and parts and components

226 B. Wood and P. Danssaert

Un. Rep. Tanzania Zambia

Tunisia Uganda

Yes

Yes

5/20/2016

10/8/2015

22/12/14

Yes

Yes

25/09/14 11/2/2015 8/12/2014

Yes Yes Yes

Swaziland Togo

7/28/2020

Yes

Sao Tomé & Principe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes Yes

17/07/12 (a) 4/10/2008 9/03/05 (a) 24/05/06 (a) 24/04/05 (a)

4/10/18 (a)

20/02/04

8/12/2014

4/10/06 (a) 12/04/06 (a) 4/7/2006

(as of 26 September 2018)

(as of 6 December 2018)

Yes

UN Firearms Protocol

Arms Trade Treaty

Rwanda

States

R

R

S

R

0

SADC Protocol on the control of firearms, ammunition and other related materials

R

R

R

ECOWAS Convention on SALW, their ammunition and other related materials

Relevant Regional Treaties

S

S

S

S

S

Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa

(continued)

R

0

Kinshasa Convention on the control of SALW, their ammunition and parts and components

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(as of 26 September 2018)

(as of 6 December 2018)

Yes

UN Firearms Protocol

Arms Trade Treaty

S

SADC Protocol on the control of firearms, ammunition and other related materials

ECOWAS Convention on SALW, their ammunition and other related materials

Relevant Regional Treaties Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa

Kinshasa Convention on the control of SALW, their ammunition and parts and components

Sources ATT https://thearmstradetreaty.org/treaty-status.html?templateId=209883 http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/att Firearms Protocol https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/countrylist-firearmsprotocol.html https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XVIII-12-c&chapter=18&clang=_en SADC https://www.tralac.org/documents/resources/sadc/1296-status-of-sadc-treaty-and-protocols-in-force-revised-13-august-2010. html https://www.sadc.int/index.php/download_file/view/1836/681 and https://www.sadc.int/files/6314/9727/7686/SADC_SYB_ 2015_Print_Version_final.pdf Kinshasa Convention http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/kinshasa Nairobi Protocol https://recsasec.org/2018/08/16/nairobi-protocol-for-the-prevention-control-and-reduction-of-small-arms-and-light-wea pons-in-the-great-lakes-region-the-horn-of-africa-and-bordering-states/ ECOWAS Convention https://www.unrec.org/docs/harm/ECOWAS/In%2520brief_ECOWAS%2520Convention.pdf

Zimbabwe

States

Table 7.5 (continued)

228 B. Wood and P. Danssaert

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References Case Law Case CCT 177/17 in the matter between the Minister of Safety and Security (Applicant) and South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association (Respondent) and Fidelity Security Services (PTY) Limited (First Amicus) and Gun Free South Africa (NPO) (Second Amicus), Constitutional Court of South Africa, Judgement, (7 February 2018).

Books and Articles Adams, C.N. and Cudjoe, J.N. 2017. 2.3 m Illicit Arms in Private Hands. The Ghanaian Times, June 13, 2017. Africa Center for Strategic Studies. 2015. Corruption: A Major Threat to Military Effectiveness. Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 8 September 2015. https://africacenter.org/spotlight/corruption-a-major-threat-to-mil itary-effectiveness/. Last accessed 13 May 2020. African Union. 2016. Master Roadmap of Practical Steps to Silence the Guns in Africa by Year 2020: Lusaka Master Road Map. Addis Ababa: African Union. Ahmed, B. 2018. Mali: le difficile processus de désarmement dans le Centre, confronté à la présence de jihadistes. Jeune Afrique, 28 December 2018. Alemika, E.E.O., M. Ruteere, and S. Howell (eds.). 2018. Policing Reform in Africa. Moving Towards a Rights-Based Approach in a Climate of Terrorism, Insurgency and Serious Violent Crime. Cape Town: African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum. Allison, S. 2020. Conflict is Still Africa’s Biggest Challenge in 2020, ISS Today, 6 January 2020. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/conflict-is-still-africas-biggestchallenge-in-2020. Last accessed 11 May 2020. Amnesty International. 2002. Policing to Protect Human Rights. A Survey of Police Practice in Countries of the Southern African Development Community, 1997–2002. AI Index number: AFR 03/004/2002. London: Amnesty International. Amnesty International. 2005. DRC—Arming the East. AI Index Number: AFR 62/006/2005. London: Amnesty International.

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Gumedze, S. (ed.). 2008. The Private Security Sector in Africa. Country Series. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies. Gun Free South Africa. 2017a. Protecting Children from Armed Violence. Firearms Control Briefing No 5. (8 June 2017). Gun Free South Africa. 2017b. Scrap the Surplus! July 9 International Gun Destruction Day. Gun Free South Africa, 9 July 2017. Holtom, P., and B.H. Yeger. 2018. Implementing the Programme of Action and the International Tracing Instrument—An Assessment of National Reports. Geneva: Small Arms Survey. Humphries, M., J. Sachs, and J. Stiglitz (eds.). 2007. Escaping the Resource Curse. NYC: Colombia University Press. IISS. 2016. Armed Conflict Survey. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies. Institute for Peace and Security Studies. 2020a. Cameroon: Conflict Insight. Addis Ababa University. Institute for Peace and Security Studies. 2020b. Mozambique: Conflict Insight. Addis Ababa University. International Peace Information Service. 2018. Central African Republic: A Conflict Mapping. Antwerp: International Peace Information Service (IPIS) vzw. International Peace Information Service/Omega Research Foundation. 2018. Defence-Related Companies in Africa. https://ipisresearch.be/publication/ arms-and-ammunitions-factories-in-africa/, updated 1 January 2020. Last visited 11 May 2020. Jaillon, A., Matthysen, K., Hoex, L. and Weyns, Y. 2016. Analysis of the Interactive Map of Artisinal Mining Areas in Eastern DR Congo—2015 update. Antwerp: International Peace Information Service (IPIS) vzw. Jeune Afrique. 2018a. Tchad: Affrontements dans le Tibesti entre l’armée et des présumés “terroristes”. Jeune Afrique, 25 October 2018. Jeune Afrique. 2018b. Mali: le gouvernement annonce des renforts et un processus de désarmement dans le centre. Jeune Afrique, 23 December 2018. Karp, A. 2018. Estimating Global Law Enforcement Firearms Numbers. Geneva: Small Arms Survey. Keili, F.L. 2008. Small Arms and Light Weapons TRANSFER in West Africa: A Stock Taking. Disarmament Forum: No. 4. Kleinfeld, R. 2017. Reducing All Violent Deaths, Everywhere: Why the Data Must Improve. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2017.

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Lamb, G. 2020. Getting Away with Murder—South Africa Firearms Crime, Africa in Fact, Issue 52, March. https://gga.org/author/guy-lamb/. Falode, A.J. 2020. Small Arms and Light Weapons and Transnational Crime in Africa, Vestnik RUDN. International Relations 20 (1) (http://journals. rudn.ru/international-relations). Furley, O. and May, R., (Eds.). 2006. Ending Africa’s Wars: Progressing to Peace. Farnham: Ashgate. Langa, M., and B. Bowman. 2017. The Drivers of Violence in South Africa: Current Knowledge. Community-Level Differences and New Possibilities for Advancing Violence Prevention Scholarship Johannesburg: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Mzantsi, S. 2016. Former Top Cop gets 18 years for Illegal Gun Trade. Cape Times, 21 June 2016. Martin, C., Thiart, G., McCollum, G., Roche, S., and Maqungo, S. 2017. Burden of Gunshot Injuries on Orthopaedic Resources. South African Medical Journal 107 (7). Matthysen, K., Finardi, S., Johnson-Thomas, B. and Danssaert, P. 2010. The Karamoja Cluster of Eastern Africa: Arms Transfers and their Repercussions on Communal Security Perceptions. Antwerp: International Peace Information Service (IPIS) vzw. Muggah, R. and Sang, F. 2013. The Enemy Within: Rethinking Arms Availability in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conflict, Security and Development 13 (4). Murairi, J., Schouten, P. and Kubuya, S. 2017. Everything That Moves Will Be Taxed: The Political Economy of Roadblocks in North and South Kivu. Antwerp: International Peace Information Service (IPIS) vzw. Nasong’o, W.S. (Ed.) 2015. The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Africa. From Grievance to Violence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. OECD. 2019. Revenue Statistics in Africa 1990–2017 . Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. 2020. The Geography of Conflict in North and West Africa. Paris: OECD Publishing. Petersen, T. 2016. Ex-Cop gets 18 years for Stealing, Reselling Guns to Cape Gangsters. News24, 21 June 2016. Pettersson, T., Högbladh, S., and Öberg, M. 2019. Organized Violence, 1989– 2018 and Peace Agreements. Journal of Peace Research 56 (4). Pokoo, J.M., and K.A. Thomas Jaye. 2014. Report on SALW Baseline Study on Ghana. Accra: Ghana National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons.

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Pottier, J. 2010. Representations of Ethnicity in the Search for Peace: Ituri, 434. African Affairs, No: Democratic Republic of Congo. Pyman, M. 2014. Corruption as a Threat to Stability and Peace. Berlin: Transparency International Deutschland. Reyntjens, F. 2009. The Great African War. Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996–2006 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roth, A. 2019. Central African Republic considers hosting Russian Military Base. The Guardian UK, 25 October 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2019/oct/25/central-african-republic-russia-military-base?CMP= Share_iOSApp_Other. Sachs, J.D., and Warner, A.M. 2001. The Curse of Natural Resources. European Economic Review 45 (4–6). Small Arms Survey and African Union. 2018. Country Responses to the Questionnaire on Mapping Illicit Arms Flows in Africa. Sollazzo, R. 2018. L’or à la croisée des chemins : Etude d’évaluation des chaînes d’approvisionnement en or produit au Burkina Faso, au Mali et au Niger. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. South African Police Service. 2015. Presentation by the National Commissioner Gen. R. Phiyega to the Portfolio Committee on Police, National Firearms Summit, 24–25 March 2015. South African Police Service. 2020. Annual Report 2019/2020. Pretoria. ISBN: 978-0-621-48625-4 Spittaels, S. and Hilgert, F. 2008. Mapping Conflict Motives: Eastern DRC . Antwerp: International Peace Information Service (IPIS) vzw. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). 2020. SIPRI Yearbook 2020. Stockholm: SIPRI. Straus, S. 2012. Wars Do End! Changing Patterns of Political Violence in SubSaharan Africa. African Affairs, 111/44. Thamm, M. 2016. When Hell is Not Enough: A Top Cop Who Supplied Weapons to Country’s Gangsters and Right Wingers. Daily Maverick, 4 July 2016. Transparency International. 2020. CPI 2019: Sub-Saharan Africa. Transparency International, 23 January 2020. https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/ cpi_2019_sub_saharan_africa. Last accessed 13 May 2020. Trefon, T. 2011. Congo Masquerade. The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure. London: Zed Books. United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCTC). 2020. UN Launches New Project to Address Link between Terrorism, Arms and Crime. Border Security Report, 27 February 2020. https://border-security-report.com/un-

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launches-new-project-to-address-link-between-terrorism-arms-and-crime/. Last accessed 10 May 2020. United Nations Department of Peace Operations (UNDPO). n.d. Where We Operate. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2017. Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment. New York: United Nations. United Nations Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration Resource Centre (UNDDRRC). n.d. What is DDR and How has it Evolved? https:// www.unddr.org/what-is-ddr/how-has-ddr-evolved_3.aspx. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). 2001a. Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition. UN Document A/Res/55/255. New York: United Nations. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). 2001b. Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. UN Document A/CONF.192/15 of 20 July 2001. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). 2017a. Strengthening End Use/r Control Systems to Prevent Arms Diversion: Examining Common Regional Understanding. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). 2017b. Towards a National Framework for Arms and Ammunition Management in the Federal Republic of Somalia: A Narrative Report 2014–2017 . Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). 2019. The Role of Weapon and Ammunition Management in Preventing Conflict and Supporting Security Transitions. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). 2020. The Arms Trade Treaty: Measures to Prevent, Detect, Address and Eradicate the Diversion of Conventional Arms. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). 2016. Human Rights and the Regulation of Civilian Acquisition, Possession and Use of Firearms. UN Document A/HRC/32/21. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). 2017. Impact of Arms Transfers on the Enjoyment of Human Rights. UN Document A/HRC/35/8. Geneva: United Nations. United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA). n.d. Programme of Action on Small Arms and Its International Tracing Instrument, National Reports. https://smallarms.un-arm.org/national-reports.

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United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (2012). Transnational Crime in West Africa. Vienna: United Nations. https://www.unodc.org/doc uments/toc/Reports/TOCTAWestAfrica/West_Africa_TOC_FIREARMS. pdf. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (2019a). Firearms Module 4. The Illicit Market in Firearms. Vienna: United Nations. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). 2019b. Global Study on Homicide 2019: Executive Summary. Vienna: United Nations. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (n.d.). Data for Africa—Programme Description. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-andanalysis/Data-for-Africa-description.html. United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG). 2017. Report of the SecretaryGeneral on the Joint Force of the Group of Five for the Sahel. UN Document S/2017/869. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2008. Letter dated 10 December 2008 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2008/773. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2009. Letter dated 23 November 2009 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2009/603. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2011. Letter dated 29 November 2011 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2011/738. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2012. Letter dated 12 November 2012 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2012/843. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2014a. Letter dated 22 January 2014 from the Coordinator of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2014/42. New York: United Nations.

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United Nations Security Council (UNSC). (2014b). Letter dated 15 February 2014 from the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2014/106. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2014c. Resolution 2142 of 5 March 2014. UN Document S/RES/2142 (2014). New York: United Nations. [On the Partial Suspension of the Arms Embargo on Somalia Until 25 October 2014.]. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2014d. Letter dated 10 October 2014 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 751 (1992) and 1907 (2009) concerning Somalia and Eritrea addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2014/726. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2016. Letter dated 4 March 2016 from the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2016/209. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2017a. Letter dated 8 August 2017 from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo extended pursuant to Security Council resolution 2293 (2016) addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2017/672/Rev.1. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2017b. Letter dated 22 December 2017 from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. S/2017/1091. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2018a. Letter dated 20 May 2018 from the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2018/531. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2018b. Letter dated 5 September 2018 from the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2018/812. New York: United Nations. United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2018c. Letter dated 7 November 2018 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions 751 (1992) and 1907 (2009) concerning Somalia and Eritrea addressed to the President of the Security Council. UN Document S/2018/1002. New York: United Nations.

