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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
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College, a world-renowned centre at the University of Oxford for
research and teaching on global and regional issues. The series covers all
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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 Carlos A. Pérez Ricart
Jill Dando Institute División de Estudios Internacionales
University College London Centro de Investigación y Docencia
London, UK 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
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 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 chap-
ters 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.

v
 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 practi-
tioners 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,

vii
viii 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 An Introduction to “Gun Trafficking and Violence:

From the Global Network to the Local Security
Challenge” 1
David Pérez Esparza, Carlos A. Pérez Ricart,
and Eugenio Weigend Vargas
1.1 Introduction to the Edited Volume 1
1.2 Book Structure 8

2 The Global Small Arms Trade and Diversions

at Transfer 19
Michael Picard, Olena Shumska, and Aaron Karp
2.1 Introduction 19
2.2 The Small Arms Trade in Brief 21
2.2.1 Arms Trade Statistics: Vital Context 21
2.2.2 Small Arms Trade Statistics: Strengths
and Weaknesses 23
2.2.3 Tales from the Data Quarry 25
2.3 American Small Arms Exports and Diversion 26

ix
x Contents

2.4 Diversions in the Transfer Process 29

2.5 Insights from Post-Soviet Countries 33
2.5.1 Russia to Syria (2012) 36
2.5.2 Ukraine to South Sudan (2014) 37
2.5.3 Belarus to Libya (2014) 38
2.6 Conclusion 39
References 40

3 Gun Violence and Key Challenges in the United

States 51
Eugenio Weigend Vargas, Josh Sugarmann,
and Rukmani Bhatia
3.1 Introduction 51
3.2 How Gun Violence Manifests in the United
States 53
3.2.1 Gun suicides 53
3.2.2 Gun homicides 54
3.2.3 Mass shootings 55
3.2.4 Unintentional Shootings 56
3.2.5 Gun injuries 57
3.2.6 School Shootings 57
3.2.7 U.S. Firearms Abroad 57
3.3 High Inventory and Gun Ownership 58
3.4 Addressing Gun Violence Through Effective
Policy 60
3.4.1 Eligibility to Possess Firearms 60
3.4.2 Background Checks 61
3.4.3 Addressing Background Check Gaps 63
3.4.4 Restrictions on Specific Weapons 64
3.4.5 Extreme Risk Protection Orders 65
3.4.6 Safe Storage and Child Access
Prevention Laws 66
3.4.7 Local Interventions 67
3.4.8 Restrictions on Gun Violence Research 68
3.4.9 Gun Industry Regulation 69
3.4.10 Concealed Carry 70
 Contents xi

3.4.11 Stand Your Ground 70

3.5 The NRA and the Firearms Industry 71
3.6 Conclusions and Lessons 80
References 81

4 Guns in Latin America: Key Challenges

from the Most Violent Region on Earth 93
Carlos A. Pérez Ricart, Jerónimo Castillo, Alex Curry,
and Mónica Serrano
4.1 Introductions 93
4.2 Background to the Security Challenge
in the Region 94
4.3 Key Security Challenges in the Region and Key
Lessons Learnt 97
4.3.1 Gun Trafficking Due to Institutional
Corruption 98
4.3.2 Smuggling of Small Quantities of Guns,
their Parts, and Components 102
4.3.3 The Possession of Illegal Guns
by Non-state Actors 105
4.4 Specific Policy Recommendations 109
4.4.1 Where Are the Hot Spots? 110
4.4.2 Toward a Strategy of Effective Marking,
Record-Keeping, and Tracing Policy
for Guns 112
4.5 Conclusion 114
References 115

5 Understanding the Flow of Illegal Weapons

in Central America 123
Katherine Aguirre Tobón, Rebecca Peters,
and Ana Yancy Espinoza-Quirós
5.1 Introduction 123
5.2 The Problem 125
5.2.1 Figures for the Most Violent Region
of the World 125
xii Contents

5.2.2 The Scale and Characteristics

of the Illegal Firearms Market
in Central America 127
5.2.3 Main Sources of Illegal Firearms
in Central America 130
5.3 Strategies to Reduce Illicit Arms Trafficking
in Central America 139
5.4 Discussion and Conclusions 142
References 144

6 A Hidden Time Bomb? Policing Illegal Firearms

in Europe 153
Peter Squires, Helen Poole, Jo Chilton, Sarah Watson,
and Helen Williamson
6.1 Introduction 153
6.2 The European Context: Rates of Firearm
Possession and Firearm Fatalities 158
6.3 Major Security Challenges and Social Harms 171
6.4 Lessons Learned and Policy Recommendations 176
6.5 Conclusions 180
References 182

