Introduction. United States

Transcription

1 Introduction The debate over gun control in the United States has waxed and waned over the years, stirred by a series of mass shootings by gunmen in civilian settings. In particular, the killing of twenty schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 prompted a new national discussion about gun laws. However, legislation that would have banned semiautomatic assault weapons was defeated in the Senate despite extensive public support. In 2017, mass shootings at a music festival in Las Vegas and at a church near San Antonio have rekindled the gun control debate and invoked comparisons of U.S. gun policies and those of other wealthy democracies. United States Gun ownership in the United States is rooted in the Second Amendment of the Constitution: "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Only three countries in the world currently have a constitutional right to own a gun: the US, Mexico, and Guatemala. However, the right is not unlimited. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld some firearms restrictions, such as bans on concealed weapons and on the possession of certain types of weapons, as well as prohibitions against the sale of guns to certain categories of people. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits persons under eighteen years of age, convicted criminals, the mentally disabled, dishonorably discharged military personnel, and others from purchasing firearms. In 1993, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act mandated background checks for all unlicensed persons purchasing a firearm from a federally authorized dealer. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court has rolled back certain gun laws. In 2008, the court struck down a Washington, DC, law that banned handguns. Federal law provides the basis for firearm regulation in the United States, but states and cities can impose further restrictions. Some states, such as Idaho, Alaska, and Kansas, have passed various laws attempting to nullify federal gun legislation, but legal analysts say these are unconstitutional. In January 2016, President Barack Obama took several actions intended to decrease gun violence, including a measure requiring dealers of firearms at gun shows or online to obtain federal licenses and conduct background checks. As of 2017, there were no federal laws banning semiautomatic assault weapons, military-style.50 caliber rifles, handguns, or large-capacity magazines. There was a federal prohibition on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines between 1994 and 2004, but Congress allowed these restrictions to expire. In the days after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, in October, some lawmakers expressed provisional support for a federal prohibition of so-called bump fire stocks, devices that allow semiautomatic guns to fire at a rate approaching that of automatic weapons. 1

2 M Defensive Sporting Rifle DEF15 Americans are divided on whether the country s gun deaths could be reduced through tougher laws on gun ownership. Liberals argue that legal restrictions on gun ownership could save lives. Conservatives say that tougher gun laws would do nothing to change the behaviour of violent criminals. Even the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that left 20 first-graders dead was not enough to convince American lawmakers to pass new gun control laws, with many people seeing the ownership of guns as a crucial check on government tyranny. The country s highest court has ruled that outright bans on civilian ownership of handguns are unconstitutional. After similar mass shootings, other countries have taken more dramatic steps to regulate gun ownership. A look at other countries shows that tougher gun laws have been central to these efforts, but that enforcement and culture may also play important roles in preventing violence. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world s population, has about percent of the world s civilian-owned guns, according to a report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey. It ranks number one in firearms per capita. The United States also has the highest homicide-by-firearm rate among the world s most developed nations. But many gun rights proponents say these statistics do not indicate a causal relationship and note that the rates of gun homicide and other gun crimes in the United States have dropped since highs in the early 1990s. 2

3 Thirty people will be shot dead in America today. On average. It could be more. If it s less, then more will die tomorrow. Or the next day. 3

