WFSA Current News - May, 2003 

May 13, 2003

Kenyan concern focuses on the gun
            A long and disturbing article ( http://allafrica.com/stories/200305130618.html ) today emerged from The Nation, in Nairobi, under the byline of Mburu Mwangi and Muniu Riunge.
            The focus of the article is the number of guns that are “in the wrong hands” – the figure of 5,000 such guns is given as an estimate for Kenya, and later contradicted within the article when it suggests that this figure could be dwarfed if other estimates are correct. A half a million guns are then suggested to be in those “wrong hands” across Eastern Africa and the horn.
            Various authorities have been involved in producing estimates about the numbers of firearms involved. Their conclusions revolve around the activities of cattle thieves and criminal gangs. The article noted a Nairobi seminar for journalists, organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This was said to have concluded little is being done to “stem the demand and to deter traffickers”.
            The article observes that the World Council of Churches has recently agreed to move for more stringent small arms controls as expressed in United Nations initiatives. Similarly, the African Peace Forum is said to be concerned with widespread governmental failure to come to grips with the true supply lines of illicit arms. Kenya has very strict gun laws and quite clearly the importation of those arms causing current concern has been illegal.
            Unfortunately, the article does not distinguish illicit, criminal activity from lawful and appropriate uses of firearms. Kenya is a country which is currently paying a price economically and ecologically from its extensive bans on hunting. The members of the Peace Forum no doubt have experience of the difficulties within their own region. The article describes them as calling in the year 2000 for “source countries to ensure that all manufacturers, traders, brokers, financiers and transporters of small and light weapons are regulated through licensing”.            
            The matter is raised in this present writing because the reporting carries no suggestion that the legal trade has in any way been differentiated from the illegal. It is so seldom mentioned in worldwide reporting that import and export requirements for lawful firearms are already very stringent. In the experience of the WFSA, there is already openness in the worldwide civilian trade. There are, however, problems with obtaining universal levels of transparency from all of the world’s governments.
            A reader of the article would not be aware of any fundamental difference between the world’s legal and illegal suppliers of firearms, when in fact a substantial difference exists.

May 2, 2003

UK arms amnesty ends
            It is interesting to compare different news media attitudes to the recent UK arms amnesty. In a story by Jude Sheerin at http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=6472204 in The Scotsman, Scottish police chiefs are quoted as saying the amnesty, having drawn out from Scotland nearly 2,000 guns and over a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, was a great success. Such figures must sound impressive to those unfamiliar with the issues. The deputy Chief Constable of Fife is also quoted as calling the amnesty a “golden opportunity to rid the streets of potential killers”.
            As usual, there is no suggestion of evidence that gun amnesties have any effect whatever on criminal activity.
            South of the border, however, the Daily Telegraph has today printed an article with a very different line on the same matter. 25,000 guns were handed in to police in England and Wales, and in the usual fashion the authorities there also claimed it was a successful exercise. The article, by Stephen Robinson (which may be found at http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2003%2F05%2F02%2Fdo0204.xml ), actually raises the unanswered question of how many of the guns handed in were anything more than heirlooms, brought forward by the elderly and the law-abiding. It asks why guns were only permitted to be handed in at police stations, and not informally to others in positions of influence, such as school teachers or some of those many community workers dealing with people who have a history of criminal activity.
            The article goes on to call the amnesty nothing much more than a part of “the state’s offensive on private gun ownership”. Indeed, it would be very refreshing if instead of merely asserting that there is value in gun amnesties, some of the authorities promoting them would actually turn their attention to demonstrating a fall in crime rates pursuant to those that have already taken place. This is not at all likely to happen, because no such benefits have ever been shown to result.

May 1, 2003

 Failing lawsuits in the USA
            Another American lawsuit aimed at blaming gun manufacturers for firearm crime has been abandoned. Reuters yesterday released a story headed to the effect that it was the potential cost of the proceedings in Cincinnati, Ohio, that caused the dropping of the lawsuit. This could of course be another way of saying there is little use in throwing good money after bad.
            There have been a rash of such cases throughout the United States, and one by one they have failed. The Ohio effort was not dismissed earlier because the state’s Supreme Court had previously ruled it worthy of allowing through to trial. It was one of few. In most of the other cases, dismissal occurred early in the life of the suit.
            Most recently, twelve Californian counties and cities, in a group led by Los Angeles and San Francisco, had their case against gunmakers dismissed in California’s Superior Court in March.
            It would now appear obvious that although it continues very popular with anti-gun advocacy groups, this approach is weakening rapidly.