Talk:Small arms trade

message: This whole debate about civilians having the rights to bear weapons is completely US-centered. The fact that arguments against small arms control (ie: FOR the widespread use of firearms) are given as much importance as the arguments for it is a clear American bias. But we are here dealing with an international issue so I suggest to modify the article so as to balance it in a way that reflect the current state of the issue (which is that basically no non-American civil group actually advocates the widespread use of small arms around the world -- only arms sellers do). JB 07/23/07
: Hate to burst your bubble, bud, but there are folk who don't like attempting to disarm the law-abiding in other countries, too.  There's an NRA of the United Kingdom, Switzerland has 420,000 assault rifles sitting in normal homes, Canada's version is the NFA, and even parts of Africa have pro-gun movements.  Jani Allan is a lotta things, but an arms seller isn't one of them.  Americans may well be the most armed civilians, but we're certainly not the only ones.
: It's a pretty simple metric -- it's remarkably hard to commit genocide against a populace legally armed with firearms.  In fact, it hasn't happened yet; whether that's because it's impossible or just that no one's been stupid enough to try.  Meanwhile, as the Tutsi of Rwanda found out, it's remarkably easy to commit genocide without firearms when the victims are disarmed as well.
: As to the article, it really does need cleanup, but I'm not sure I'm qualified to do so.  Can someone at least explain why the "Gun Rights Issues" section spends time on 'cycle of violence' stuff? - Gattsuru 09/11/07  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.61.196.180 (talk) 17:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: US Bias

message: Please can you reference which 'international gun owners's groups said this, and on what basis? Thank you, Mark Richards 22:30, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed this paragraph - am happy for it to go back if and when it is referenced (who said it, which organizations, which report gives these figures?) Thanks, Mark Richards 06:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  International Gun Owners's Groups 

message: Dudtz
Limiting gun sales does nothing
people will just buy them illegally or make them
People also like to collect wepons and don't intend to use them that much
This is a total opinion based write up.and you spelled weapons wrong. zach  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.85.206.60 (talk) 01:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Gun Laws Are just Silly

message: "Small arms proliferation is a term of art used by organizations advocating the restriction of small arms sales to private citizens in conflict zones." - This is an inaccurate representation of the Control Arms Campaign, which informs the key part of this article. That campaign seeks control of the trade in small arms - to all parties in conflict zones and not simply private citizens. Donnacha 08:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Private citizens" are by definition non-combatants. Otherwise they would be either "militia", "thugs", "insurgents", but not "private citizens". As such, they would only use arms in self defence, in situations where combatants where trying to kill them. A private citizen would not be talking of "arms proliferation", but instead would be saying things like "I need a gun to defend my family". So, yes, "small arms proliferation" is a term of art used by groups that would deny this private citizen the right to defend himself and his family. Dullfig 17:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto to what Dullfig just said. Dullfig, we are having a serious disagreement at Amnesty International. Anytime you want to come over there and pitch in please do! Thanks. Whiskey Rebellion 17:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The control arms campaign is about the unregulated international sale and transfer of arms. It has nothing to do with private ownership - unless American gun nuts support the availability of illegal arms. Donnacha 01:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: American gun nuts. I guess that tells us what side you are on :-) Dullfig 04:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's my POV, but I'm not trying to rewrite the article to fit that. I'm trying to get people to make it NPOV and in accordance with the facts. Donnacha 08:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, here is some food for thought: there are no more illegal guns as there are illegal hammers. Guns are a tool. Some people want to do harm with them, some people just want to defend themselves. Hopefully the latter outnumber the former. But anytime you start talking about "illegal", it means the government is trying to regulate who should and who shouldn't have guns, and invariably these laws only end up disarming law-abiding citizens, because by definition, thugs never obey the laws. So I don't buy the concept of illegal guns (OK, maybe canons should be illegal :-). Dullfig 15:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why should cannons be illegal? An American gun nut Whiskey Rebellion 07:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was more of a tongue in cheek comment :-) Dullfig 17:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NPOV alert! --70.100.168.203 (talk) 02:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The statement is most definitely NPOV. This is simply a common term for the 'proliferation' of small arms just as the term 'proliferation of nuclear weapons' is a term referring to the amount of nuclear weapons in circulation in a designated area. A small arms manufacturer might use the term to refer to the size of a market and an officer in a military might use it to refer to the potential for serious civil violence in a conflict zone. I might use it to refer to the effectiveness of law enforcement in Australia, either with a positive or negative context; eg. "Small arms are more widely proliferated in Australia since the ban of personal body armour in the 19th century." A historian might also refer to the horizontal proliferation of small arms after Europe started exploring the world. To make the claim that it is a term that is only used by advocates of gun control is misleading, a lie and intended to influence people against gun control.--Senor Freebie (talk) 15:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: First line