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8 Small Arms Proliferation Challenges and Solutions in South and Southeast Asia Michael Picard

8.1

Introduction

This chapter examines the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW)1 in South2 and Southeast3 Asia. The region is marked by a tremendous diversity of governance systems and security challenges. It experiences high levels of armed violence, from internal conflicts to crime-related violence. The Small Arms Survey estimates that in 2017 there were roughly 160 million firearms in both civilian and government hands in South and Southeast Asia; 71% of these, or 115 million M. Picard (B) GunPolicy.Org, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia e-mail: [email protected] 1This chapter uses the terms ‘SALW,’ ‘small arms,’ and ‘firearms’ interchangeably unless a distinction is mentioned in the text. 2 South Asia is defined here as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. 3 Southeast Asia is defined here as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_8

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firearms, are thought to be unregistered, presumably illicit firearms (Karp 2018). Though the exact quantity is impossible to know for certain, this composition demonstrates the extent to which illicit small arms have proliferated throughout the regions. Identifying how, why, and where proliferation takes place, and suggesting reasonable solutions to these dynamics, is the primary aim of this chapter. This chapter is by no means exhaustive in its review; it focuses on regional commonalities, which are ample and merit comparison and discussion. This chapter draws upon a diversity of sources in order to provide a scoping of small arms challenges within these regions. This primarily entails a synthesis of open-source research from academic and official reports and publications, regional news coverage, and social media-based evidence of small arms proliferation. It is further supplemented by experiences and discussions held with critical regional stakeholders, as well as author observations. It should be noted that there is a pronounced gap in research regarding regional small arms challenges in recent years. While other regions—such as North America, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa—have seen a considerable amount of attention committed to this area, such attention has been lacking in South and Southeast Asia.4 Thus, this chapter hopes to bring awareness to this shortage and demonstrate the need for renewed attention to these regions.

8.2

Regional Context of Armed Violence

The small arms challenges faced by South and Southeast Asia are driven by aspects of human and physical geography, an ongoing history of subnational violence, as well as emergent transnational security threats. From these aspects, the key proliferation trends and current diffusion of illicit small arms can be explained.

4 Despite

the occasional dissertation, Southeast Asia, for instance, has not seen an official regional examination of small arms control and proliferation since the early 2000s. While some programs and studies that are national in scope have taken place, they are nevertheless few and far between.

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The proliferation of illicit small arms in South and Southeast Asia must be prefaced with an understanding of the region’s human and natural geography and the security challenges inherent in them, namely, porous borders, international trade flows, and limited state capacities. South and Southeast Asia entail about 116,000 km of coastline, and many of the terrestrial borders are characterized by rugged terrain and rurality (CIA 2019). These areas are often inhabited by transnational ethnic minorities, such as the Karen in Thailand/Myanmar, or the Pashtuns and Baloch in Pakistan/Afghanistan. Such communities remain interconnected and can facilitate an ant trade of firearms and other illicit goods (Wall 2006; UNODC 2019). For a well-documented example of this, refer to Lekh Nath Paudel’s (2014) study of smuggling routes in Eastern Nepal. Regional trade volumes further complicate states’ abilities to secure their borders from various forms of illicit trafficking (UNODC 2019). Owing to the maritime geography of these regions, commodities flowing from east to west and vice versa are obliged to pass through local corridors like the South China Sea, the Malacca Straight, and the Bay of Bengal. Singapore alone processed over 37 million shipping containers in 2019 (over 100,000 per day) (Singapore 2020). Only a fraction of this volume receives inspection, which is expounded by the fact that transit countries look to attract shipping traffic (and the revenue it generates) by reducing and limiting their customs control measures.5 Finally, these challenging geographies are policed by border protection forces with limited means and resources. The Philippine Coast Guards, for example, is responsible for policing over 2,000,000 square kilometers of maritime territory, over 36,000 km of coastline, and more than 7,600 islands with a coast guard force of only 60–70 actively patrolling vessels (Tarriela 2017, 2019). Essentially every country with maritime boundaries from Pakistan to Indonesia faces similar challenges.

5 Conversations

between the author and Malaysian government official. Author interview held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 8 March 2019.

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8.2.1 Subnational Armed Conflicts Within this geographic context, a wide range of armed conflicts and transnational security threats are sustained. Extensive literature has been devoted to subnational conflicts, which largely define the landscape of illicit arms flows in South and Southeast Asia (Austero and Gorospe 2019). Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand all still experience significant intranational conflicts. This subsection gives a brief summary of recent and ongoing armed conflicts as reference points to the major concentrations of illicit small arms in these regions. Afghanistan remains South Asia’s most well-known and volatile conflict. Uppsala University estimates over 150,000 people have been killed between 2001 and 2018 (UCDP 2020). Of this, a UN monitor indicates there have been more than 35,000 civilians deaths since it started collecting data in 2009 (UN 2020). More than 20 ‘terrorist and insurgent groups’ have been identified as active combatants against the Afghan, United States, and Coalition forces (USG 2019). This includes well-known organizations such as the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, ISIS-K, and Al-Qa’ida, and networks that operate freely between and across the Pakistan–Afghanistan border (USG 2019). After 18 years of conflict and instability, the Afghan and US Governments have taken steps in 2019 and 2020 towards peace talks with the Taliban (Marcus 2020), but a permanent peaceful solution remains elusive. Afghanistan’s fluid border with Pakistan has had a profound impact on Pakistan’s security since before independence in 1947. The international border between the two countries—the Durand Line—was established by the British colonial administration in 1893 (though successive Afghan governments have refused to acknowledge it). The line divided ethnic Pashtun and Baloch communities living on both sides, ensuring a soft border (Bajoria 2007). This fluidity sustains illicit flows of goods and people and frustrates efforts to uproot non-state armed groups (NSAGs) in both Pakistan and Afghanistan (Hussain et al. 2014). Pakistan’s experience of insecurity can be categorized in two ways— tensions emanating from a strained center-periphery relationship (Wright Jr. 1991), and the tensions between moderate and conservative

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religious interpretations on governance and society (Nazar 2016). The lack of democratic control over the Pakistani Armed Forces also plays a significant role. Direct conflict between the Pakistani security forces and various NSAGs has resulted in over 62,000 fatalities between 2001 and 2016 (Crawford 2016). More than 30 distinct anti-government NSAGs, including those with extremist ideologies, have been active since 2001 (CEP 2020). Despite being tasked to root out extremist organizations, Pakistan’s intelligence agency—the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI)—has frequently provided training, finances, and arms to terrorist organizations active in Afghanistan and India (CEP 2020). India has dealt with a string of separatist insurgencies in the periphery states of the country since independence in 1947, the most well-known case being Jammu and Kashmir. At the time of independence, the Hindu ruler of Jammu and Kashmir chose to join India, despite the state being predominantly Muslim. Pakistan did not accept the decision, and the two countries have since fought three wars, and narrowly averted open conflict on numerous occasions. The simmering tension punctuates every aspect of bilateral relations. Since the 1980s, the region experiences sporadic but fierce outbreaks of armed violence. NSAGs demanding independence have launched numerous attacks and sustain low-level insurgencies (Miglani 2001). The Indian Armed Forces often reply with overwhelming force, leading to allegations of human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law (Ganguly 2018). The Northeastern states of India bordering Myanmar have also experienced a number of insurgencies since 1947. As noted by the IISS, ‘The Naga insurgency, which spans the Indian states of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as the upper Sagaing region of Myanmar, has long been considered the “mother” of insurgencies in the region due to its military and political strength’ (IISS 2019). More than 21,000 people are estimated to have lost their lives in this conflict, of which almost half (10,000) are civilians (SATP 2019). In terms of lives lost and ongoing violence, the patchwork of ethnic conflicts in Myanmar are collectively the most prominent in Southeast Asia. Since the country’s independence in 1948, it has been beset by a multitude of armed struggles which, today, all essentially relate

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to the governance of ethnic minority groups by the Burmese government. Accounting the death toll of these fluid, multi-layered, and poorly documented conflicts is difficult, though it is fair to say that tens of thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced (TAF 2017). At present, there are at least 21 active ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) fighting the government in the rural periphery of the country. An uneven peace process has been deadlocked for several years and warring parties continue to unleash violent offensives against each other (ICG 2019b). Subnational violence in the Philippines can either be linked to the communist insurgency throughout the country’s hinterlands or to the Bangsamoro struggle for autonomy in Mindanao. Fighting between the Philippine Government and the communist New People’s Army (NPA) is largely rooted in indigenous and rural grievances over land rights and marginalization (Gonzaga 2019). Essentially every corner of the country is affected by this conflict, which has killed tens of thousands in its nearly 5 decades of existence (Ramos 2011). Current peace efforts appear stagnant as violence and antagonistic rhetoric are resilient (Sadongdong 2020). The Bangsamoro conflict, on the other hand, is amid a peace process that has conferred the Bangsamoro greater self-rule and has brought violent incidents to an encouraging low (International Alert 2019). This conflict is rooted deep in the territory’s colonial history dating back to the Spanish presence. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is the most prominent armed group in the Bangsamoro, though the peace process has ushered it into a phase of military decommissioning. However, smaller, more radical armed groups, such as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), remain committed to armed struggle, and underlying inter-clan violence is a pervasive conflict-driver (Adam 2018). In Thailand’s Deep South, a comparable conflict between the Muslim Malay minority and the Buddhist Thai government has claimed over 7,000 lives since 2004 (DSW 2020). While the rate of violence has declined in recent years, violent incidents are recurrent. November 2019 saw the conflict’s most violent incident yet in which 15 governmentaligned defence volunteers were killed in a sophisticated attack led

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by Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), indicating that a stagnant peace process could lead to renewed violence (Wheeler 2019). Finally, Indonesian Papua is home to a resilient separatist conflict pitting indigenous islanders against the government. Though the armed component of this conflict is relatively minor, a loose coalition of independence groups wage guerrilla raids on government-backed infrastructure projects (Firdaus and Mayberry 2019). The conflict is rooted in identity clashes and resource access, though it is amplified by government indifference to local attitudes, migration, poor governance, and rights abuses by the state (Jones 2019). Underlying this, non-conflict violence in Papua is higher than anywhere else in Indonesia (Austero and Gorospe 2019: 48).

8.2.2 Transnational Threats South Asia as a region has suffered extensively from terrorist activity. From the Taliban and Al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the myriad of terrorist factions in Jammu and Kashmir, to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, and the low-intensity rebellion currently being waged by Maoist rebels in Central India, the subregion has been at the heart of counter-insurgency and counter-extremist operations for decades. Transnational terrorist entities have exacerbated a number of crises in the past 20 years. The Swat Valley offensive by the Taliban in Pakistan led to an estimated two million people displaced from their homes in 2009 (NRC/IDMC 2010). The two-and-a-half decade long insurgency by the LTTE in Sri Lanka claimed more than 100,000 lives (Al Jazeera 2013). More than 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Kashmir since the terrorist attacks and insurgency began in 1989 (Lancet 2019). Terrorism is a persistent background threat in Southeast Asia since the late 90s that occasionally boils to the surface (Chalk 2001). While analysts cite the religious dimensions of the region’s ethnic conflicts as grounds for international jihadism to take root, these concerns are often overstated (ICG 2017). Nevertheless, prominent bouts of jihadist violence have taken place in the Southern Philippines, Indonesia, and

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Malaysia, often embedded within broader subnational conflicts. In this context, several transnational groups draw on recruits from these countries and farther afield to facilitate indiscriminate attacks on civilians and government. Most infamously, 2017 saw the Battle of Marawi in which a mix of local armed groups aligned with the Islamic State (IS) seized the city of Marawi—the historical and cultural capital of the Bangsamoro. The resulting battle lasted five months, killed over a thousand combatants and civilians, and left Marawi uninhabitable due to the proliferation of unexploded ordnance (ICG 2019a). A patchwork of regional jihadist groups—such as Abu Sayyaf Group, Jemaah Islamiyah, and Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, to name a few—continue to carry out a steady stream of kidnappings, bombings, and violent attacks throughout the region.6 Finally, organized criminal groups play a major role in facilitating regional smuggling networks for illicit goods that extend far beyond small arms. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently noted that transnational criminal networks in Southeast Asia have flourished due to the region’s rapid development, increased trade flows, and expanded access to the internet (UNODC 2019). While this study did not explore the firearm aspect of criminal trafficking networks, it did acknowledge the overlapping nature of gun smuggling with other forms of trafficking (ibid., p. 169).

8.2.3 Origins of Illicit Small Arms These conflicts and security challenges act as gravity wells for illicit small arms and drive their proliferation throughout the region. The sources of such weapons include legacy stockpiles from other conflicts, leakages from state armouries, diverted imports, and in some cases, local production. Much of the older literature on small arms sources for subnational armed conflicts in Southeast Asia is relevant today (for a comprehensive scoping, see Koorey 2008). For the enduring conflicts in the region, 6 For

recent examples in the news, refer to Fonbuena (2019), Gotinga (2019), and Chan (2018).

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most weapons used by NSAGs appear to be sourced internally—either through battlefield captures, diversions, and transactions between actors, and craft production. The external sourcing of small arms is rare, though present. In low-intensity conflicts, armed groups are somewhat able to maintain their inventories through a small trickle of battle-captured arms. In Thailand’s Deep South and Indonesian West Papua, raids on government forces and aligned paramilitaries often see arms looted from the battle site (Smith 2019; Wheeler 2019). NSAGs in Myanmar also boast an array of regime-produced weapons, and seizures are often publicized on their official information outlets (Vining 2019).7 Diversion from state stockpiles by financial or bilateral arrangement appears to be the most prominent source. The weapons employed by NSAGs in the Philippines’ Bangsamoro and throughout the country match those used by government forces. There are numerous testimonies that these weapons are bought directly from corrupt officials (Yabes 2019; Elemia 2018; Talabong 2018; Koorey 2008: 183). In Myanmar, there are reports that Tatmadaw (Burmese military) sources have sold arms and ammunition to Karen fighters.8 A string of high-profile disappearances from state inventories in Thailand throughout the 2000s also indicates the prevalence of this issue (Nanuam 2010). In recent times, the US and coalition forces in Afghanistan took on the task of re-arming the Afghan National Army and other security forces. In one instance, some 242,000 weapons were transferred to the Afghan government between 2004 and 2008. In a surprising admission, in June 2008, the US Government Accountability Office admitted it ‘did not maintain a complete inventory on more than a third of those weapons’ (CBS 2009). Moreover, investigative journalists were able to track the provenance of weapons and ammunition used by Taliban insurgents, and found that ‘of 30 rifle magazines…recovered [from the battlefield], at

7 For

example, the Arakan Army recently publicized a battlefield seizure in late December 2019 through both its official press website and its official page on the VK social network (AA 2019). 8 Conversations between the author and humanitarian volunteers working with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA). Author interviews held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 8 October 2019.