4 The United States gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries, according to a recent study (2015). How many homicides were there in the US in 2016? In 2016, the estimated number of murders in the nation was 17,250. This was an 8.6 percent increase from the 2015 estimate, a 16.1 percent increase from the 2012 figure, and a 0.7 percent rise from the number in Canada As in the United States, Canada s national government sets gun restrictions that the provinces, territories, and municipalities can supplement. And like its southern neighbor, Canada s gun laws have often been driven by gun violence. In 1989, a student armed with a semiautomatic rifle killed fourteen students and injured more than a dozen others at a Montreal engineering school. The incident is widely credited with driving major gun reforms that imposed a twenty-eight-day waiting period for purchases; mandatory safety training courses; more detailed background checks; bans on large-capacity magazines; and bans or greater restrictions on military-style firearms and ammunition. Firearms in Canada are divided into three classes: nonrestricted weapons, such as ordinary rifles and shotguns; restricted, such as handguns and semiautomatic rifles/shotguns; and prohibited, such as automatic weapons. It is illegal to own a fully automatic weapon unless it was registered before Changes to the law in 1995 required individuals to obtain a license to buy guns and ammunition, as well as register all firearms. However, in 2012, the requirement to register nonrestricted guns was dropped, and related public records were expunged. Australia The inflection point for modern gun control in Australia was the Port Arthur massacre of 1996, when a young man killed thirty-five people and wounded nearly two dozen others. The rampage, perpetrated with a semiautomatic rifle, was the worst mass shooting in the nation s history. Less than two weeks later, the conservative-led national government pushed through fundamental changes to the country s gun laws in cooperation with the various states and territories, which regulate firearms. The National Agreement on Firearms all but prohibited automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles, mandated licensing and registration, and instituted a temporary gun buyback program that took some 650,000 assault weapons (about one-sixth of the national stock) out of public circulation. Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a "genuine need" for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course. After another high-profile shooting in Melbourne in 2002, Australia s handgun laws were tightened as well. Many analysts say these 4

5 measures have been highly effective, citing declining gun death rates and the absence of gunrelated mass killings in Australia since There have been no mass shootings in the 20 years since Port Arthur; in the 20 years before the massacre there had been 13. However, since the 1996 National Firearms Agreement, four states have moved to wind back the mandatory 28 days cooling off period between applying for and buying a gun, a trend Howard has described as disturbing. One of those states was Tasmania. Israel Military service is compulsory in Israel, and guns are a part of everyday life. Much of the population has indirect access to an assault weapon by either being a soldier or a reservist or a relative of one. By law, most eighteen-year-olds are drafted, psychologically screened, and provided at least some weapons training after high school. After serving typically two or three years in the armed forces, however, most Israelis are discharged and subject to civilian gun laws. The country has relatively strict gun regulations, including an assault-weapons ban and a requirement to register ownership with the government. To become licensed, an applicant must be an Israeli citizen or a permanent resident, be at least twenty-one-years-old, and speak at least some Hebrew, among other qualifications. Applicants must also show genuine cause to carry a firearm, such as self-defense or hunting. United Kingdom Modern gun control efforts in the United Kingdom have been precipitated by extraordinary acts of violence that sparked public outrage and, eventually, political action. In 1987, a lone gunman armed with two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun went on a six-hour shooting spree roughly seventy miles west of London, killing more than a dozen people and then himself. In the wake of the incident, known as the Hungerford massacre, Britain introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act, which expanded the list of banned weapons, including certain semiautomatic rifles, and increased registration requirements for other weapons. A gun-related tragedy in the Scottish town of Dunblane in 1996 prompted Britain s strictest gun laws yet. A man armed with four handguns shot and killed sixteen schoolchildren and one adult before committing suicide in the country s worst mass shooting to date. The incident sparked a public campaign known as the Snowdrop Petition, which helped drive legislation banning handguns, with few exceptions. The government also instituted a temporary gun buyback program, which many credit with taking tens of thousands of illegal or unwanted guns out of supply. 5