7 Africa Armed Violence and the Illicit Arms Trade 189

Brian Wood and Peter Danssaert
7.1 Introduction 189
7.2 Patterns of Armed Violence 190
7.2.1 Armed Conflicts 191
7.2.2 Other Armed Violence 192
7.3 Small Arms Supply and Demand 195
7.3.1 Demand Factors 195
7.3.2 Supply Factors 198
7.4 Small Arms Diffusion 200
7.4.1 Dysfunctional Governance
and ‘the Weak State’ 203
7.4.2 Recurring Violent Conflict Over
Natural Resources 206
 Contents xiii

7.4.3 Leakages from Stockpiles 208

7.4.4 Covert Arming of Opposition Groups
in Neighboring States 211
7.5 Lessons Learned and Recommendations 213
7.5.1 Improving the Collection
and Availability of Relevant
Data on Arms and Violence 215
7.5.2 International Assistance to Strengthen
National Regulations on Transfers 216
7.5.3 Restricting the Local Circulation
and Reducing Demand for Small Arms 218
7.6 Conclusion 220
Annex 221
References 229

8 Small Arms Proliferation Challenges and Solutions

in South and Southeast Asia 239
Michael Picard
8.1 Introduction 239
8.2 Regional Context of Armed Violence 240
8.2.1 Subnational Armed Conflicts 242
8.2.2 Transnational Threats 245
8.2.3 Origins of Illicit Small Arms 246
8.2.4 Civilian Firearms and Illicit Proliferation 249
8.3 Key Issues in Arms Control 251
8.3.1 Diversions and Misuses of State
Stockpiles 251
8.3.2 Data Collection Challenges 253
8.3.3 Transparency Challenges 255
8.4 Policy Solutions 256
8.4.1 The Big Picture 256
8.4.2 Strengthening Internal Control
of National Stockpiles 258
8.4.3 Strengthening Recordkeeping 260
8.4.4 Internationalizing Arms Control Efforts 261
xiv Contents

8.5 Conclusion 262

References 263

9 Small Firearms in the Pacific: Regionalism

and Non-Trafficking 273
Maxwell Presser and Philip Alpers
9.1 Introduction 273
9.2 Background 274
9.3 Key Lessons 281
9.3.1 Papua New Guinea and Bougainville
Civil War 281
9.3.2 Australia and the Port Arthur Shooting 284
9.3.3 Lessons Learned 285
9.4 Specific Policy Recommendations 287
9.4.1 The Person: Licence All Gun Owners 287
9.4.2 The Object: Register All Firearms 288
9.4.3 The “Right”: Defined in Legislation
as a Conditional Privilege 289
9.5 Conclusion 290
References 291

10 “Gun Trafficking and Violence: From the Global

Network to the Local Security Challenge” Final
Remarks 295
David Pérez Esparza, Cathy Haenlein,
and Florian J. Hetzel
10.1 Challenges 298
10.1.1 Common Challenges 298
10.1.2 Specific Challenges 300
10.2 Moving from Theory to Policy 301
10.3 Final Thoughts 305
References 307

Index 309
 Notes on Contributors

Katherine Aguirre Tobón is a Colombian economist (Universidad del

Valle) with professional experience in the areas of violence and develop-
ment. She has worked with think-tanks in Colombia, Switzerland and
Brazil. Katherine holds a master’s in development studies from the Grad-
uate 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 world-
wide. 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 Preven-
tion at the Center for American Progress. She previously worked at
Freedom House on their flagship publications Freedom in the World

xv
xvi Notes on Contributors

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 appoint-
ment, 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 partic-
ipation 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.
 Notes on Contributors xvii

Alex Curry finished his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Latin American
Studies in 2019. His work focuses on state-society relations and citizen-
ship 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 Informa-
tion Service (IPIS) and regularly produces the IPIS Arms Trade Bulletin.
He has written numerous reports particularly on arms logistics and traf-
ficking and contributed to several Amnesty International research publi-
cations. 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 transna-
tional environmental crime, with regional expertise in East and Southern
Africa, including fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Mada-
gascar, the Seychelles, Malawi, Mozambique, Gabon, and Sierra Leone.
Cathy is the editor, with M L R Smith, of Poaching, Wildlife Traf-
ficking, 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.
xviii 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 Compar-
ative 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 plat-
form 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 xix

European Union. David has participated in key academic projects along-

side 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 Reduc-
tion, 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
xx 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) Poli-
cies”; 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
 Notes on Contributors xxi