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least 17 contained cartridges…identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces’ (Chivers 2009). Several armed groups utilize craft-produced weaponry and maintain limited production capacities, though this is limited. Several groups9 in Myanmar have production capacities ranging from craft-shop artisanry to semi-industrial facilities that produce an array of weapons (Vining 2019).10 The production capacity of the MILF has been documented by Capie (2004), Davis (2003), and Makinano and Lubang (2001), though the current status of this capacity is unknown. Craft production is also prolific in the civilian sphere for non-conflict uses, as seizure and destruction efforts throughout the region show.11 External suppliers of weaponry to these conflicts have diminished since the early 2000s, yet there is some evidence that this continues. In Myanmar, the Arakan Army has exhibited small arms in propaganda videos that no other armed actor in the country possesses, indicating an external supply source possibly linked to a diaspora community.12 The relationship between the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and China has long been documented; a military parade with Chinese arms on prominent display indicates this relationship continues (Davis 2019a). Legal importation processes can also be manipulated to source external arms. In the Philippines, the NPA was able to extort a prominent local business owner into ordering 1,000 AK-pattern rifles from China on their behalf (Cupin 2014). The LTTE in Sri Lanka was particularly adept at sourcing weapons externally—‘from dealers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Lebanon, and Cyprus; from corrupt military officers in Thailand and Burma, and directly from governments, including those of Ukraine, Bulgaria, and North Korea’ (Bonner 1998). Assault rifles, pistols, rocket-propelled 9 For

instance, the KNLA, the UWSA, and the Kachin Independence Army exhibit varying levels of indigenous production (Vining 2019). 10 Document in possession of author. 11This is based on the unpublished research of the author—for demonstrative instances in Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, refer to Gutierrez (2019), Laohong (2018), and Manh (2018). 12 For instance, a video released in April 2018 commemorating the 9th year since the Arakan Army’s founding features a Barrett MRAD—a high-end, modern sniper rifle unseen in other ethnic or government arsenals (Rakharazu Media 2018).

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grenades, and surface-to-air missiles were purchased from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Afghanistan; ammunition, including mortar, artillery, and heavy machine gun rounds were purchased from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and North Korea; and explosives were purchased from Ukraine and Croatia (Byman et al. 2001). Furthermore, there is evidence that NSAGs arm each other. The arsenals of EAOs in North Eastern India are supplied by the UWSA of Myanmar, itself an EAO with strong ties to China (Goswami 2013). The UWSA appears to have developed a robust production capacity, with enough output to push Thai and Cambodian sources out of the picture (Ibid).

8.2.4 Civilian Firearms and Illicit Proliferation Given the challenges of controlling licit, government-owned SALW in South Asia, data on civilian firearm possession—which is authorized through licensing in all South Asian countries—is by extension patchy and outdated. Researchers must rely on rough estimates when gauging the number of illicit civilian firearms. Regardless, such estimates indicate that most civilian firearm ownership in South Asia is unregistered and therefore illicit. According to the Small Arms Survey, some 4.2 million firearms are privately owned (both legally and illegally) in Afghanistan in 2017 (Karp 2018). In Pakistan, some 43 million firearms are owned privately, of which only 6 million are registered. It is also worth noting that prominent craft industries exist in Pakistan and India, though reliable data on this is limited. The last assessment conducted in Pakistan was in 2001, with a conservative indication of 20,000 units produced annually (SAS 2003). In India, some 70 million firearms are said to be in civilian possession—of which less than 14% are properly registered (9.7 million). As armed conflicts in Southeast Asia become less prominent, one must also look to proliferating small arms in the non-conflict civilian sphere. The region generally has very strict approaches to gun control:

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only Philippines and Thailand13 have notable legal civilian stockpiles; in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore licensed firearms are notoriously hard to obtain; in Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, they are outright forbidden (Alpers and Picard 2020). Large civilian stockpiles multiply the opportunities for small arms to proliferate illicitly, as experiences in Thailand and Philippines have shown. The role of licensed vendors in selling firearms on the black market as a means of circumventing imposed sales quotas is documented by Capie (2004: 198). In the Philippines, small arms are directly siphoned into the black market at import (Quitoriano 2016: 92–93). This stems from the exploitation of loopholes by licensed importers in the import verification process, which is shared between different state authorities. Technical smuggling is also an issue, in which illegal importers intentionally misdeclare consignments of small arms to avoid inspection, registration, and tariffs (Quitoriano 2016: 92–93). Finally, no author has paid attention to the emerging online component of the illicit firearms market. In Thailand and elsewhere in the region, social media platforms—such as Line, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—are used to illegally advertise and sell firearms, as well as disseminate information concerning their conversion and manufacture.14 Local and national law enforcement agencies are struggling to respond as they are unsure about how best to police this sphere (Ngankham 2014). This emerging means of trafficking has the potential to transform and expand the illicit market for firearms (and other contraband) by connecting illegal manufacturers, sellers, instructors, and buyers through more recognizable and accessible forums, and could have a resulting impact on the proliferation of illicit weapons and armed violence. It also presents researchers with a rare opportunity to study the composition and trends of a sizable illicit stockpile in an emerging economy in a relatively safe and quantitative manner.

13 Philippines has around 1.9 million registered civilian firearms, while Thailand has around 6 million (Alpers and Picard 2020). 14 Documents in possession of the author.

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Key Issues in Arms Control

Persistent and ubiquitous weaknesses in arms governance contribute to the proliferation of illicit small arms across South and Southeast Asia. This subsection identifies three interlocking issues that, if addressed, would greatly bolster regional internal security and expand local abilities to combat and reduce the proliferation of illicit small arms. These issues are the diversion of state small arms, inconsistent data collection mechanisms, and a lack of transparency and cooperation on security issues. As the capacities of states are expanded and their institutions are reformed and refined, government agencies would do well to address these issues through the recommendations posited in the final section of this chapter.

8.3.1 Diversions and Misuses of State Stockpiles Diversions, or ‘leakages,’ from state stockpiles have long been a prominent source for weapons used in conflict, terrorist, and criminal activities in the region and beyond. Several authors and news articles have shed light on the methods whereby NSAGs and traffickers acquire state weaponry in the Philippines (Elemia 2018; Davis 2003), Indonesia (Felongco 2014; ICG 2010), Thailand (Pongpao 2019; Ward 2017),15 Cambodia (Chheng 2018; Ward 2017; Koorey 2008: 151–155) and elsewhere. Convoluted security apparatuses render arms management frameworks vulnerable to compromise, from which corrupt practices and the misuse of state inventories can take place. Oversight mechanisms are insufficient, and this perpetuates the diversion of state small arms and exacerbates their impact even after diversion. Much of this is structural, as the arming of state-aligned paramilitaries and auxiliary forces in Thailand demonstrates. In the Deep South, security tasks have been outsourced to a mix of paramilitary Rangers, Territorial, and Village Defence Volunteers, who are cheaper to maintain than conventional police and military units in the face of waning violence (Davis 2019b). These auxiliaries, if not armed directly by the 15 Documents

in possession of the author.

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state, are given discounted access to weapons through ‘gun welfare’ programs (Ngankham 2012). By giving aligned non-state groups special access to weaponry that are not held to the same internal standards as central security forces, these weapons enter a dubious grey area in which they can enter the illicit sphere with greater ease. In 2011, for example, about 100 assault rifles disappeared from an auxiliary arsenal; the incident wasn’t discovered and reported until 2015 (Bangkok Post 2015). Another example of the structural nature of this phenomenon is in the Philippines, where local Philippines National Police (PNP) units are subordinated to local governments (i.e., mayorships) while also being part of a centralized national security force, creating competing chains of command (Oreta 2018). This gives mayors leverage over local police units which can in turn be used to enable political violence and extortion. This leverage also allows for politically aligned private armed groups to terrorize local populations with a degree of impunity, exacerbating political violence (Oreta 2018).16 Furthermore, the governance of national small arm industries and stockpiles by senior defence officials with inadequate oversight heightens the propensity for weapons to proliferate illicitly through corrupt dealings. Nearly every country in South and Southeast Asia has a state-run small arms production program, and these are typically managed by defence ministries (Picard et al. 2019). In Indonesia, Philippines, and elsewhere, it has been demonstrated that NSAGs can directly purchase small arms from state-owned manufacturers in deals facilitated through senior military officers or industry officials (Yabes 2019; Felongco 2014; Koorey 2008: 171; Kingsbury 2003: 209). While high-level corruption is a major concern, lower level security personnel are also liable to sell weaponry into the illicit domain; meagre incomes and special access to firearms account for this. In Indonesia, illegal craft producers have stated that police personnel will commission cheap replicas of their issued firearms so that they can sell the latter on 16The

issue of political violence is so pertinent, the PNP maintains a monitor list of mayors particularly disposed to this behavior (ABS-CBN 2019). In the 2019 national midterm elections, 73 people were killed in related violence. This is a decrease from 2016 in which 192 people were killed (Caliwan 2019).

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for a hefty profit (ICG 2010: 7). In Thailand, ‘gun welfare’ programs that offer security personnel firearms at discounted prices can be exploited by gun stores and program participants to sell cheap firearms onto the black market at a profit (Ngankham 2003).17

8.3.2 Data Collection Challenges While the diversion and misuse of state stockpiles actively contribute to the proliferation of illicit small arms in South and Southeast Asia, other issues passively enable its persistence. One of the prominent challenges across Southeast Asia is the collection and reporting of comprehensive, accurate statistics. Gaps in data systems greatly obscure official and academic understanding of where and how small arms proliferate and to what effect, inhibiting effective policymaking. As the two largest civilian stockpiles in Southeast Asia, Thailand and the Philippines demonstrate the challenges faced in recording and monitoring small arms in an integral manner. Geographically scattered and antiquated firearm registries prevent a nuanced, up-to-date understanding of the scope of national civilian stockpiles. Thailand is transitioning from a provincial paper-based registry to a centralized computer-based system. Managed exclusively by the Ministry of Interior, this process has taken at least a decade to implement, and is still incomplete due in part to the extensive task of digitally logging millions of paper records distributed throughout the country’s provincial administrations and integrating it with other data systems (Thailand 2008).18 Furthermore, the integration of data systems and standards involving interagency processes is a unique challenge that can directly allow for the diversion of small arms. Often, different agencies involved in the governance of small arms (police, military, customs, etc.) maintain different 17 Guns

being illegally marketed on social media platforms in Thailand often correspond to models commonly used by police (documents in possession of the author). 18 Conversations between the author and Thai security officials confirm work on the data system is ongoing, though it is presently functional. Author interviews held in Bangkok, Thailand, 6 August 2019.

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data collection systems with different methods for classifying a firearm. The importation of small arms in the Philippines, for example, is a process overseen by both the Bureau of Customs and the PNP. As noted by Quitoriano (2016: 92–93), differences in what is recorded in their respective systems afford traffickers an opportunity to divert imported firearms into the illicit sphere. Another data challenge lies in the wholesale bans on civilian firearm possession in several countries in South and Southeast Asia. While states should be free to pursue such policies, they are inherently self-impeding as they preclude the development of an effective data collection system. Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam all feature outright bans, yet civilian firearms continue to proliferate in substantial numbers (Alpers and Picard 2020). Without effective data collection and institutionalized methods for monitoring civilian possession, these countries are essentially blackholes for understanding the modern extent of small arms proliferation. Finally, data collection challenges also obscure understanding of the violent impacts of illicit small arms. Firearm violence and mortality outside of conflict zones is poorly documented throughout the region. National police forces, public health ministries, and statistics authorities are typically responsible for this task. In Thailand and Indonesia, public reports released by police authorities do not include a disaggregation of homicide statistics by firearm nor gender, thereby limiting a nuanced understanding of the violent impact of firearms (Indonesia 2019; RTP 2018). Additionally, homicide statistics conferred in Thai police reports are based on convictions, not victims, further obscuring the matter. Public health ministries and statistics authorities also struggle to collect and disseminate meaningful data. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) international system for documenting mortality (currently referred to as ICD-10)19 includes firearm-related causes of death and provides an insight to armed violence indicators not offered elsewhere, such as homicide and suicide by firearm, unintentional shootings, and gun deaths from legal intervention (WHO 2016). Yet South and 19 Short for the 10th Revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

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Southeast Asian countries included in this system20 are prone to underreporting. ICD-10 data from the Malaysian Ministry of Health, for instance, was vastly lower than data corresponding to identical violence indicators reported by UNODC (UNODC n.d.).21

8.3.3 Transparency Challenges Compounding the issue of reliable data collection is the atmosphere of secrecy and competition surrounding arms management within and between states in South and Southeast Asia. Intense national security sensitivities greatly limit the scope of both intra- and international cooperation on arms proliferation issues. Official data is often confined to the ministry or agency that holds it, so that even other government bodies are restricted from accessing it. At the regional level, effective cooperation is hampered by institutionalized non-interference principles as well as de facto interstate competitions and antagonisms. At the heart of this challenge is the absence or weakness of coordinating mechanisms that can (a) effectively facilitate interagency cooperation and (b) engage external expertise and perspectives that add value to arms control processes, whether from foreign governments, international organizations, or civil society. National agencies designated to lead efforts are often secretive internal security organizations,22 and regional reporting to international arms control mechanisms is limited.23 Even within government frameworks, access to information is restricted. In Thailand, for example, the Royal Thai Police are responsible for the collection and destruction of illicit small arms, even though licensing and registration is handled by the Ministry of Interior. Police are required 20This

includes Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. in possession of the author. 22 In all Southeast Asian countries, the legally-designated custodians of internal arms control processes are either defense ministries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar), police forces (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines), or public order/interior ministries (Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) (Alpers and Picard 2020). 23 In 2018, only 5 out of 10 ASEAN states (Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) submitted UN Programme of Action reports, up from 4 in 2016 (UNPoA n.d.). No ASEAN states have acceded or reported to the Arms Trade Treaty to date. 21 Document

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to submit requests for firearm licensing information to the Ministry during investigations, thereby impeding the speed and impact investigations can have. That collected small arms must be destroyed quickly to prevent diversion compounds the limits police have in investigating and identifying sources of illicit small arms.24 Regional dynamics in both South and Southeast Asia further impede the scope and effectiveness of cross-border cooperation. Within Southeast Asia, non-interference is one of the founding principles of the Association for Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN); while this is founded out of the need to prevent the kind of covert intervention that fuelled armed violence throughout the late twentieth century, this unfortunately limits prospects for bilateral or multilateral cooperation on arms control and border security (Stange and O’Rourke 2014). Ongoing national and transnational security concerns, and historical suspicion over neighbors, has helped create a situation in South Asia where cooperation on SALW issues is all but impossible. The influence of the bigger countries in South Asia has long shaped the security dynamic of the region, which has the unfortunate impact of dampening efforts to find collective arms control solutions.