6 Public petitions, most notably by the Snowdrop Campaign, founded by friends of the bereaved families, called for a total ban on the private ownership and use of handguns in the UK. Signed by 750,000 people it was symbolic of the weight of public opinion. The aftermath of Hungerford brought to an end the right to own semi-automatic firearms in Britain; they were banned along with pump action weapons, and registration became mandatory for shotgun owners. With Dunblane the focus turned to handguns held by tens of thousands who took part in pistol shooting across the country. The Conservative then prime minister, John Major, passed the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 after the Cullen inquiry into the massacre. It banned all cartridge ammunition handguns, except 22 calibre single-shot weapons. But with the landslide election of Labour and Tony Blair the same year, the law was tightened further, and the remaining.22 cartridge handguns were also banned. The decision, supported by a majority of the public, all but wiped out target shooting as a sport in the UK. Dave Thompson, chief constable of the West Midlands, and the lead on gun crime for the National Association of Chief Constables, said: The legislation coincided very well with a culture. Overnight, however, about 200,000 owners of handguns, most of whom kept them for pistol shooting, found their weapon banned and their pastime wiped out. All small-bore pistols and rifles used by target shooters were included in the ban. Penalties for anyone in possession of an illegal firearm were tough - from heavy fines to prison terms of 10 years. The hostility of those involved in the sport to what they term the draconian legislation is still strong, 20 years after Dunblane. Mike Wells, secretary of the Sportsman s Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, set up in 1996 to counter public pressure for a ban on handguns, said politicians had been driven by a need to show they were doing something but their actions did nothing to stop the criminal use of guns. It never, never has any effect. The criminal underworld in England, the drug dealers have all got guns, but they are illegal guns, he said. Mark Mastaglio, an expert on firearms who worked for the Forensic Science Service for 20 years, said there was no evidence that the ban on handguns after Dunblane had done anything to cut the criminal use of firearms. It was very rare that there was ever leakage from the licensed gun owners to the criminal fraternity. Most guns used by criminal are either illegally imported or converted weapons. And that remains the case today, said Mastaglio. Crime statistics in the years after the ban was introduced appear to support the theory that it had little impact. Gun crime rose sharply, to peak at 24,094 offences in 2003/4. After that the number of crimes in which a firearm was involved fell consistently, to 4,779 offences in In the year ending September 2015 there was a small rise of 4% to 4,994 offences. Thompson said the legislation was only part of it: law enforcement agencies had to prove they would carry through on the tough penalties and there was also poor policing of gang areas, and 6

7 poor ballistics records and analysis. Both were addressed in the early 2000s, when there was a huge decline in gun crime, he said. But there has been only one mass shooting in the UK in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in 2010, during which Derrick Bird killed 12 people since Dunblane. Mastaglio said: Dunblane was certainly a turning point. It was a huge piece of legislation, and had a huge impact on registered gun owners in the UK. We now have one of the most stringent set of firearms legislation in the world only Japan has tougher laws. Norway Gun control had rarely been much of a political issue in Norway where gun laws are viewed as tough, but ownership rates are high until right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed seventy-seven people in attacks in Oslo and at an island summer camp in Though Norway ranked tenth worldwide in gun ownership, according to the Small Arms Survey, it placed near the bottom in gun homicide rates. (The U.S. rate is roughly sixty-four times higher.) Most Norwegian police, like the British, do not carry firearms. In the wake of the tragedy, some analysts in the United States cited Breivik s rampage as proof that strict gun laws which in Norway include requiring applicants to be at least eighteen years of age, specify a valid reason for gun ownership, and obtain a government license are ineffective. Those who are willing to break the laws against murder do not care about the regulation of firearms, and will get a hold of weapons whether doing so is legal or not, wrote Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review. Other gun control critics have argued that had other Norwegians, including the police, been armed, Breivik might have been stopped earlier and killed fewer victims. After the massacre, an independent commission recommended tightening Norway s gun restrictions in a number of ways, including prohibiting pistols and semiautomatic weapons, but changes were not made. Japan Gun control advocates regularly cite Japan s highly restrictive firearm regulations in tandem with its extraordinarily low gun homicide rate, which is the lowest in the world at one in ten million, according to the latest data available. Most guns are illegal in the country and ownership rates, which are quite small, reflect this. Under Japan s firearm and sword law [PDF], the only guns permitted are shotguns, air guns, guns with specific research or industrial purposes, or those used for competitions. However, before access to these specialty weapons is granted, one must obtain formal instruction and pass a battery of written, mental, and drug tests and a rigorous background check. Furthermore, owners must inform the authorities of how their weapons and ammunition are stored and provide their firearms for annual inspection. 7

