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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
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