message: Although this article is quite short and I believe it should be expanded, I have removed the Gun owners' organizations view section.
I believe they are representing inaccurate views by the organisations they cite, and that this is backed up by three citation needed tags, and not one source.
By all means revert and modify the section, but please get some sources. 220.239.88.91 08:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Point of viewed and unsourced 

message: I'm just wondering what anyone knows about using Amnesty International as a source. They're a highly political organization, and it's not clear to me that they follow the publishing guidelines outlined for use as a reliable source in WP:SOURCES. Arthurrh 23:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amnesty International as a source 

message: Copied here February 12, 2014 from old UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms article. (One of only two discussions.)
The second paragraph of this article states: 'The PoA was predicated upon a hypothesis that the illicit trade in small arms is a large and serious problem requiring global action through the UN. This hypothesis was ultimately disproven through progressive improvements in scholarship in the 2000s. The global size, scope, and impact of the entirely illicit international trade in small arms turned out to be much smaller and less of a concern to countries themselves than first hypothesized, with internal societal factors rising in relative importance.'
The evidence for this is... a single source. That's nowhere near good enough for such a strong claim; undoubtedly, there are many who would disagree with it. (The fact that the United Nations is continuing to discuss the issue is evidence of that.) This section should probably be rewritten to say 'some scholars argue...', and include alternative views. Robofish (talk) 00:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: POV issues

message: Copied here February 12, 2014 from old UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms article. (One of only two discussions.)
I believe that Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules prevent me from editing the article, but I'll make a comment here. 
Regarding the following paragraph from the article: 
The arms trade treaty, like the PoA, is predicated upon a hypothesis that the illicit trade in small arms is a large and serious problem requiring global action through the UN. According to a well regarded 2012 Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution publication, "the relative importance of diversion or misuse of officially authorised transfers, compared to international entirely illegal black market trafficking has been thoroughly confirmed."[6] The authors go on to elaborate that "For most developing or fragile states, a combination of weak domestic regulation of authorised firearms possession with theft, loss or corrupt sale from official holdings tends to be a bigger source of weapons concern than illicit trafficking across borders."[7]
As one of the authors of the quoted text (and editors of the book: Owen Greene and Nicholas Marsh eds 2012 Small Arms, Crime and Conflict: Global Governance and the Threat of Armed Violence. London and New York: Routledge) we certainly did not state that the illicit trade in conventional arms is unimportant and by extension that either the ATT or PoA is unnecessary. To say that domestic sources are more important in some cases does not mean that internationally trafficked weapons are irrelevant. Moreover, the PoA addresses the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons "in all its aspects". That includes transfers which take place within a State (eg by corrupt sale from official holdings). 
Owen Greene and I did write (page 164) that: 
Moreover, SALW production and flows have major cross-border, regional and international dimensions; requiring regional and international governance mechanisms to enable information exchange, lesson-learning, coordination, risk management, aid, and cooperative controls.      
We then go on to describe those international governance mechanisms and point out how they could be strengthened (pages 169-182).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicholas Marsh (talk • contribs) 12:21, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks for your contributions. I've removed the POV tag. This appears to have been added by an activist opposing the Arms Trade Treaty. -- Callinus (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance of arms trafficking 

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