8 Some analysts link Japan s aversion to firearms with its demilitarization in the aftermath of World War II. Others say that because the overall crime rate in the country is so low, most Japanese see no need for firearms. Japan has what may be the closest any country comes to zero-tolerance of gun ownership a policy that experts say contribute its enviously low rates of gun crime. As of 2011, legal gun ownership stood at 271,000, according to police records, in a country of 127 million people. There were six reported gun deaths in Japan in 2014, according to the National Police Agency. In 2006 just two people were killed in gun attacks; when the number rose to 22 in 2007 it prompted a bout of national soul-searching. In his seminal 1993 paper for the Asia Pacific Law Review, whose conclusions still hold true more than 20 years later, David Kopel described Japanese gun control laws as the most stringent in the democratic world. The 1958 law on the possession of swords and firearms states: No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords. Among the few exceptions are shotguns, but here too, the restrictions would cause outrage among American gun owners. Before they can even lay hands on a shotgun for hunting and sport shooting, prospective owners must attend classes and pass written and practical exams. They must then undergo psychological assessments to determine they are fit to own a firearm. Police background checks are exhaustive and even extend to the gun owners relatives. The aim, according to Kopel, is to make possession of a shotgun so complex and drawn out that few people believe it worthwhile applying for one. Civilian ownership of handguns is banned. The few violations reported in the media usually involve members of the country s many crime syndicates who have managed to smuggle them in from abroad. But Japan was not always a low-crime, gun-intolerant nation. Guns quickly became the weapon of choice for feuding warlords after Portuguese traders introduced them to the country s southwest in the early 1500s. Over time, Japan improved the design and performance of firearms and began mass producing them. The beginning of the end of widespread gun ownership came when the feudal warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi ( ) unified Japan, then disarmed the peasant population by banning civilians from owning swords and firearms in The shogunate banned them because they were fearful of the consequences of having guns in hands of an angry populace, said Robert Whiting, author of Tokyo Underworld. The quid pro quo, Whiting added, was that the general population s safety would be assured provided they paid their taxes. 8

9 The notion that gun ownership should be limited to the authorities survived Japanese militarism and carried through to the postwar period. Japanese police officers did not begin carrying pistols until 1946, with the permission of the US-led occupation authorities. Despite sporadic outbreaks of gun violence, Japan s yakuza crime syndicates are reluctant to build up caches of firearms. Threatening a rival with a gun is often seen as an unmanly departure from the yakuza s traditional code of honour, to which even modern-day mobsters try to adhere, according to Whiting. Kopel says Japan s gun laws do not necessarily prevent criminals especially the yakuza from acquiring guns. But, he added, even gangsters see themselves as within the social system, in a broad sense. Even when breaking the law, they still play by certain rules of society. Germany Germany s relationship with firearms is intriguing: while there are a lot of guns in the country, they don t seem to kill a lot of people. Germany has one of the highest weapons-per-head rates in the world. In 2014, 5.5m legal weapons were registered as being in the hands of 1.45 million private individuals. The country s police union estimates the number of illegal weapons in the country to be considerably higher, around 20m. According to GunPolicy.org, this puts Germany at 15th place out of 175 nations in terms of guns per capita. Gun ownership is more widespread in the west of the country than in the former East Germany, where private gun ownership was illegal before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Recent reports suggest that gun ownership is rapidly increasing still: between November 2015 and February 2016 alone, 20,000 applications were filed for new gun licences. Yet in Germany gun homicide rate is one of the lowest in Europe: a death rate of 0.05 per 1,000 people, compared with 3.34 in the US. In fact, incidents of gun crime, including both weapons being fired and used to threaten people, have declined by almost a quarter since 2010 (pdf). Experts put this trend down to a number of tweaks to gun law in the wake of high-profile shootings. In 2002, a 19-year-old student in the Thuringian state capital, Erfurt, shot dead 16 people at the school that had recently expelled him, using weapons he had obtained from his gun club. Within a year, the law regulating access to guns had been changed: Germany is the only country in the world where anyone under the age of 25 who applies for their first firearms licence must undergo a psychiatric evaluation with a trained counsellor, involving personality and anger management tests. Experienced hunters or sports shooters over the age of 25 may be called in for psychiatric tests if they display certain kinds of behaviour, such as being caught drink-driving. 9

