The UN Small Arms Conference

The Winter-Spring 2002 issue of the SAIS Review contained several articles condemning the United States's position at the 2001 United Nations Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons. More specifically, Albrecht Gero Muth, Rachel Stohl, and Loretta Bondi disagreed with the U.S. delegation's opposition to a ban on the transfer of arms to non-state actors. What supporters of the ban either do not realize or are not concerned about is that non-state actors may be oppressed groups attempting to secure their legitimate rights in the face of a tyrannical government and should therefore be entitled to receive arms.

A look at the governments that support the ban indicates that it will likely be used to bolster the power of regimes that lack legitimacy. For example, the totalitarian theocracy governing Iran took a leading role in promoting the proposal. This Iranian position reflects the fact that the government of the Islamic Republic is highly unpopular and has reason to fear a popular uprising demanding the formation of a legitimate government. The ban on small arms to non-state actors will only make it easier for the Iranian government to put down an insurrection and continue its dictatorial rule. The Chinese government also supported the ban on small arms to non-state actors, in part, no doubt, to prevent the Taiwanese from being able to protect themselves in the event of a Chinese attempt to take over Taiwan, which the Chinese dictatorship does not consider to be a state. In short, illegitimate, undemocratic regimes like the ban on small arms to non-state actors because it limits opposition groups' ability to resist oppression.

A look at history also suggests that a ban on small arms to non-state actors is unwise. The United States itself was a non-state actor during the American Revolution, receiving arms from France. This experience should make the U.S. government especially keen to preserve the right to arm oppressed groups attempting to secure their legitimate rights. The non-state actors language would have also made it illegal for the United States to help the French anti-Nazi underground, and for anyone to help the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton understood this when he pointed out that the non-state actors proposal "would preclude assistance to an oppressed non-state group defending itself from a genocidal government." ¹

The non-state actors language does allow gun possession by groups authorized by but not officially part of a government; however, these are the same groups that frequently do the government's dirty work. Such groups include the Ku Klux Klan in the southern United States during the Jim Crow era, the genocidal gangs of Indonesians in East Timor in the 1980s, or "Hitler" Hunzvi's terrorist paramilitaries in Zimbabwe. A ban on small arms sales to non-state actors would have forbidden gun transfers to groups being persecuted by their governments, such as freedmen in the antebellum South, East Timorese Catholics, or white farmers and black supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe. Significantly, the genocides of the last century were preceded by intensive government efforts to disarm non-state actors—including Asians in Uganda, Armenians in Turkey, Jews and Gypsies throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, and Cambodians under Pol Pot.

At the Conference, the UN alleged that small arms kill 500,000 people a year: 300,000 in war, and another 200,000 from murder, suicide, and accidents. For the sake of argument, let us ignore the fact that most war deaths are caused by governments, which would not be disarmed under the UN program. Also, we will ignore questions about whether the antigun programs would effectively disarm murderers and reduce gun suicides and gun accidents, despite strong evidence to the contrary. ² Rather, let us presume that the UN prohibition would save all 500,000 lives.

Now, compare those 500,000 annual deaths with the more than 169...