8.4

Policy Solutions

8.4.1 The Big Picture This section will examine pragmatic technical solutions available to governments in addressing the diversion of SALW into the illicit domain and across borders. It must be noted that until overall demand for SALW is lowered, they will continue to proliferate illicitly in increasingly innovative and nefarious ways. In reducing such demand, the international community must address several systemic ‘big picture’ issues, which include, but are not limited to: 24 Conversations between the author and various Thai security and defense stakeholders attest to this. Author interviews held in Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, between 6 August and 20 September 2019.

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a. Meaningful peace processes: One of the best control initiatives to reduce the demand for SALW is to advance meaningful peace negotiations where subnational conflicts exist. By finding durable solutions to socio-political and economic grievances, all parties can focus on coordinating security and addressing the violent impacts of longterm instability that neither side desires (i.e., criminality, terrorism, civil instability, etc.). Consequently, demand for weaponry drops as all parties work toward maintaining a mutually beneficial security framework. This is easier said than done, given the tensions inherent to the decades-long armed struggles of South and Southeast Asia. Yet ongoing experiences in Indonesia’s Aceh, the Philippines’ Bangsamoro, and Nepal demonstrate that meaningful peace arrangements are attainable, and these can, in turn, serve as an impetus for successful disarmament campaigns by realigning the local security apparatus. b. Ensuring costed national security strategies: In many South and Southeast Asian countries, there is no national framework that coherently defines national security, nor prioritizes threats faced by the state. As such, arms procurement happens without an overarching policy framework, resulting in the stockpiling of excessive, ineffective, and expensive arsenals that are unsuitable owing to strategic and operational ambiguity. The process of defining and prioritizing national security threats is of crucial importance and can have positive impacts on managing SALW stockpiles and diversion risks. By defining a national security framework, governments can implement effective strategies and operations while ensuring that discussions on budget allocations and acquisitions are commensurate with actual security needs. This in turn will reduce excessive stockpiling, thereby reducing opportunities for the diversion of government assets. c. Improving civilian oversight: Governments in South and Southeast Asia have been slow to incorporate civilian oversight mechanisms which include (i) bringing national security expenditure into national budgeting systems (ii) parliamentary oversight and engagement on arms procurement and expenditure, and (iii) effective reporting. As noted above, costing out the requirements of a national security

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strategy will promote more effective arms procurement and management. It will also ensure that all national security expenditure is covered in the central budget, removing discretionary and unaccountable funding provisions for agencies in the security apparatus (Perlo-Freeman and Sköns 2016). Furthermore, ensuring that parliament plays an oversight role is critical to ensuring effective civilian control over the armed forces and bolstering democracy. This has proven difficult in Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand in particular (Trinkunas 1999). Systematic oversight will ensure accountability in arms procurement, which can quickly become excessive and run-away without proper scrutiny. Finally, ensuring effective recordkeeping and reporting processes is a cornerstone of oversight and accountability. Requiring national security agencies to collect data and submit periodic/annual reports on stockpiles, procurements, and modernization needs will further ensure that procured arms are safe from diversion, and commensurate with the operational needs. Effective reporting (and oversight in general) can also help root out corrupt practices in the arms procurement and management process, greatly reducing diversion risks.

8.4.2 Strengthening Internal Control of National Stockpiles A number of practical steps can be taken at the institutional level to ensure that SALW diversion is curbed from national stockpiles. This includes, but is not limited to: a. Establishing auditing bodies within institutions that produce, transfer, and keep arms: Mandating a body to enforce the accountability outlined above will have a positive impact on reducing SALW diversion. Empowering an internal auditing element within national security agencies will discourage low- and mid-level diversions of state stockpiles, while an independent civilian body at the national level can discourage large-scale diversions or inappropriate acquisitions. Periodic reporting up the chain of command and appropriate auditing

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mechanisms will also encourage better budget compliance at all levels. In Thailand, public scrutiny of the 2020 military budget’s proposed ‘Off Budget’ expenditure of 18.6 billion bhat (approximately USD5.9 million) is an encouraging sign of greater public scrutiny in the military budgeting process, and a promising step toward meaningful transparency (Bangkok Post 2019). b. Establishing a singular chain of command and reducing use of paramilitaries/auxiliaries for national security tasks: Delegating security bodies to multiple chains of command (see the case of the PNP in the Philippines outlined above) undermines their ability to carry out their mission faithfully and effectively as they are contradicted by competing command interests and are liable to be operationally compromised. Security units should answer to a singular, central chain of command so that their manpower—and weapons—cannot be utilized for unintended purposes. Furthermore, the incorporation of volunteer and private security forces into the state security apparatus creates diversion opportunities as such forces do not have the same training and protocols in accountability and stockpile management. Empowering such forces can also inflame conflicts by granting greater legitimacy and impunity to state-aligned belligerents. As such, the use of non-state auxiliaries for essential state security tasks should be avoided. While this increases the state’s security burden, this also encourages a more meaningful engagement in peace processes. c. Civilian firearm amnesty and tackling craft production: Arms amnesties can remove SALW already in illicit circulation. The Philippine government is considering a nation-wide amnesty combined with a re-licensing drive in 2020, concurrent with progress in the Bangsamoro peace process (Dalizon 2020). Generating political will is a critical challenge, however, and there is limited public debate on this issue in most South and Southeast Asian countries. Concurrently, the steady rise in the quality and durability of craft firearms in the region enhances proliferation risks and impacts. The city of Dera Adam Khel in Pakistan is renowned for gunsmiths who can produce high-quality replicas of most well-known assault rifles and pistols (McCarthy 2000). The Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have also seen a proliferation of craft-produced weapons, which are

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inherently outside of state control. As the means of craft production become more accessible in these developing economies, the need for gun amnesty and buyback campaigns are amplified. d. Reducing individual vulnerabilities of security personnel by professionalizing security institutions: Increasing the pay, training, and accountability of security personnel can reduce their liability as agents of corruption and diversion. The state should be the sole provisioner of sensitive equipment, including arms, so that security officials are accountable to return weapons and ammunition to the armory at the end of each shift. This minimizes opportunities to sell personal weapons, acquired with special state subsidies for security personnel, onto the black market. In Afghanistan, police officers earn US$200 per month but often go months without receiving pay, all the while being expected to combat well-armed and well-resourced insurgencies (Mashal et al. 2018; Azami 2018). A M-16 rifle can fetch upwards of US$5,000 on the black market (Broder and Yousafzai 2015), compelling many personnel to sell their weapons and/or ammunition illegally to supplement their meagre incomes.

8.4.3 Strengthening Recordkeeping Data collection is at the heart of transparency and arms control as it enables the identification of points of diversion and illicit use in both state and civilian contexts. Recordkeeping ought to take place at all stages in the life and use of a firearm and ammunition: not only at manufacture, import, sale, and transfer, but also when seized, surrendered, lost, stolen, destroyed, or used in relation to a violent death. Furthermore, mandatory reporting and data access will allow a diverse array of officials, experts, and practitioners to analyse crime and violence indicators and improve policies. Centralizing and standardizing data collection systems within and between agencies would greatly improve data cohesion and the policies they inform. There is increased recognition of investing in effective

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data collection in all governance sector to the extent that it is a Sustainable Development Goal target.25 As outlined in Sect. 2, data collection systems in the region still suffer from scope, consistency, and digitization issues. Through development assistance, it is possible to build the backbone of a data collection system, from which agencies can link in and feed data up through their hierarchies. On data for arms control, it is important to ensure that at the very basic level, information on serial number, type of weapon, calibre, year of production, unit cost, exporting country, and any details associated with end use certification should be captured by data collection systems. In addition to arms control data, accessibility to morbidity and mortality statistics stemming from the public health sector can also be improved and must consider facts from the scene of the incident. In data collection relating to gun violence, data should be disaggregated by gender, location, assailant-victim relationship, age, motive, cause of death, weapon used, and legal status thereof, among other criteria where applicable. Ultimately, making such data accessible to the general public increases the benefits of such data by enabling external sources of expertise to add value to their own activities. Abandoning secrecy allows disparate government and non-government bodies to streamline and improve arms control and violence prevention policies collectively. To this end, governments should legally mandate periodic reporting to parliament, participation in international reporting mechanisms, and the creation of open data websites.

8.4.4 Internationalizing Arms Control Efforts In addition to national systems, governments in South and Southeast Asia should also explore international arms control efforts. This can be done in at least three ways: 25The

SDG goals 17.18 and 17.19 call on all countries (particularly least developed and small island developing states to “increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts” and aim to “support statistical capacity building” in developing countries.

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a. Accession and reporting to international arms control mechanisms: One of the easiest ways to ensure that reporting and recordkeeping responsibilities are embedded into national arms control systems is through accession to international agreements, including the Arms Trade Treaty. The additional benefit of this step is that if all countries in the two regions take the same step, then legal convergence and systems interoperability is greatly strengthened. b. Establishing accessible and transparent coordinating bodies: Most countries in South and Southeast Asia have established interagency coordination mechanisms; India’s Inter-Ministerial Task Force, Sri Lanka’s National Commission Against the Proliferation of Illicit Small Arms (NCAPISA), the Office of the Special Envoy on Transnational Crime (OSETC) in the Philippines, the National Security Council in Thailand, and the Inter-agency Working Group in Indonesia are good examples. These interagency efforts ensure that relevant stakeholders are involved in the management of SALW stockpiles and can provide oversight and guidance for meeting strategic objectives within the constraints of national frameworks. c. Establishment of a regional arms/transnational security cooperation mechanism: Both South and Southeast Asia have regional institutions to address common issues and challenges (ASEAN and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), but neither of these two institutions have played a role in coordinating security issues. Although the ASEAN Regional Forum has engaged on specific security issues (such as transnational organized crime), such fora could be better used to discuss and coordinate responses to arms control issues. This is an area for countries to consider exploring, as it will greatly enhance national arms control objectives, while supporting dialogue to address common cross-border threats.

8.5

Conclusion

Both South and Southeast Asia face a transforming socio-economic and security landscape that are readjusting understandings of arms control and armed violence issues. While this poses new challenges, it also

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poses new opportunities as the rapid development of national economies affords new opportunities in advancing subnational peace processes, reforming national security apparatuses, expanding civilian oversight in government (especially in the security sector), and harnessing new technological means to collect data and inform more effective policies. Regional fora and international initiatives in the security sector allow avenues for states in the region to share experiences and gauge external expertise in implementing such reforms. States outside of the region can further contribute by investing in peace initiatives and demonstrating to local governments that armed violence impedes development, economic cooperation, and bilateralism in general. Finally, as the subnational armed conflicts of the region recede, researchers, experts, and policy makers must pay renewed attention to the impacts of illicit firearm proliferation outside of conflict contexts, and other emergent security and armed violence dynamics as the region surges forward.

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9 Small Firearms in the Pacific: Regionalism and Non-Trafficking Maxwell Presser and Philip Alpers

9.1

Introduction

This chapter aims to provide an overview of firearms in the Pacific with a focus on trafficking in the region and also to offer strategies to address gun violence and trafficking. Despite a history of bloody conflicts and wars along with the presence of small arms, the Pacific is fortunately not largely afflicted by small arms trafficking like other regions around the world. However, firearms have occasionally contributed to violent crime and civil conflict in the area. The Pacific is comprised of 20 nations1 with an extremely M. Presser (B) University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] P. Alpers GunPolicy.Org, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 1 Pacific

nations and territories: American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, New © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_9

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broad range of economies, political climates, trade power, histories, conflicts, and cultures. But despite these differences and varying perceptions of firearms, trafficking has not been a significant issue in the Pacific. However, it is important to note the limitations associated with understanding firearms in the region. While larger, more populous countries such as Australia and New Zealand may publish data related to legal firearms in the country, most of the smaller Pacific nations do not. Additionally, illegal firearms and trafficking are difficult to track in any nation. Therefore, detailed statistics are not always available, but our research is based on the data available. This chapter provides a background on firearms in the Pacific, a deep dive into several armed conflicts in the region along with key lessons learned from them, and a three-pronged strategy to reduce the burden of gun violence.

9.2

Background

The Pacific’s 20 nations have experienced relative geopolitical stability in recent years, with sufficient economies and few conflicts overall. In addition to a history quite different from that of Europe, the Pacific nations generally have more sparse populations, more physical distance between them, and more limited resources. This combination facilitates a sense of cooperation that drives stability in the region and has led to the Pacific’s adoption of a sense of regionalism. Many of the Pacific nations are quite small and remote, and these countries especially rely on this cooperation and sense of regionalism to succeed on their own. Despite relative geopolitical stability in the region, the Pacific has experienced several armed conflicts over the past several decades, driving the demand for guns. In 2000, a group of armed men stormed the Parliament in Fiji and held Prime Minister Mehendra Chaudry and many cabinet members hostage for nearly two months. During this time, violence and riots erupted throughout the nation. On the Solomon Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis, and Futuna.

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Islands, armed combatants seized institutions in the capital and arrested the prime minister, signifying a peak in a national conflict that lasted three years and left over 100 people killed. Papua New Guinea experienced nine years of civil war, which left up to 15,000 people dead. The firearms used in these conflicts were acquired from three main sources: security force armories, homemade firearms, and salvaged World War II firearms. Firearms legislation in the Pacific is largely based on the previous or continued historic colonialism seen throughout the region. For example, nations previously ruled by the British, such as Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Kiribati, currently have restrictive firearm laws that largely mirror those of Britain (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Despite continued French rule in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, these nations have enacted their own firearm policies, though they are largely based on strict French laws. Ironically, trust territories of the United States, including Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, have adopted strict firearm laws that are much more stringent than those in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand have independently developed their own firearm legislation over the past several decades despite being former British colonies. Australia lacks federal firearm laws, deferring that responsibility to the state, whereas New Zealand has taken a more federal approach. Interestingly, Papua New Guinea has developed comprehensive firearms laws similar to those in Australia, likely due to its relatively large size within the region and its close diplomatic relations with Australia since gaining its independence in 1975. As of 2003, there were an estimated 3.1 million firearms lawfully held by civilians in the Pacific (Alpers and Twyford 2003). This translates to approximately one gun for every ten people, which is 50% higher than the global ratio of guns to people. Most of these can be found in Australia and New Zealand, with New Zealand holding the highest stockpile of firearms per capita in the Pacific. For reference, law enforcement and the military hold an estimated 226,000 firearms, which is only 7% of the civilian stockpile, though only 9 of the 20 countries in this region actually have armed police officers.

