The Organization of American States signed a regional convention in 1997 aiming to improve the tracking of small arms. Thirties countries agreed not to issue export permits without explicit permission from the country destined to receive the arms shipment. Jonathan Winer, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Crime, Narcotics and Law Enforcement, considers the deal to be a breakthrough. You want to be able to tell the moment something has stopped being licit and has become illicit. Arms control advocates are skeptical of such measures, which lack teeth.
Corruption is a problem.
Advocates also argue that governments should at least refuse export licenses on weapons banned at home. Handguns are banned in Britain, but exporters still sell them abroad. But small arms proliferation is not only a problem for the enemies of criminal gangs and guerrilla armies. British Airways flights from Islamabad to London take a long, westerly detour to avoid those Stinger antiaircraft missiles the CIA gave Afghan rebels long ago. The answers are at the bottom of the translation.