The time has come to take the next step. The subject of small arms proliferation is an extremely delicate matter, one that has seen limited progress in past years and threatens to remain dormant if certain issues are not addressed and finalized. First, it is common knowledge that the majority of arms transactions do not occur through illegal avenues. On the contrary, most transactions start out as legal and end up on the illegal market through a variety of means. Second, a country s violence rate is not determined by the availability of guns but by the society s culture, social, economic, and institutional values.
People kill people.
Third, as stated in the UN Charter, member governments possess the right to self-defense that includes the procurement of weapons. These rights are not to be infringed upon in any way. Ukraine proposes that all potential settlements and actions regarding the ban of small arms sales be put on hold until a global consensus can be reached. Too often, attentions are focused on Eastern European arms producers when many of our Western neighbors are truly at fault. Ukraine and its Russo-Slavic counterparts capture the limelight for arms trafficking investigations that our government does not support, while Western powers continue the very same operations they criticize.