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New Caledonia has the highest rate of civilian firearm possession per 100 people at 43 (Alpers and Rossetti 2019), with New Zealand, Niue, and Australia trailing behind at 33 (Alpers and Picard 2020b), 20 (Alpers and Wilson 2019), and 14 (Alpers and Picard 2020a), respectively. Thirteen of the 20 Pacific nations have 8 or fewer guns per 100 people, with 8 nations having fewer than 1 per 100 people. As a point of comparison, the United States has 121 guns per 100 people (Karp 2018). Only three Pacific nations have measurable rates of gun deaths greater than 1 per 100,000 people (Alpers and Wilson 2015). New Caledonia, the nation with the highest rate of civilian firearm possession, ranks highest at 2.7 per 100,000 people followed by New Zealand at 1.2 and Australia at 1.0, both of which also had relatively high rates of firearm possession. With such a wide range of populations and geopolitical climates across the Pacific, the demand for firearms differs quite drastically across the region. Factors that contribute to the varying demand include population size, affluence, presence of armed police, standing military, firearm legislation, and cultural attitudes toward owning and using guns. Though it is difficult to accurately track the legal small arms trade in the Pacific, only Australia and New Zealand import sizeable quantities of firearms, comprising 95% of the region’s firearm imports (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Australia and New Zealand have large militaries and police forces, and they also have the economic buying power to import small arms. However, imports to Australia have largely decreased following a mass shooting and subsequent firearm legislative reforms in 1996. On the other hand, Papua New Guinea has the next largest police force and military, but they lack the economic capability to import arms and ammunition to proportionately support them. Civilian demand is largely based on cultural perception related to hunting and sporting. The United States is the Pacific’s main supplier of firearms, providing over 50% of the region’s imports (Alpers and Twyford 2003). The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Brazil trail behind, with nearly 30 countries in total who export guns to the Pacific. As the U.S. dominates the world firearms market, civilians in the Pacific are likely influenced by American brand names and familiarity. Australia and New Zealand are the only Pacific countries that export firearms, and while the volume

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of exports may be small, their role in supplying guns to the rest of the Pacific should not be ignored. As in other regions around the world, illicit small arms trade is mainly driven by crime and conflict. Illicit imports into the Pacific are rare, though there is evidence of some smuggling from the United States into Australia and from Asia and Australia into Papua New Guinea (Alpers and Twyford 2003). In Australia, most illicit firearm exchange occurs among small networks of criminals and gang members (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Theft may also contribute to the transfer of illegal firearms in Australia, along with illegal sales by licensed arms dealers, as leakage from legal to illegal owners is the main method of acquiring illegal firearms in the country. However, there does not appear to be an organized black market for firearms. Despite local anecdotes that most guns used in crimes were imported illegally, only 1% of firearms used in crimes appear to have been smuggled into Australia. Of those cases where the method of diversion could be identified, theft was the most common followed by legislative loopholes. While most firearms in New Zealand are legally owned, most illegal firearms can be traced to previous legal ownership (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Theft from legal owners appears to be the most common source of illegal firearms, while illegally importing guns into the country is extremely rare. The source of illegal firearms in Papua New Guinea differs quite drastically from those in Australia and New Zealand, especially based on its unique geopolitical climate and history. For example, there have been many documented occurrences of theft of firearms and ammunition from the police, including machine guns, automatic assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Additionally, homemade firearm manufacturing facilities have been discovered throughout the country, using water pipes and ammunition to create single-shot pistols and shotguns. While it is unlikely that these homemade firearms are being manufactured for export, they are likely being used domestically, especially for bartering purposes. However, reports indicate that members of villages who experience civil unrests (e.g., around elections) seek to purchase guns, especially homemade guns, to protect themselves,

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their families, and their property. But in addition to domestic redistribution and manufacturing of firearms, Papua New Guinea has imported illegal firearms into the country from various sources, including through the Torres Strait, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. While these illicit firearm imports are difficult to track, it appears that many involve the exchange of drugs. With an extremely low ratio of police to population in Papua New Guinea, border control is difficult to maintain. This relates to a broader issue involving the overall fragility of the state with limited finances, limited resources, limited government oversight and law enforcement, and unpredictable civil unrest. Similar issues exist in other Pacific nations, including Samoa, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands, where border control and law enforcement are lacking, especially during times of conflict. Overall, firearm legislation in the Pacific is some of the most restrictive in the world. Five nations do not even allow any civilian firearm ownership: The Cook Islands, The Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and the Solomon Islands. Restrictions have been most extreme in nations that have recently experienced political unrest, often suspending the issuing of all firearm licences and sometimes even requiring firearms and ammunition to be surrendered to the government. Firearm legislation in the Pacific generally views different types of weapons differently. For example, shotguns and rifles are generally classified as “sporting goods” and are subject to less restrictive legislation than handguns or semi-automatic weapons among the civilian population. Australia’s firearm legislation is some of the tightest in the Pacific, following a mass shooting at Port Arthur in Tasmania in 1996 that killed 35 people. In addition to a government buyback program that led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of guns, the new legislation included strict licensing requirements, a mandatory waiting period, a national firearm registry, and a ban on automatic weapons as part of the National Firearms Agreement.(Alpers and Ghazarian 2019) Criminal penalties for illegal possession of prohibited weapons include extensive fines and imprisonment. Then following the shooting of two Monash University students by a licensed handgun owner in 2002, the Australia government established a handgun buyback program and a federal ban

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on handgun imports through the National Handgun Control Agreement and the National Handgun Buyback Act (Australian Institute of Criminology 2017). These policies aimed to restrict the availability of handguns, especially those that could be easily concealed. The National Firearm Trafficking Policy Agreement was also enacted in 2002 to reduce the import of firearms into Australia and to increase penalties for firearm-related offenses. On the other hand, New Zealand had some of the least restrictive firearm laws in the Pacific until the Christchurch attack in 2019. Historically, New Zealanders were largely permitted to own rifles and shotguns without registering these weapons, though handguns, semi-automatic weapons, and automatic weapons required additional licensure. But following the 2019 attack, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pledged to make swift and sweeping firearm policy reforms. Her initial plan included two stages of reforms: first to ban semi-automatic weapons and create a firearm buyback program, and then to create a national firearm registry to track all firearms and to update firearm licensing requirements, offenses, and penalties (New Zealand Government 2019) (New Zealand Police 2020). While the first stage of policies passed nearly unanimously and across political party lines, the second stage has stalled for several possible reasons (New Zealand Parliament 2020). First, the opposing National party has voiced concerns over the restrictive nature of the policies. Additionally, pro-gun advocacy groups have launched a campaign entitled “Fair & Reasonable” to lobby against the second stage of reforms based on perceived infringement of civil liberties and beliefs that the proposed measures would not reduce violence (Dowling 2019) (Council of Licensed Firearms Owners 2019). Additionally, New Zealand will hold a general election in 2020, so politics may play a significant role in the negotiations (The Guardian 2020). Interestingly, some Pacific nations enforce certain firearm policies without corresponding legislation. For example, only Fiji, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu legally ban handguns, but handguns are also unavailable to civilians in the Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Tonga, American

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Samoa, and the Marshall Island (Alpers and Twyford 2003). This demonstrates an established convention that generally exists across the Pacific, leading to a more stringent society with regard to firearms. In addition to firearms, ammunition is also largely restricted throughout the Pacific. Most nations only allow civilians to purchase ammunition that corresponds to the type of firearm they have registered to their name, and some nations even have a maximum amount of ammunition that can be purchased. Several guiding principles can be seen across the Pacific as contributing to the generally restrictive nature of firearm legislation. First, most nations require a genuine reason for firearm ownership, such as sporting, hunting, farming, or pest control. Most nations do not consider selfdefense to be a genuine reason for firearm ownership. While formal background checks for prospective gun owners are only legally mandated in several states, most Pacific nations have some sort of mechanism in place in hopes of vetting applicants. However, there is often a large burden on the local police to identify possible red flags such as mental illness or domestic violence. Gathering comprehensive intelligence can be difficult, and police often lack a clear directive on how to handle information found in background checks, so their efficacy is questionable and in need of review. Safe storage of firearms is another pillar seen throughout the Pacific, though this concept is more of an expectation than legislation, with actual safe storage laws being uncommon and actual enforcement being rare. Several legislative strategies are used in the Pacific as an attempt to deter firearms trafficking within and between nations. First, all Pacific nations register firearms, which allows law enforcement to track firearms within countries and across borders. Marking firearms with serial numbers is another method useful in tracking firearms, especially if stolen or trafficked. Several Pacific nations legally require serial numbers or some other identifying mark to be clearly displayed on the gun and then recorded, whereas other countries legally allow for marking but do not require it. While only a few Pacific nations completely outlaw the manufacturing and sale of firearms, many nations have imposed limits on the types of firearms that can be manufactured, mainly prohibiting weapons capable of firing rounds more quickly. While several nations

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allow for the manufacturing of firearms, Australia has historically been the only Pacific nation with the capability of producing firearms on a large scale. Most Pacific nations do regulate commercial firearm sales by requiring dealers to apply for licences and then keep clear, detailed records of their sales. While Australia and New Zealand have relatively strict import and export laws for firearms, most other neighboring nations lack strict regulations. The lack of cohesive firearm trade laws may contribute to trafficking in the region. But all in all, the rate of gun possession and violence in the Pacific is low, especially relative to other regions around the world. Though the details of firearm legislation differ across nations, the combination of relative regional stability and a relatively unified Pacific approach toward firearms has created an environment of non-trafficking. With relatively low demand for firearms along with a reliance on other nations who produce firearms for import, small arms trafficking in the Pacific is low compared to the rest of the world.

9.3

Key Lessons

While small arms trafficking has not posed as significant a threat to the stability of the Pacific as in other regions, several key events have helped to shape the landscape of firearms in the Pacific. A civil war in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea displayed the consequences of introducing more firearms to a region, but the disarmament process proves the value in reducing firearms. A mass shooting in Australia in 1996 sparked national outrage and helped to finalize firearms policy changes that were already in progress. These two events represent key milestones in the Pacific’s regional approach to firearm reduction.

9.3.1 Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Civil War Papua New Guinea only gained its independence in 1975. Home to five million people, over 800 indigenous languages, and the highest rate of poverty in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea is the largest developing nation

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in the region. From the time of its independence, Papua New Guinea received security force training from Australia, which also provided over 10,000 small arms (Alpers and Twyford 2003). The late 1990s and early 2000s marked a fragile time in Papua New Guinea, troubled by crime, tribal disputes, political conflict, and violence with illegal firearms. While tribal fighting has existed for generations in the area, the introduction of firearms made the conflicts more lethal. A civil war afflicted Bougainville, an island province of Papua New Guinea, from 1988–1997, causing up to 15,000 civilian deaths (National Film & Sound Archive of Australia 2000). An armed faction from Bougainville sought succession from Papua New Guinea, leading to nine years of violence. At least 1,500 military-grade small firearms, along with ammunition, were imported from the United States toward the beginning of the conflict, and approximately 1,000 firearms had been diverted or stolen from the state to civilian rebels throughout the course of the civil war (Alpers 2008). Investigations found that most of these firearms were stolen from insecure police and military stocks originally supplied to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force by the Australian government. Once the violence had been quelled, the government of Papua New Guinea identified the need to disarm the population and dispose of weapons in order to bring peace to the nation. Bougainvilleans viewed disarmament as the next step in their quest for political autonomy and independence, security, health, and prosperity. Political leaders from several groups developed the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001, which included a plan for weapons disposal. As motivation for success, the weapon disposal program was linked to political milestones, such as the passage of autonomous elections in Bougainville and constitutional amendments. The disarmament process was slow and complicated, requiring assistance and monitoring from several hundred personnel from multiple countries and the United Nations (Khakee and Wulf 2005). The first step in disarmament involved surrendering weapons. Nearly 2,000 firearms were surrendered by late 2002, though relatively few high-powered guns were surrendered, implying that those types of firearms may still be circulating in Papua New Guinea (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Next,

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surrendered firearms were placed in locked containers, though there were several instances of theft from these stores. Over 1,600 small arms were collected throughout the process. The Papua New Guinea Defence Forces also destroyed their “surplus arms,” shifting their armory to 2,300, approximately one for each member of the military (Alpers 2009). Lessons Learned: The deep-rooted political nature of the disarmament of Papua New Guinea created several challenges that are important to consider. First, some argue that there was too much focus on ex-combatants, creating resentment among communities. With the slow-moving political changes and failure to meet other needs within these communities along with a focus on surrendering weapons, these individuals felt powerless as they struggled to recover from an armed conflict. Instances of violence and firearm theft among ex-combatants exemplify the reliance of these individuals on their firearms when they lacked a voice in political discussions and continued to suffer once the fighting officially stopped. Social and economic re-integration was necessary following the armed conflict in order to create stability and to reduce resentment among those who were being asked to surrender their weapons and, in turn, their power. It is necessary to frame programs that focus on ex-combatants as beneficial to peace on a broad scale. For example, the Bougainville Ex-combatants’ Trust account was established to provide business and training opportunities for ex-combatants following the conflict The Australian National University (2019). While of course disarmament occurs at different paces for various reasons such as the severity of crisis in the region, the number of guns, leadership, and political climate, there were significant periods of delay in Papua New Guinea. Leaders disagreed about how funds had been used, and financial donors lost hope that disarmament would continue as planned. Strategic meetings were successful to re-align on communication strategies and timelines. Flexibility is key throughout disarmament to ensure that all parties involved maintain a sense of ownership and fully understand the consequences of failure. The strong linkage between disarmament and political progress deeply affected the process in Bougainville. All parties were willing to sacrifice arms to achieve peace and prosperity for their people, so the leadership

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was motivated to take necessary actions toward rebuilding, including surrendering firearms. They understood the consequences of gun ownership, which contributed to the death of nearly 15,000 people. The linkage between disarmament and political progress displays the underlying value of firearms disposal: trust. By surrendering their firearms, the people and political leaders of Papua New Guinea took a step together toward peace.

9.3.2 Australia and the Port Arthur Shooting On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire at the Port Arthur Historical Site in Tasmania, Australia, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 18 more with military-style semi-automatic rifles, which he acquired without a licence. Australians were no strangers to mass shootings at this time; in the two decades prior to the Port Arthur killings, Australia experienced 14 mass shootings, claiming 117 lives (Alpers and Ghazarian 2019). But the Port Arthur shooting elicited a swift political response from the Australian government, led by conservative Prime Minister John Howard. In the 12 days following the Port Arthur shooting, the Australian government implemented drastic firearm policy changes. Citing the “American disease” of gun violence, Howard played into the fear and shock that existed among the public, who seemed to largely favor tightened firearm legislation at that time. Bipartisan support poured in from 350 different types of coalitions including medical and law societies, public health groups, religious organizations, police unions, and rural groups, all aimed to prevent injury and death from firearms (Chapman 2013). Media coverage in the days following the shooting largely called for policy reform to prevent this from ever happening again. The Australian’s headline stated “Slaughter sparks call for federal gun laws” (Port Arthur News Archive). The Daily Telegraph featured a piece entitled “Doctors call for assault rifle ban” and even directly challenged firearms policies at that time in an editorial entitled “Loony laws put a gun in his hand” (Port Arthur News Archive). Overall, the national tone was sober yet relatively unified in support of change.