10 A further tweak to the gun law in 2008 means that inherited guns have to be fitted with a stateof-the-art blocking mechanism, making them unusable. There were calls for even more stringent laws after 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer shot dead 15 at a school in Winnenden near Stuttgart in March Kretschmer had obtained his weapons from an arsenal of 15 guns kept by his father, who was a member of a shooting club. Under the newly amended weapons act, it is now harder for individuals to own multiple weapons. A national gun register was established for the first time in 2013 previously, records of gun ownership were kept only at regional level. Police officers can now also visit registered gun owners home for spot checks without warning. Guns in private possessions have to be locked away in a safe, with the security code or location of the key known only to the owner of the gun. A number of politicians went even further in the wake of the Winnenden massacre, calling for a complete ban on the storage of firearms in private homes. Even hunters or sportsmen, they argued, should have to deposit their arms at centralised depots. The proposal was rejected after protests from hunters, who argued that they frequently need access to weapons at short notice, such as when wildlife was involved in traffic accidents. Gun laws and policies (collectively referred to as firearms regulation or gun control) regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification and use of small arms by civilians. Many countries have restrictive firearm policies, while a few have permissive ones. The only countries with permissive gun legislation are: Albania, Austria, Chad, Republic of Congo, Honduras, Micronesia, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, the United States, Yemen and Zambia, although several other countries like Canada and the Czech Republic, despite theoretically being restrictive, are shall-issue countries. Countries with a strong gun culture may afford civilians a right to keep and bear arms, and have more-liberal gun laws than neighboring jurisdictions. Countries which regulate access to firearms will typically restrict access to certain categories of firearms and then restrict the categories of persons who may be granted a license for access to such firearms. There may be separate licenses for hunting, sport shooting (a.k.a. target shooting), self-defense, collecting, and concealed carry, with different sets of requirements, permissions, and responsibilities. Gun laws are often enacted with the intention of reducing the use of small arms in criminal activity, specifying weapons perceived as being capable of inflicting the greatest damage and those most-easily concealed (such as handguns and other short-barreled weapons). Persons restricted from legal access to firearms may include those below a certain age or having a criminal record. Firearm licenses may be denied to those felt most at risk of harming themselves or others, such as persons with a history of domestic violence, alcoholism or substance abuse, mental illness, depression or attempted suicide. Those applying for a firearm license may have to demonstrate competence by completing a gun-safety course and show provision for a secure location to store weapons. 10

11 Guns laws are considered permissive in countries where the authorities will provide a firearm license on a shall issue basis to ordinary citizens who meet the legal requirements. Guns laws are restrictive when licenses are provided on a may issue basis, at the discretion of the regulating authority, often requiring the applicant to demonstrate a reason why they need a firearm. Gun laws are considered strict when it is difficult or impossible for an ordinary citizen to obtain a firearm through legal means. The legislation which restricts small arms may also restrict other weapons, such as explosives, crossbows, swords, electroshock weapons, air guns, and pepper spray. It may also restrict firearm accessories, notably high-capacity magazines and sound suppressors. There may be restrictions on the quantity or types of ammunition purchased, with certain types prohibited. Due to the global scope of this article, detailed coverage cannot be provided on all these matters; the article will instead attempt to briefly summarize each country's weapon laws in regard to small arms use and ownership by civilians. Gun Culture: Political and cultural theories Gun culture and its effects have been at the center of major debates in the US's public sphere for decades. In his 1970 article "America as a Gun Culture," ] historian Richard Hofstadter used the phrase "gun culture" to describe America's long-held affection for guns, embracing and celebrating the association of guns and America's heritage. He also noted that the US "is the only industrial nation in which the possession of rifles, shotguns, and handguns is lawfully prevalent among large numbers of its population". In 1995, political scientist Robert Spitzer said that the modern American gun culture is founded on three factors: the proliferation of firearms since the earliest days of the nation, the connection between personal ownership of weapons and the country's revolutionary and frontier history, and the cultural mythology regarding the gun in the frontier and in modern life. More recently, in 2008, the US Supreme Court affirmed that considerable freedom for individuals to possess firearms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment. 11