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 Inter-
American Convention Against Illicit Firearms Trafficking in the Amer-
icas. 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 addi-
tion, she holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Science and Forensic Measure-
ment, completed at the University of Teesside in 2002, and a Postgrad-
uate Certificate in Education from Northumbria University, completed
in 2010. She is currently a M.Phil./Ph.D. researcher at the University of
Brighton.
xxii 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 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) 126
Fig. 6.1 Distribution of percentage of homicides by mechanism,
in selected regions and globally 2017 (Source UNODC
2013, 2019: 77) 159
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) 161

xxiii
xxiv List of Figures

Fig. 6.3 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) 164
Fig. 6.4 Timeline of mass shooting incidents in Europe (Source
Open Source data and Duquet 2016) 166
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) 174
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 Most common types and models of firearms seized

in the region 129
Table 5.2 Key points and hot spots for arms trafficking in Central
America 131
Table 7.1 Value of small arms supplied to African sub-regions,
as reported by Comtrade, 2001–2014 199
Table 7.2 Main trading partners for 5 largest small arms
importers in Africa (2001–2014) 199
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, 2012–17 217
Table 7.4 International arms embargoes imposed on African
countries 222
Table 7.5 African states’ membership of the Arms Trade Treaty,
UN Firearms Protocol and regional treaties on arms
transfer controls, August 2020 224

xxv
 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: d.perez.esparza.13@ucl.ac.uk
C. A. Pérez Ricart (B)
División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia
Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City, Mexico
e-mail: carlos.perezricart@cide.edu
E. Weigend Vargas
Center for American Progress, Washington, DC, USA
e-mail: eweigend@americanprogress.org
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 1

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
2 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 experi-
enced 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 popula-
tion. 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 chal-
lenges 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 multi-
disciplinary, 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, crimi-
nology, 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. Ulti-
mately, 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.
4 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 narra-
tives, 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 shoot-
ings 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 insti-
tutions 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 traf-
ficking, the severity of sanctions, the volume of international legal trade,
gun culture, and even geography (i.e., an island is more likely to have
 1 An Introduction to … 5

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 traf-
ficking 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 secu-
rity 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
6 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 respon-
sibility 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 commu-
nities of color represent a disproportionate percentage of victims of gun-
related homicides in the United States. Likewise, as Chapter 4 shows,
Latin-American victims (and perpetrators) shared common patterns:
 1 An Introduction to … 7

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 inde-
pendent 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 partic-
ularly 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
8 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 docu-
menting 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,
 1 An Introduction to … 9

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 inter-
national 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 interop-
erability 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 prac-
tices 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.
10 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 note-
worthy. 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 exam-
ined 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. Specifi-
cally, 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 occur-
ring 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
 1 An Introduction to … 11

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 associ-
ation 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 substan-
tial 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
12 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

with Latin America is the implementation of gun surrender programs in

which civilians, voluntarily and anonymously, hand in guns to author-
ities 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 intro-
duce 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 traf-
ficked 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 intrin-
sically 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
 1 An Introduction to … 13

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 assess-
ment 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 character-
istics 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
14 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

remnants of the many civil wars that took place in the region during
the 1970s and 1980s, leaks from official but not well-sheltered stock-
piles, 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 imple-
ment 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 poten-
tially 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 shoot-
ings and terrorist outrages in the current European context. Here, the
question arises inevitably: to which extent might Europe replicate some
 1 An Introduction to … 15

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 find-
ings 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 compre-
hensive 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 insti-
tutions. 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 situa-
tions 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 rele-
vant security challenges: dysfunctional governance and limited state-
hood; 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 conti-
nental level, they also recognize that the relevance of these issues varies
across countries. Differences in the degree on how the threat of armed
16 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

violence by terrorist groups is perceived, the degree of trust in the judi-

ciary 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 compli-
ance 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 South-
east 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 stock-
piles 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 secu-
rity and expand local abilities to combat and reduce the proliferation of
 1 An Introduction to … 17

illicit small arms” are (1) diversion of state small arms, (2) inconsistent
data collection mechanisms, and (3) lack of transparency and coopera-
tion on security issues. Picard does not just explain the complexity of
each of these challenges but also offers a set of pragmatic technical solu-
tions 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 develop-
ment 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, geograph-
ical, and societal causes of a regional phenomenon known as the Pacific
consensus for disarmament. The experiences of the process of disarma-
ment 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 objec-
tive of registering all firearms, themselves, for record-keeping purposes;
18 D. Pérez Esparza et al.

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 Haen-
lein, 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: mpicard@gunpolicy.org
O. Shumska
Small Arms Survey, Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: olena.shumska@graduateinstitute.ch
A. Karp
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
e-mail: akarp@odu.edu

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

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
20 M. Picard et al.

It is an LRT-3 sniper rifle, produced by PGW Defence—a Cana-

dian 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 Cana-
dian 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 Forsimplicity, 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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