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Given this momentum, Howard took a stance quickly before the pro-gun lobby was able to exert significant influence. In a 2013 New York Times op-ed, Howard cited guns as the crux of the issue in the Port Arthur shooting, stating, “the fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing” (Howard 2013). Rather than having to draft legislation from scratch and garner support for a completely new set of laws, Howard based the legislation on content previously proposed. The Australasian Police Ministers Council formed a working party in 1995 following a decade of discussions on legislation to curb gun violence. But the group’s proposals were halted because of a national election in 1996. However, these proposals formed the foundation of the National Firearms Agreement of 1996. The National Firearms Agreement included a set of requirements aimed at reducing gun violence throughout the country. Specifically, it proposed a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons, the formation of a linked firearm licence and registration database, requiring firearms sales to be processed by a licensed dealer, proof of a genuine reason for ownership, a minimum buying age of 18, proof of being “fit and proper” to own a firearm, a 28-day waiting period and maximum five-year licence period, and the ability to revoke a licence for violent convictions or mental or physical unsuitability. The components of the National Firearms Agreement were implemented by amending certain existing policies and adding several completely new policies (Buchanan 2015). Despite gun rights being a state-level issue, all eight Australian states and territories adopted the agreement. These policies easily passed in most territories, and a 2008 independent review revealed only a few minor inconsistencies across the regions, but the country was compliant as a whole (Bricknell 2009). To date, Australia has some of the most stringent firearm laws in the Pacific.

9.3.3 Lessons Learned The rapid move to regulate more deadly guns, licence gun owners, register all guns, and enact legislation to define appropriate reasons

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for gun ownership proved to be effective in Australia. Prime Minister Howard did not hesitate to act following the Port Arthur shooting. He took advantage of the momentum and public opinion that appeared to favor tighter regulations. In doing so, he reduced the influence of the pro-gun lobby. This strategy of moving quickly and following the public opinion in the fallout of a crisis contributed to Howard’s success. Howard was able to move quickly because of a pre-existing framework on which he could base the National Firearms Agreement. By using a legislative proposal that had been extensively discussed and crafted, Howard was able to present a palatable legislative option for approval. Drafting legislation from scratch during this time of crisis would have been difficult and perhaps haphazard and seemingly reactionary, but instead, his presentation of the National Firearms Agreement appeared thoughtful and comprehensive. The success of the National Firearms Agreement can largely be attributed to the bipartisan promotion and support along with Howard’s attempt to address those who opposed it. Howard’s administration received support from hundreds of groups with various backgrounds and political affiliations, demonstrating a unified nation in favor of updated firearm legislation. At this time, the Australian society appeared to be ready for a change, a concept that largely followed throughout the next few years when Australians voluntarily surrendered their firearms. However, there was a subset of Australians who opposed the National Firearms Agreement, and these people were largely from rural communities. Howard traveled to these regions and spoke carefully, using phrases like “Parliamentary colleagues” rather than using party names as an attempt to frame this legislation as bipartisan. While he was not able to convince everyone to support for the National Firearms Agreement, he was successful enough to pass the law in all eight states and territories. Without the societal buy-in and public attitudes that support reform, enacting firearm legislation is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Overall, international consensus favored Australia’s firearm legislation, and gun violence has decreased in the country. The total number of annual firearm deaths in Australia was 428 in 1996 but fell to 206 in 2018 (Alpers and Picard 2020a). There were zero mass shootings in the 20 years following the implementation of the National Firearms

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Agreement. Firearm suicide rates have decreased by almost 80%, and other means are not being used in place of firearms (Leigh and Neill 2010). Australia’s swift legislative response to the Port Arthur shooting, along with subsequent firearm legislation and buyback programs, has effectively reduced the burden of gun violence in the country.

9.4

Specific Policy Recommendations

The success of civilian gun control in the Pacific rests upon three fundamental pillars: the person, the object, and the right. The person refers to licensing all gun owners to be able to use and own a gun. The object refers to registering all firearms, themselves, for record-keeping purposes. The right refers to legislation that defines gun ownership as a conditional privilege rather than an unlimited right. These three simple pillars have allowed the governments of the Pacific to largely prevent the misuse of firearms in the region, whereas the lack of any of these pillars in the United States likely contributes to the high rates of violence in the country.

9.4.1 The Person: Licence All Gun Owners Requiring a licence to own a firearm is a key initial step to reducing firearm violence and trafficking. Successful licensing, as seen in Australia’s 1996 National Firearms Agreement, includes several components to ensure firearm access remain well regulated (Alpers and Ghazarian 2019). First, applications must demonstrate a genuine reason for firearm ownership. For example, approved and regular sporting events, security, and hunting would be genuine reasons for gun ownership, and applicants would need to demonstrate that no other means could achieve that purpose. Of note, self-defense is not considered to be an appropriate reason for firearm ownership. While Australia’s National Firearms Agreement has not been used as an explicit model for policies in other nations, the fundamental ideology can be found in policies in other countries.

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For example, South Africa’s 2000 Firearms Control Act requires background checks and firearm licences (Library of Congress 2015). Overall, countries with stricter firearm licensure policies experience less violence (Santaella-Tenorio et al. 2016). Criteria for applying include age 18 or older, passing a “fit and proper person” test administered by police, proof of identity, passing a nationally accredited safety course, and a 28-day waiting period. Each licence requires renewal after five years. This licensing system also prohibits the private sale of guns, requiring all transfers to be processed by firearms dealers specifically licensed by the government. There are several reasons for which a firearm licence can be refused or revoked. For example, this may occur because of involvement in a violent crime, a mental or physical condition that deems one unsuitable to own a firearm or moving residencies without notifying the authorities. Gun owners must also comply with safe storage requirements to maintain their licence. This involves storing firearms and ammunition separately in fixed, locked containers. The government maintains the authority to inspect storage and revoke licences if not stored properly. While decisions about allowing firearm ownership are often situational, ensuring that individuals at risk of using firearms for violence are properly identified and vetted and requiring safe storage of all firearms among all owners would help to reduce firearm violence.

9.4.2 The Object: Register All Firearms Comprehensive universal firearm registries have been implemented in many Pacific countries, allowing law enforcement to track the flow of guns from owner to owner within the country and also from one country to another. Firearm registries are required under law in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu (Alpers and Twyford 2003). But while other nations, including Niue, American Samoa, and the Solomon Islands lack legal requirements for firearm registration, they voluntarily maintain records of all firearms in the nation. It is critical to

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integrate the firearm registry with the licensing system in order to ensure firearm registration is as comprehensive as possible to prevent trafficking. New Zealand is the only Pacific nation that does not currently participate in universal firearm registration for certain types of guns. While handguns, military-style semi-automatic weapons, and machine guns must be registered with the government, these types of firearms comprise only 4% of the nation’s firearms. The remaining 96% of New Zealand’s firearms, including shotguns and rifles, need not be registered. While a judicial review in 1997 made a strong recommendation to institute universal firearms registration, no system was implemented at that time. Despite an initial push to institute a national firearm registration system following the 2019 Christchurch attack, progress has stalled, and no such system currently exists. Establishing and maintaining a database to register and track every lawfully held firearm in a country is no small undertaking, requiring computer software in addition to training in armory management, which may be especially burdensome to smaller nations. But with the support from international donors, the Center for Armed Violence Reduction has created a low-cost, user-friendly arms management software tool called ArmsTracker. This software can be tailored to each nation’s needs and then easily implemented along with training for government agencies. ArmsTracker has already been implemented in Samoa and several other Pacific nations and will soon expand to other nations throughout the region and Africa to help track and manage firearm licences, transfers, and stockpiles. Data can be analyzed at the local and national levels to identify trends.

9.4.3 The “Right”: Defined in Legislation as a Conditional Privilege While the Pacific nations generally require at least one “genuine reason” for owning a gun, only Australia and Papua New Guinea have genuine reasons defined in the law (Alpers and Twyford 2003). Sport, hunting, farming, and pest control are common acceptable genuine reasons, especially due to the subsistence lifestyles that many still practice in the

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Pacific. Applications outside of these reasons generally require additional rationale to prove a firearm is necessary over other means. But despite the lack of codified law, other Pacific nations do tightly restrict firearm ownership through their licensing processes. Self-defense is generally not considered to be a genuine reason for firearm ownership. Papua New Guinea and the French territories are the only nations that specifically allow for self-defense as a genuine reason for ownership. Following the 2019 Christchurch attacks, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said “Owning a firearm is a privilege not a right. That means we need to do all we can to ensure that only honest, law-abiding citizens are able to obtain firearms licences and use firearms” (Chappell 2019). With this notion in mind, we recommend the codification of genuine reasons, not including self-defense, into law.

9.5

Conclusion

This chapter provided background on the current state of firearms in the Pacific, legal and illegal firearms, and legislation that has been enacted as an attempt to reduce gun violence and trafficking in the region. The disarmament process following the Bougainville Civil War in Papua New Guinea represents a somewhat successful example of the how reducing firearms within a country can reduce violence and trafficking, and the enactment of the National Firearms Agreement in Australia following the shooting at Port Arthur displays the success of more restrictive firearm policies. The three-pillar approach including the person (licensing all gun owners), the object (registering all firearms), and the right (legislation that defines gun ownership as a conditional privilege) provides a framework for gun violence and trafficking reduction by addressing firearms from all angles. Despite limitations with regard to raw data, we fully endorse our approach to firearm violence and trafficking reduction. Continued data collection and analyses are necessary to identify trends in firearm imports and exports, ownership, injury, and death in order to evaluate the efficacy of policies. Firearm registries help to hold owners accountable for their firearms, and they also provide raw data, which is missing from many Pacific nations. Additional research should evaluate

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how cultural perceptions of firearms across the region have contributed to recent firearm trends. New Zealand’s ongoing firearm policy updates will provide a unique opportunity to collect and evaluate quantitative and qualitative data from the inception point and track trends over years.

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Firearm Law Changes & Prohibited Firearms. 2020. New Zealand Police. New Zealand Government. Accessed April 29, 2020. https://www.police. govt.nz/advice-services/firearms-and-safety/firearm-law-changes-prohibitedfirearms?nondesktop. Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: South Africa. Firearms-Control Legislation and Policy: South Africa. 2015. Library of Congress, July 30. https:// www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/southafrica.php. Howard, John. 2013. I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too. New York Times, January 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/opinion/australiabanned-assault-weapons-america-can-too.html?smid=fb-nytimes. Karp, Aaron. 2018. Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers. https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SASBP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf. Khakee, Anna, and Herbert Wulf. 2005. Following the Trail: Production, Arsenals, and Transfers of Small Arms. The HFG Review: A Publication of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. https://www.hfg.org/hfg_review/5/hfg smallarms.pdf. Legislative Reforms. 2017. Australian Institute of Criminology. Australian Government, November 3. https://aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/rpp116/legisl ative-reforms. Leigh, A., and C. Neill. 2010. Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data. American Law and Economics Review 12 (2): 509–557. https:// doi.org/10.1093/aler/ahq013. New Zealand Gun Reform Stalled as Christchurch Anniversary Approaches. 2020. The Guardian. March 20. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ mar/12/new-zealand-gun-reform-stalled-as-christchurch-anniversary-approa ches. Origins of the Bougainville Conflict. 2000. NFSA Digital Learning. National Film & Sound Archive of Australia. Accessed April 29. https://dl.nfsa.gov. au/module/357/. Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing Peace in Bougainville. 2019. Press Library. The Australian National University, April 11. https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p57571/html/ch06. xhtml?referer=&page=10. Reduce Armed Violence with ArmsTracker. 2020. Centre for Armed Violence Reduction. Accessed April 29. https://www.armedviolencereduction.org/. Santaella-Tenorio, Julian, Magdalena Cerdá, Andrés Villaveces, and Sandro Galea. 2016. What Do We Know About the Association Between Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Injuries? Epidemiologic Reviews

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38 (1) (January): 140–157. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/ mxv012. Slaughter Sparks Call for Federal Gun Laws. 2020. Port Arthur News Archive. Accessed April 29. https://www.geniac.net/portarthur/slaughte.htm. The Daily Telegraph, May 1, 1996. 2020. Port Arthur News Archive. Accessed April 29. https://www.geniac.net/portarthur/010596da.htm.

10 “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global Network to the Local Security Challenge” Final Remarks David Pérez Esparza, Cathy Haenlein, and Florian J. Hetzel

Gun trafficking and gun violence are major challenges to the health and security of millions of citizens worldwide. As of 2017, there were approximately one billion1 small arms 2 in circulation globally (Karp 2018: 4). Nonetheless, despite the high levels of small arms available, the global market does not appear to be “saturated.” In 2009, scholars estimated D. Pérez Esparza Jill Dando Institute, University College London, London, UK C. Haenlein (B) Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), London, UK e-mail: [email protected] F. J. Hetzel University College London, London, UK 1 Civilians

held 857 million, military forces held 133 million, and law enforcement agencies possessed 23 million (Karp 2018). 2 “Small arms” is the technical definition used for firearms that are designed for individual use, such as handguns (e.g., pistols and revolvers) and long guns (e.g., rifles and shotguns). In this chapter, we use small arms, firearms, and guns synonymously. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_10

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that at least 8 million new firearms were manufactured globally each year (Peters 2009). More recent data suggest that this annual figure could now be much higher. Official reports indicate that, in 2016, more than 11 million firearms were produced in the US alone (ATF 2019). As this book has shown, gun trafficking and gun-related violence affects many world regions. In terms of gun-related deaths, a recent analysis estimated that, globally, 251,000 people were killed with a gun3 in 2016 (GBD 2018). Half of those deaths took place in just six countries—the US, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Venezuela. Together, these countries account for less than 10 percent of the world’s population (GBD 2018). It is notable that the US, which had the second highest number of gun-related deaths in 2016, has a strong democratic system of government, high standards of living, and—allegedly—strong health and security institutions. Beyond fatal incidents, gun-related violence can take many forms. In 2019, Amnesty International reported that, worldwide, close to 2,000 people are injured with a gun every day (Amnesty International 2019). Direct victims must live with the health costs and consequences of those incidents for the rest of their lives. Victimization, however, goes beyond those who suffer directly. Friends and family may also suffer negative economic, legal, and health consequences as a result of their physical and emotional proximity to those who have suffered directly from gunrelated violence. In this context, even when victims survive these traumatic experiences, they may suffer anxiety, fear of crime, and extreme psychological vulnerability as a result. Together, these and other forms of gun violence have, under some circumstances, forced citizens to leave their home countries out of fear of crime and violence, provoking additional humanitarian issues such as refugee crises, as observed in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Brazil, and a number of other countries across Africa and Central America. Meanwhile, from a criminological perspective, the presence of guns also has severe negative knock-on impacts across countries and communities worldwide. Notably, firearms are often used instrumentally 3 Out

of these, 64% were homicides, 27% were suicides, and 9% were unintentional shootings (GBD 2018).