12 SMALL ARMS SURVEY 2007 INVISIBLE GIANT: THE WELL-ARMED CIVILIAN If evenly distributed, there would be at least one civilian firearm for every nine people worldwide; one for every seven people when military and law enforcement weapons are included. But distribution is far from even. Gun ownership is highly concentrated among the largest and wealthiest societies. The ten largest gun-owning societies have roughly million civilian firearms, per cent of the global total. This is partially because the biggest gun-owning societies also tend to be the most populous, but this figure is also genuinely disproportionate, because such societies contain only about half the world s people. The same figure shows that the disproportion is even clearer when considering the top 30 gun-owning societies, which have about million civilian firearms, or per cent of the global total. With less than 5 per cent of the world s population, the United States is home to roughly per cent of the world s civilian-owned guns, heavily skewing the global geography of firearms and any relative comparison Of some eight million new firearms manufactured annually around the world, roughly 4.5 million are bought by the people of the United States (US ATF, 2000, p. 1). With this sustained and unsurpassed level of routine gun-buying, American civilians will become even more dominant in global gun ownership. Therefore, any discussion of civilian gun ownership must devote disproportionate attention to the United States, if only because of the scale of its gun culture. Exceptional civilian gun habits in the United States distort impressions of global trends. Without the US share, the global civilian total falls from million to roughly million civilian firearms, and instead of outnumbering military firearms by three or five to one, civilian weapons would outnumber their military counterparts by two or three to one. After the 12

13 United States, a few disproportionately armed societies stand out. Only Switzerland and Yemen begin to approach American levels of gun ownership, and both of these cases are clouded by great doubt.others also stand out, such as Germany, Finland, France, Iraq, and Serbia. But civilian ownership tends to be more even among other large gun-owning societies, where ownership rates of 5 15 per 100 residents are common. Of course, these comparisons assume that the types of guns are equally powerful across national civilian holdings a gross distortion. This chapter cannot elucidate the character of various civilian weapons, but only describes their relative scales. We can, however, identify certain trends. Prior to the 1960s, there was little difference in the destructive capabilities of civilian and military handguns and rifles. This changed when most military organizations switched to weapons capable of fully automatic operation, giving them much greater firepower. Many law enforcement agencies made a similar transition in the 1980s to semi-automatic pistols and smaller numbers of fully automatic weapons. The armed services and law enforcement agencies also have substantial quantities of specialized small arms and light weapons seldom seen in civilian hands in most countries, including grenades, grenade launchers, medium machine guns, and rocket launchers. Other leading gun-owning societies tend either to be large, or wealthy, or have a recent history of intense violent conflict. Sheer national size accounts for the importance of societies such as China and India, where low levels of relative ownership nonetheless lead to large holdings in absolute terms. The significance of wealth is revealed by the prominence of European countries, many of which have large civilian holdings, despite other factors militating against civilian gun acquisition. Countries such as Angola and Colombia, on the other hand, illustrate the way armed conflict permanently affects civilian gun possession. Trump Opens Door For U.S. Gun Industry To Sell More Firearms Abroad Senators and human rights groups worry the proposed rule changes will export the U.S. gun violence epidemic. By Travis Waldron and Nick Wing The Trump administration is forging ahead with a previously sidelined plan to allow U.S. gun manufacturers sell their products abroad more cheaply and easily. The proposed rule, published Thursday in the Federal Register, would shift control of U.S. firearm exports from the State Department to the Commerce Department, in a move the regulatory language said is aimed at reducing procedural burdens and costs on American gun makers doing international business. The plan would also save the U.S. government money by simplifying the licensing process, according to the proposal. As a result, gun companies would likely be able to expand foreign sales of popular civilian firearms and accessories that have attracted controversy in the U.S. These include semiautomatic military-style guns like AR-15s,.50 caliber rifles, scopes and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines. That would be a boon to an industry that has experienced sharp declines in sales since Donald Trump s won the White House in 2016, after years of record sales driven by fears that former President Barack Obama would tighten gun laws. The Obama administration had mulled a 13

