Global Policy Forum

By David Isenberg

The international stockpile of small arms continues to grow, according to the latest edition of an annual yearbook, the Small Arms Survey group, based in Geneva. About 7 million mostly civilian small arms are produced annually, far exceeding the amount of arms removed from the weapons supply.

The survey said its estimate of the global value of small-arms production remains unchanged at about US$7.4 billion - with the United States and Russia accounting for more than 70 percent of production. The estimate of the legal small-arms trade - $4 billion a year - also remains the same, with the European Union dominating the international export market. Many of the regions worst affected by small-arms violence, such as Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, appear to be minor players in the legal small-arms trade. Also, the data, while not conclusive, suggest that the overall value of the international legal small-arms trade is declining.

The section on stockpiles estimates the total number of small arms around the world to be 639 million. It also shows, contrary to the conventional wisdom of many commentators, that Europe has been significantly affected by the growing availability of small arms. It is estimated some 84 million civilian firearms are in the 15 states of the European Union. Of these, 80 percent - 67 million guns - are in civilian hands.

While the total is still far less than the estimated 238 million to 276 million civilian-owned guns in the United States, it is more than many analysts previously estimated.

The yearbook was released during a recent United Nations conference in New York to evaluate progress since the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, held in July 2001, devised a program of action meant to encourage greater international cooperation in addressing the issue.

The number of producing countries remains unchanged at 98, many of which have small-scale or dormant production facilities. Twenty of those countries are in the Asia-Pacific region, comprising 21 percent of the total. This includes one major producer (China, although accurate statistics are not available from that country) and medium producers such as India, Japan, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.

Of the major small-arms-producing companies worldwide only one Asian company, China's Norinco, is among the top five. In terms of the six small-arms categories - military sidearms, rifles, submachine-guns, machine-guns, small-arms ammunition, and grenade launchers - it is included in all but military sidearms.

To no one's surprise the United States remains the single most important small-arms producer. It has the largest number of companies for a single country that produce small arms and/or ammunition, is a major exporter of small arms, and is estimated to have one of the world's largest domestic markets for small arms. In 2000, the last year for which statistics are available, more than 3.8 million small arms were produced in the US. Also, more than a million firearms are imported from the US annually, while about 400,000 (including military small arms) are exported annually. With roughly 83-96 guns per 100 people, the United States is approaching a statistical level of one gun per person.

The country with the second-highest gun ownership is Yemen, with between 33 and 50 firearms per 100 people, followed by Finland with 39 per 100, the survey said.

By comparison, the states of the European Union, now thought to have many more guns than previously estimated, have 17.4 guns per 100 people.

One country that is heavily armed is Australia. The survey estimates there are 2.1 million private firearms in Australia. Australian gun ownership - one privately-owned gun for every nine people - surpasses the global ratio, which is just one gun for every 16 people.

Although the proliferation of small arms is still a serious and dire problem - think of the film Bowling for Columbine on a global scale - there are bits of encouraging news here and there, if one reads the yearbook closely.

For example, the data, while not conclusive, suggest that the overall value of the international legal small-arms trade is declining. And, outside of Europe, the number of small arms appears to be fewer than commonly assumed. In Afghanistan, the widely-used number of 10 million small arms in circulation almost certainly is a serious exaggeration. In reality, there probably are 500,000 to 1.5 million small arms there. Similarly, in Yemen, the previously reported figure of up to 80 million small arms is almost certainly wrong. A more reliable estimate is 6 million to 9 million.

Surprisingly, even security-obsessed Israel has relatively few small arms. Private weapons appear to be carefully restricted. While Israel has at least 363,000 weapons in public hands, that equals about six civilian firearms per 100 citizens, or about 7.1 percent of the US figure.

But when it comes to specific countries, the situation in certain Asian countries is still dangerous. According to the survey, apart from Afghanistan, the entire central and South Asian region continues to be heavily involved in the small-arms trade. One example is Nepal, party to the best-publicized small-arms deal of 2002, involving several contracts signed by the government for automatic rifles and machine-guns.

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