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to perpetrate robberies, extortion, and kidnapping, among a range of other crime types. The analysis presented in the nine previous chapters suggests that gun trafficking and gun violence are among the most pressing challenges to health and security at a national, regional, and global level. Indeed, although there are marked differences between the regions and countries covered in this book, it is clear that gun trafficking and gun violence have a negative impact across all world regions. But how do small arms travel around the world? How do gun violence and gun trafficking intersect in each world region? What can we learn from successful and unsuccessful attempts to address gun trafficking and violence? And are these lessons always transferable, particularly to regions with limited statehood and poor governance? This book, “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global Network to the Local Security Challenge,” has aimed to begin to answer these questions. In doing so, each chapter has touched upon issues ranging from the volume of firearms trafficked, to the sources and destinations of these firearms, to the legal, tactical, economical, operational, and ethical implications of these phenomena. In the process, the previous nine chapters have addressed three separate but intertwined elements: (1) The factors that facilitate gun trafficking, (2) The relationship between guns and violence, and (3) The record of success (and, unfortunately, often lack of success) of attempts—by local, national, and global actors—to design and implement policies to control the production, stockpiling, proliferation, international transfer, possession, marking, destruction, and usage of small arms. Reflecting on these issues, this final chapter presents a number of concluding comments, derived from the analyses presented in the previous chapters. In doing so, this chapter discusses the key challenges associated with gun violence and trafficking, which may be either specific to one region or shared among two or more regions. The chapter then considers the critical importance of concepts and definitions to the design of effective policy responses, arguing that the extent to which

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these consider the overlap between legal and illegal firearms is crucial to effective responses—a key lesson to be learned. Lastly, the chapter offers a number of final thoughts on the practical implications of the analysis in this book from a policy and a law enforcement perspective.

10.1 Challenges While some regions share common challenges, it is evident from a review of the chapters in this book that each region is characterized by specific factors that distinguish them from others. It is crucial to consider this point when designing and assessing the success of policy responses, at different levels—national, regional, and international.

10.1.1 Common Challenges In terms of common challenges, four key factors stand out. First, a lack of data afflicts all affected regions—albeit to different degrees. Second, in multiple countries, a key challenge relates to a lack of institutional capacity. This is particularly evident in Chapter 4 and Chapter 8. Third, in many countries, lack of political will represents a further common challenge. This factor, which often limits policy change, is evident from the overall arguments and discussion presented in Chapter 3. A fourth point that is highly relevant across most regions covered in this book is that many crimes are themselves facilitated or triggered by (both legal and illegal) guns. This finding is supported by existing academic literature: while gun trafficking is understood as a crime that occurs in one moment, in one given location, Feinstein & Holden (2013) also conceptualize gun trafficking as a multifaceted crime often involving a series of separate offences. As such, firearms trafficking is not only the outcome of an illegal act, but also the basis or trigger for others. By way of example, drawing on the analysis presented in Chapter 3, in the case of the US, it is clear that this phenomenon could occur when a convicted felon (who does not

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have the right to possess a gun) buys a firearm at a gun show, commits an assault using the gun, and then provides the weapon on to a criminal network for smuggling. Overall, it is clear that attention must be paid both to offences that are required to obtain guns for trafficking, and to offences that occur once an illicit firearm has been obtained. This distinction can be seen in examples across Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, and is also referenced in the existing academic literature. Feinstein & Holden (2013), for example, have previously pointed to this crucial distinction by proposing two separate categories of offences. The first category consists of offences that occur as pre-conditions to the illegal possession of a weapon for trafficking. Examples include the theft of guns from legal sources (such as police premises or licensed gun shops), and the illegal acquisition of weapons using false permits and licenses to divert them on to illicit markets. Such cases are discussed briefly in Chapter 3 in the case of the US. The second category includes crimes that occur after a gun has been obtained for the purpose of trafficking. These offences can occur when traffickers bribe or threaten officials when trying to cross a border with illegal weapons, or when criminals exchange guns for other illegal commodities, such as illicit drugs (Feinstein and Holden 2013). Examples of this challenge are discussed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 in the cases of Latin America and Central America, respectively. A number of other crimes can occur after the (trafficked) gun has been obtained. This explains why the situational crime prevention (SCP) approach often considers guns as facilitators of further offences, since they make crime easier to carry out (Clarke and Homel 1997; Wortley 2001; Cornish and Clarke 2003). Examples of cases in which guns can facilitate wider criminal activity include kidnapping and extortion, armed robbery and homicide, as well as a wide range of organized crime types in which the threat or use of firearms can advance criminal operations and maximize criminal outcomes. A range of examples of this facilitation exist, including a recent empirical study showing the relevance of firearms trafficking as a key factor behind the rise of violence in Mexico from the mid-2000s (Pérez Esparza, Johnson and Gill 2019). Overall, policies that consider the role of guns as facilitators

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of crime should receive particular attention from both academics and policymakers charged with designing and implementing responses.

10.1.2 Specific Challenges It is also clear that the role of firearms trafficking and violence is not the same across all locations. A review of this book’s various chapters speaks clearly to the role of specific variables in shaping local dynamics of gun violence and trafficking across these locations. As discussed throughout the chapters, gun trafficking and gun violence are complex and a multifaceted phenomena, which vary depending on the local setting. For instance, while Chapter 3 on the US, Chapter 4 on Latin America, and Chapter 5 on Central America show that these regions are severely affected in multiple different ways by the trafficking and use of guns, others—such as the Pacific—are not affected as strongly. Overall, three key factors stand out as specific challenges. First, take the heterogeneous relevance of interest groups. In some regions, these play a key role. The case of the National Rifle Association or NRA, for example, shows the major role of an interest group in influencing policy in some locations, as observed in the case study of the US described in Chapter 3. Such interest groups, however, are far less relevant in other world regions, exerting much less influence on policy elsewhere; at least, until now. Second, there are particular variables that seem to be more relevant in some regions than others. For instance, take the examples of migration and xenophobia covered in Chapter 6, but are less important across the regions covered in other chapters. In Chapter 7, meanwhile, in the case of Africa, the authors point to the key role of ethnicity, religion and dependence on foreign controlled natural resource exports as key factors contributing to armed conflict. Other issues, such as the role of geography are discussed throughout a number of the chapters, in varying degrees of depth. Across all regions, indeed, geography matters, playing a key role in shaping the dynamics of gun trafficking and violence, as discussed particularly in Chapter 9. Third, background matters. In fact, particular differences in the experience of gun trafficking and gun violence arise as a result of

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different countries’ and regions’ labor markets, religions, histories, and economies—both licit and illicit. For example, many of the regions covered in this book are affected by sophisticated illegal drug markets, which can be highly interconnected with markets for illegal firearms. This is evident, for example, in Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 8. At the same time, multiple regions share the common challenge of addressing high levels of impunity, as discussed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, among others.

10.2 Moving from Theory to Policy One of the key aims of this book is to think pragmatically. In other words, to use as much theory as necessary to inform policy, while maintaining robust arguments based on empirical evidence. In this context, it is clear from all chapters that it is necessary to consider the high level of fluidity between the categories of “legal” and “illegal” firearms when designing and implementing practical policy responses. Indeed, defining the concepts of “illegal firearm” and “firearms trafficking” is not an easy task. Instead, the categories of “legal” and “illegal” are often blurry, representing a key problem for academics and policymakers across all regions covered in this book, with crucial legal, tactical, and operational implications. In effect, as discussed throughout the book, particularly in the Introduction in Chapter 1, and in the analysis presented in Chapter 2, while many guns are used legally, gun trafficking and gun violence—which result from the illegal use of guns—are recurring problems across the world. In many cases, there is a high degree of overlap between the legal and illegal spheres, with important implications for policy and law enforcement in multiple regions. Indeed, empirical evidence presented in the previous chapters clearly indicates that legal firearms are easily diverted to secondary, illicit markets where they can be accessed by criminal networks, terrorist organizations, and other groups that present a threat to citizens worldwide. At the same time, while firearms (and their usage) can be considered licit in a range of

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contexts, many of these legal firearms are also misused (i.e. used illegally). This includes, among other examples, the incorrect, unethical, or illegal use of guns by military personnel, police officers, and civilian gun owners worldwide—a phenomenon that occurs every day. Certainly, the true nature of the differentiation between legal and illegal guns requires careful attention, noting that the essence of this book is intrinsically concerned with gun trafficking as a crime. In discussing this issue, Feinstein & Holden (2013) propose that there are actually two “worlds” that characterize the global trade in arms: the legal, transparent trade, on the one hand, and the shadow world of grey and black-market transactions, on the other. The first world includes all legal transactions. Usually, this includes the production, sale, and distribution of firearms to governments and individual authorized users. While this can involve illegal activity, such as corrupt practices to secure contracts, this first category is generally characterized by its relative transparency. In fact, due to the way it operates, it is possible to monitor the activity of companies and countries that export and import guns.4 The second world refers to all transactions occurring on the grey or black market. The grey and black markets share a key similarity. In both cases, transactions are not transparently recorded. Grey and black markets also differ in a number of ways. Feinstein & Holden (2013) suggest that the grey market can include arms deals undertaken by individuals associated with (or employed by) state security and intelligence agencies. While many of these transactions are not illegal, they are “undertaken in secret as exposure may have political ramifications” (p. 3).5 In contrast, the black market consists of deals that are illegal in conception and execution. These are usually undertaken by unauthorized arms dealers, traffickers and other types of criminals in violation of national and international laws, conventions, and embargoes

4The

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, (SIPRI 2018), uses these figures and estimations to produce an annual yearbook on the legal arms trade, providing insights into such activity on a global scale. 5The researchers point to the Iranian-Contra scandal as an example of this grey trade—in which US officials secretly sold weapons to Iranian authorities as part of a deal to release American hostages (Feinstein and Holden 2013: 3).

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(Feinstein and Holden 2013). The black market, encompassing as it does gun trafficking, is the focus of most of the chapters in this book. Despite the above distinction between the two worlds, these should not be perceived as entirely independent, as stressed by the authors of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. In effect, there can be links between the legal and illegal worlds of arms trading—recognition of which must play a central role in the design of policy responses. Indeed, in many cases, actors operating in one world may also deal in another. Rather than providing a comprehensive review of the intersections between different types of arms trade, however, most analyses describe firearms trafficking as a consequence of black markets alone—potentially concealing this overlap with the legal market.6 The close link between legality and illegality, however, is central to a range of attempts to define key concepts discussed throughout this book. Take, for instance, the term “gun trafficking,” on which there is no universal agreement. In line with the discussion above, Greco (1998) defines this as “the movement of guns from the legal to the illegal marketplace through an illicit method for an unlawful purpose, usually to obtain profit, power, or prestige” (p. 1). Greco’s (1998) definition, as such, describes the trafficking of firearms with reference to the (il)legality of these weapons. This consideration is highly relevant as “the same gun can be legal or illegal at different points in that chain of commerce, depending on who has it in their possession’ (Peters 2009). Accordingly, the trafficking of firearms occurs when guns are moved ‘from the legal to the illegal spheres” (Squires 2014: 6). Legal guns can become illegal when they are “diverted during transportation, by leakage from factories or surplus stocks, theft from stockpiles, dealers, or individual owners, or converted to illicit firearms” (Savona and Mancuso 2017: 14). Examples of this are covered throughout the previous chapters, including in 6A

number of earlier analyses have, however, highlighted this link. In a review of the international arms trade, Sampson (1977), for example, described how legal firms can use questionable connections and techniques to expand their commercial activities, often involving bribery and corruption. More recently, other scholars have presented support for this argument by exposing: (a) the ways in which corrupt private firms sell guns to actors that should not have access to them, (b) the ways in which some governments try to obtain guns without registration, and (c) the ways in which some arms dealers can make fortunes moving guns between these two worlds (Feinstein 2011; Farah and Braun 2007; Gilby 2014).

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Chapter 1, as well as Chapter 3, which suggest that a key factor that makes the movement of firearms difficult to address is the fact that not all guns are illegal, and that not all movements of guns are illicit per se. While these definitions of firearms trafficking frame the issue as a result of the (il)legality of the weapon, however, they often lack a second key component. This missing component is often the spatial dimension, which is also key to understanding this phenomenon. In many cases, firearms trafficking occurs when guns are moved from a (physical) space in which they are legal, to a space in which they are not. A number of prominent academics have stressed this spatial component: Feinstein & Holden (2013), for example, define firearms trafficking as a process that occurs when the deals undertaken violate existing rules on the movement of arms from one place to another. Veen et al. (1997) expand on this definition by describing firearms trafficking as “the acquisition of firearms for the purpose of making them available to criminals, or to other people who reside in areas where local laws limit the availability of firearms” (p. 1). This discussion suggests that “firearms trafficking” is the outcome of (at least) two different processes. One of these processes is associated with the legal nature (or source) of many guns, as debated by Greco (1998), while the other is more closely linked to the physical movement of guns from one place to another, as debated by Veen et al. (1997) and Feinstein & Holden (2013). While most chapters in this book focus mainly on the latter, a number of the chapters also point to the (previous) legality of the firearm as intrinsically relevant to efforts to address firearms trafficking. Both dimensions are important. Indeed, a key lesson to be learned is the fact that these definitional questions are crucial to the design of responses, with practical implications from both a policy and a law enforcement perspective. For example, if the spatial definition of firearms trafficking is considered, one of the key components required for this offence to occur is that guns should be moved from one physical place to another. In legal terms, these places can be considered jurisdictions, or areas in which specific laws are implemented that could be different to those in neighboring jurisdictions (Hazard 1965). This brings into play

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a range of practical, transnational issues and considerations. Notably, the movement of guns that violates a law that is applicable to one jurisdiction is an offence that can be considered a cross border crime. Porter (1996) defines these crimes as those in which “an offender crosses a police force boundary to perpetrate a crime or commit an offence in such a way as to require the police to cross boundaries to investigate it” (Porter 1996: iii). This challenge of transnationality in relation to firearms trafficking is debated in depth in several chapters in the book, including Chapter 4 on Latin America and Chapter 7 on Africa. From a practical perspective, the types of cross border investigation required to address transnational firearms trafficking are often challenging for national law enforcement agencies, for a variety of reasons (Seniora and Poitevin 2010). This points to the need for greater practical support to strengthen collaboration between agencies around the world, in a range of different areas. At the same time, as discussed in Chapter 2, the overlaps between legal and illegal spheres, and the fact that the same firearm can pass from legal to illegal status and back at different points in the supply chain, has a range of practical implications—particularly in terms of where and when law enforcement across different regions of the world should focus their attention and interventions.