14 similar export plan during his first term, but abandoned it following the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. If the rule change takes effect, foreign arms sales are expected to increase as much as 20 percent, according to the National Sports Shooting Foundation, the gun industry s trade association. Other arms trade experts have predicted a much smaller boost. But the plan has also raised concerns among foreign policy experts and some Democratic lawmakers who say that the reduced oversight under the new system could increase gun violence in other nations by putting more powerful weaponry in the hands of human rights abusers and criminal factions, as well as the civilian population. Direct civilian access to U.S.-made weapons would depend on their nations gun laws. It was already problematic, and now all the indicators are that the gates will open and there won t be any controls on who gets weapons that are legally exported. John Lindsay-Poland, gun violence researcher Under the current version of the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department issues licenses and attempts to monitor the flow of U.S. firearms, including who ultimately receives exported guns. Larger arms exports are also subject to scrutiny from Congress and the public, a system that has at times effectively prevented firearms from ending up in the hands of corrupt governments, terrorist organizations and especially violent foreign law enforcement bodies. In 2016, for instance, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) blocked a proposed arms export deal between the U.S. and the Philippines, amid reports of human rights abuses by that nation s police forces. The Commerce Department, critics of the proposed rule change said, lacks any of the infrastructure or oversight ability to properly monitor what happens to U.S.-made weapons once they leave the country. When it comes to Commerce, the inspection program isn t transparent, it doesn t report to Congress, and it s unclear what they do at all, said John Lindsay-Poland, a researcher for Global Exchange, an international human rights group. We anticipate there will be even less oversight by Commerce now than there was by State, he said. It was already problematic, and now all the indicators are that the gates will open and there won t be any controls on who gets weapons that are legally exported. Democrats and human rights groups have warned that the rule changes could worsen gun violence problems in foreign countries, particularly in Mexico and other Latin American nations. The proposed rule change, slated to go into effect no less than a month after a public comment ends in July, would be extremely hazardous to global security, Cardin said in a statement. 14

15 Small arms and light weapons are among the most lethal weapons that we and other countries export because these are the weapons that are most likely to be used to commit atrocities and suppress human rights, either by individuals, non-state groups, or governmental security and paramilitary forces, Cardin said. House Democrats have introduced legislation to block transferring the arms export oversight to Commerce, but it s unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Congress. On this one fundamental human concern, the thing that matters most to us, our physical safety, and the physical safety of our loved ones, we don t lead. Sen. Chris Murphy From 2009 to 2014, more than 73,000 U.S.-made guns were seized in Mexico, and 70 percent of guns used in Mexican homicides in 2017 were manufactured in the U.S., according to the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control. In past years, more than 90 percent of guns seized in the Bahamas and roughly 80 percent of firearms seized in Jamaica are made in the U.S. And in Brazil, police have reported finding an escalating number of Americanmade rifles in crimes and shootouts between rival drug gangs. Many of those guns are illegally smuggled into Latin America. But firearms also reach criminal factions thanks to legal exports and sales to police: in Mexico, more than 20,000 firearms, many of them American-made, have been lost by or stolen from police since 2006, Lindsay-Poland said. All of the evidence and experience with gun violence in Latin America indicates that there will be more blood from U.S.-sourced weapons thanks to the rule change, Lindsay-Poland said. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a gun control advocate who opposes the proposed rule change, said this week that the U.S. could be on the verge of exporting its epidemic of gun violence to other nations. We created the modern open economy, we created participatory democracy, we created the internet age, but on this one fundamental human concern, the thing that matters most to us, our physical safety, and the physical safety of our loved ones, we don t lead, Murphy said at a forum on the arms trade. In fact, we do the very opposite. The United States runs at the very back of the pack. You can find a very complete chart of rules regarding the ownership of firearms at: I can t copy all of the columns. 15