10.3 Final Thoughts Offering a concluding chapter that summarizes insights from multiple parts of the world is, unsurprisingly, not an easy task. This task becomes even more challenging in cases such as this, where we must draw out concise conclusions from contributions made by influential academics and practitioners on gun trafficking and gun violence worldwide. Nonetheless, two final points should be noted for consideration by academics and policymakers concerned with the issue of firearms trafficking and violence worldwide. First, it is clear that transnational challenges to health and security require transnational responses. Consequently, working globally and regionally is key. In this context, while many challenges are specific to particular locations, requiring context-specific responses, it is also

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crucial to note the shared challenges discussed in the book, as summarized above in Sect. 10.1. These should be considered carefully, particularly by international organizations, which, due to their global coverage, are in perhaps the best position to help mitigate those challenges. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), for example, has the technical expertise and resources to spearhead such regional and global responses, while governments can, in turn, play a key role in supporting such global and regional working. This is particularly important for helping governments to improve techniques concerning data collection and managing stockpiles. In the same way, thinking globally should take full advantage of global instruments that, until very recently, did not exist. An example is the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which today offers the most comprehensive approach to the prevention and mitigation of these phenomena. Alongside global efforts, national governments should also consider their role in supporting regional efforts. In this context, good practice from regions such as the Pacific (as discussed in the previous Chapter) could offer positive examples for other parts of the world. This could be relevant, potentially, to Central and Latin America, assisting countries in these regions to form a block to effectively fight—and lobby against—the vast flows of firearms arriving from the US. Second, it is evident that leadership and good policy matter. Leadership, in this context, should be seen as the ability to take—often hard—decisions that might be unpopular short term, but could have a major impact long term on stemming flows of illegal firearms. To enable such leadership, it is clear that evidence is crucial: we need much more and better data. This data must be robust, comparative, and as close to real-time as possible. Furthermore, data collection should also cover emerging threats and challenges that will become more prominent over the course of this century, including the new normal following COVID19, the use of 3D guns, and many other issues that were unthinkable only a matter of years ago. Overall, the key points for anyone seeking to make a meaningful contribution involve going back to the fundamentals. Data is highly relevant. Leadership matters. And good, evidence-based policy, effectively enforced, is required to make the difference.

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References Amnesty International. 2019. Amnesty International. Gun Violence-Key Facts. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/arms-control/gun-violence/. ATF. 2019. Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report. Washington, DC: US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Clarke, Ronald V., and Ross Homel. 1997. “A Revised Classification of Situational Crime Prevention Techniques.” In Crime Prevention in the Crossroads, edited by S.P. Lab, 17–27. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson. Cornish, Derek Blaikie, and Ronald V. Clarke. 2003. Opportunities, Precipitators and Criminal Decisions: A Reply to Wortley’s Critique of Situational Crime Prevention. En Theory for Situational Crime Prevention, edited by de M. Smith and D. Cornish. Monsey, New York: Criminal Justice Press. Farah, Douglas, and Stephen Braun. 2007. Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Feinstein, Andrew. 2011. The Shadow World. Inside the Global Arms Trade. London, UK: Penguin. Feinstein, Andrew, and Paul Holden. 2013. Arms Trafficking. The Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime, 1–20. GBD. 2018. The Global Burden of Disease 2016 Injury Collaborators. Global Mortality from Firearms, 1990 − 2016. JAMA, 792–814. Gilby, N. 2014. Deception in High Places: A History of Bribery in Britain’s Arms Trade. London: Pluto Press. Greco, J. 1998. Pattern Crimes: Firearms Trafficking Enforcement. Washington, DC: FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Hazard, Geoffrey C. 1965. A General Theory of State-Court Jurisdiction. The Supreme Court Review, 241–288. Karp, A. 2018. Estimating Global Civilian-held Firearms Numbers. Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey. Pérez Esparza, David, Shane D. Johnson, and Paul Gill. 2019. “Why did Mexico become a violent country? Assessing the role of firearms trafficked from the US” Security Journal , 179–209. Peters, Rebeca. 2009. Small Arms: No Single Solution. UNChronicle, The Magazine of the United Nations, n.d. Porter, M. 1996. Tackling Cross Border Crime. London, UK: UK Home Office Police Research Group.

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Sampson, A. 1977. The Arms Bazaar: From Lebanon to Lockheed . New York: Viking. Savona, Ernesto Ugo, and Marino Mancuso. 2017. Project FIRE (Fighting Illicit Firearms Trafficking Routes and Actors at European Level). Milan, Italy: Transcrime—Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Seniora, Jihan, and Cedric Poitevin. 2010. Managing land borders and the trafficking of small arms and light weapons. Brussels, Belgium: Groupe de Recherhe et d’ Information sur la paix et la securite. SIPRI. 2018. SIPRI Armas Transfer Database. Solna (Stockholm). Sweden: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Squires, P. 2014. Gun Crime in Global Contexts. New York: Routledge. Veen, J., D. Stacie, and M. Stedmand. 1997. The BJA Firearms Trafficking Program: Demonstrating Effective Strategies to Control Violent Crime. NCJ166818. Washigton, DC: US Bureau of Justice Assistance. Wortley, Richard. 2001. “A classification of techniques for controlling situational precipitators of crime.” Security Journal , 63–82.

Index

A

Ammunition 5, 6, 9–11, 13, 15, 22, 23, 25–28, 33, 36–39, 64, 67, 69, 71, 77, 98–100, 103, 104, 112, 124, 127–130, 133, 135, 137, 139, 140, 142, 144, 156, 167, 171, 173–176, 181, 195, 196, 198–201, 203, 205, 207–215, 218, 220, 221, 247, 249, 260, 276–278, 280, 282, 288 Amnesty International (AI) 37, 197, 201, 204, 212, 296 Armed forces 11, 99, 100, 124, 135, 143, 202, 209, 211, 243, 258 Arms control 20, 24, 30, 109, 139–141, 144, 217, 219–221, 251, 255, 256, 260–262 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) 24, 28, 141, 201, 262, 306

Assault Weapons 65

B

Ballistic intelligence ballistic analysis capabilities 157 ballistic evidence 177 ballistic intelligence sharing 177, 179 police ballistic intelligence systems 176 Bombing 72–74, 246 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) 58, 63, 64, 69, 73, 80, 134, 140, 141

C

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 52, 68

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. P. Esparza et al. (eds.), Gun Trafficking and Violence, St Antony’s Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2

309

310

Index

Central American Integration System (SICA) 127 Civilian firearms 219, 249, 254 Community policing 12, 106, 197 community-based programs 80 police-community relationship 55 Conflict Armament Research (CAR) 25, 30 Corruption 4, 95, 98, 111, 113– 115, 135, 138, 143, 204, 205, 207–209, 214, 219, 220, 252, 260 Craft produced weaponry craft industries 249 craft manufacturing 200 craft producers 252 craft production 142, 248, 260 Crime 3, 6, 7, 10, 26, 58, 60, 61, 70, 95, 109–112, 137, 138, 142, 143, 154, 156, 160, 166, 167, 171, 177–179, 189, 190, 192, 194, 195, 203, 204, 219, 221, 260, 273, 277, 282, 288, 296, 298–300, 302, 305 Crime scenes 64, 102 Criminal violence 4, 5, 7, 98 Crypto markets 14

D

Dark web 14, 156, 174, 175, 180 Demand and supply of arms 190 Diversion 7, 9–11, 15, 17, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28–33, 36, 39, 40, 100, 124, 136, 140, 142, 143, 175, 190, 200, 203, 206, 208–211, 215, 220, 221, 247, 251, 253, 256, 258–260, 277

Drug trafficking 106, 124, 128, 135, 138, 143 drug cartels 133 drug traffickers 13, 130, 137, 139, 203 drug transit 103, 138, 143

E

EFFECT project 176, 177 End-user certificate (EUC) 9, 30–32, 113 Enforcement agencies 135 law enforcement agencies 202, 204, 250 law enforcement operations 219

F

Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) 61, 69 Firearms 1–8, 11–17, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 40, 52–54, 57–59, 64, 66, 69–71, 76, 80, 95, 104, 123, 125, 127, 134, 136, 140, 155, 160, 168, 177, 179, 194, 196, 240, 273, 278, 280, 284, 289, 290, 296–298, 301, 303–306 Flows of illegal firearms 306 flows of firearms 306 illegal flows 126

G

Gangs 13, 104, 130, 133, 135, 137, 139, 143, 144, 155–157, 160, 172, 194, 195, 203, 219, 221

Index

Gun homicide 4, 10, 27, 54, 55, 59, 62, 65, 68, 70, 71, 125, 158, 169 Gun injuries 4, 57, 59 Gun reforms 6 Gun trafficking 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 17, 62, 69, 80, 97, 104, 129, 135, 157, 295–298, 300–303, 305 Gun violence/violence 2–8, 10–13, 15–18, 21, 26, 27, 29, 39, 40, 51–61, 67–71, 78–81, 94–97, 101, 105, 108, 114, 124, 126, 127, 136, 138, 143, 144, 159, 162, 171, 177, 189–198, 200, 204, 205, 207, 213, 215, 219–221, 239, 240, 243–245, 250–252, 254, 256, 260–263, 274, 279–288, 290, 295–297, 299–301, 305

H

Hot-spot policing (HSP) 13, 110

I

Illicit domain 3, 8, 20, 30, 252, 256 Illicit weapons 130, 180, 181, 220, 250 Insurgencies 192, 243, 260 Interest groups 4, 11, 300

311

Leakages from stockpiles/stockpiles 5, 11, 13–16, 33, 98–100, 124, 133, 135, 139, 140, 143, 144, 161, 180, 190, 203, 207–210, 246, 247, 250–253, 257, 258, 262, 289, 303, 306 Lethality 53, 54, 64, 72, 76 Light weapons 15, 22, 24, 25, 190, 195, 196, 198–203, 206, 208, 209, 213, 215, 216, 220 Los Zetas (criminal group) 136, 138

M

Manufacturers 6, 28, 34, 71, 75, 167, 203, 250, 252 Market black market 14, 124, 136, 250, 253, 260, 277, 302, 303 firearms market 127, 128, 173, 250, 276 grey markets 302 illicit markets 103, 200, 203, 299, 301 legal market 124, 303 small arms market 6, 7 Mass shootings 4, 10, 14, 15, 17, 51, 52, 55–57, 63–65, 154–156, 158, 165, 178, 180, 276, 278, 281, 284, 286

N J

Journalist sources 8

L

Leadership 18, 72, 79, 283, 306

National Ballistic Intelligence Service (NABIS) 156, 162, 168 National Firearms Agreement (Australia) 278, 285–287, 290 National Rifle Association (NRA)/NRA Institute for

312

Index

Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) 52, 71–79, 300 National security 94, 181, 252, 255, 257–259, 263 National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) 74 Natural resources 15, 16, 190, 203, 206–208, 221 Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs) 39, 105–108, 200, 202, 209, 242, 243, 247, 249, 251, 252

O

Organized criminal groups criminal entrepreneurs 156, 181 criminal gangs 137, 143, 172, 195, 203, 219

P

Pistols 58, 72, 76, 78, 127, 128, 137, 138, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174, 175, 248, 259, 277 Police police agencies 94, 176 police forces 15, 111, 155, 204, 254, 276, 305 police officers 167, 204, 215, 260, 275, 302 police-recorded crime data 94, 111 police unions 284 Porous borders 13, 16, 141, 143, 172, 203, 241 Private security/private security companies 3, 13, 14, 97, 107, 124, 129, 135, 136, 139, 141, 143, 202, 204, 259

Public health 3, 10, 53, 68, 80, 177, 180, 195, 254, 261, 284

R

Regionalism 17, 274 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) 98 Rifles 20, 28, 35, 58, 64, 76, 99, 136, 163, 168, 207, 248, 278, 279, 284, 289 assault rifles 72, 98, 99, 103, 127, 133, 135, 137, 171, 248, 252, 259, 277

S

SAFTE project 15, 172, 173 Security challenges 2, 11, 14–16, 94, 97, 153, 157, 171, 180, 181, 190, 239, 241, 246 Shootings 10, 11, 51, 52, 57, 66, 168, 290 mass shootings 4, 10, 14, 17, 51, 55, 56, 63, 64, 154, 156, 158, 165, 178, 278, 284 Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) approach 13, 109, 299 Small arms 1–3, 5, 6, 8–10, 15–17, 20–23, 25–29, 32, 33, 35, 38–40, 98, 100, 112, 114, 189, 192, 195, 196, 198, 200–203, 206, 209, 213, 215, 216, 218–221, 239–242, 246, 247, 249–254, 256, 276, 277, 281, 283, 295, 297 Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) 1, 20, 22, 24, 190,

Index

195, 198, 199, 201, 202, 206, 213, 216, 239 Small Arms Survey 8, 23, 25, 96, 99, 102, 103, 107, 154, 160, 166, 167, 200, 202, 207, 239, 249 Smuggling routes 241 smuggling networks 246 smuggling of arms 98 Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI) 75 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) 21–23, 25, 27 Stockpiles 100, 135, 140, 143, 161, 180, 190, 208–210, 289, 306 Suicide 4, 10, 52, 53, 57, 67, 158, 163, 169, 254 T

Tacking and marking guns 158 Terrorist organizations 243, 301 terrorist activity 173, 245 terrorist attacks 160, 167, 193, 197, 221, 245 terrorist groups 16, 172, 196 3D printing 24, 175 Tracing 5, 14, 16, 27, 114, 124, 134, 140, 141, 156, 158, 162, 177, 180, 181, 218 Transnational threats 245

313

transnational criminal networks 102, 246 Transnational terrorist entities 245

U

United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) 23 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 194, 306 United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) 24 Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCPD) 191 U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) 22, 23 U.S. Military 3

V

Victims 6, 27, 54–56, 61, 67, 95, 165, 193, 221, 254, 296

W

World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) 22, 23, 26