Jack+B+-+POSITION+PAPER

Jack Bebinger Mrs. Sidor NHD position paper May 16, 2012 How can we constrict if not stop the flow of weapons into the black market? Black market weapons trafficking and selling has been a growing global problem, especially in the past few years in poorer countries. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people are killed each year due to small arms and light weapons, nearly twice that die indirectly as 'collateral' victims. Illegal weapons sales has increased so much that "global sales of illicit small arms total $US1 billion, about a quarter of the annual value of the legal trade" (Defence and Peace Economics or DPE), and that was in 2007, today it could be much higher maybe even as high as half of the annual value of the legal trade. To provide for the growing black market, there has to be a stoke of weapons that can be sold or traded, and one of the most popular weapons on the black market is AK-47s, they are used almost everywhere in the globe. In 2003 there were roughly 80 million AK-47s in circulation with most of them being in the wrong hands (unknown article). To supply this growing empire people are getting bolder in how the acquire the weapons they want or need to continue to grow their 'business'. "Illicit weapons, by contrast, are often stolen from government stocks, traded illegally or captured in battle", later in the article there is a list of some "common examples of how small arms are transferred from legal to illegal stocks: government officers who take bribes, looting government arsenals and stockpiles, armed service personnel selling their weapons, leakages from legal civilian holdings (stealing), and unlicensed craft production of guns for the black market" (DPE). There are many ways for weapons to get into the black market and governments are now having problems trying to stop and shrink the size of the black market, this is a very real problem for many countries and no one has come up with a great idea to stop or at least slow down the black market. If something isn't done then eventually illicit weapons holders will be able to overpower governments due to newer and newer weapons being available on the black market, the holders already out number governments but the shouldn't be allowed to over power them. Every year thousands of guns flow from government and private stocks into the black market where they then become an international currency. The proliferation of illegal guns has been a growing problem in the past few years as more and more weapons flow into the black market and the traffickers become more gutsy about what weapons they try to steal or smuggle. For example in 1994 the Taliban organization captured 18,000 AK-47's from an arms dump in Pasha (DPE). All ages are affected globally by the illegal trafficking and selling of weapons. The age range has greatly widened in the past few years with the introduction of child warriors in Africa and the larger presence of organized crime in more countries. The economy has taken a big impact from the illegal market, as gangs or terrorist organizations become more prevalent in a country the economy becomes more affected due to the influx of drugs or weapons (which are often intertwined with each other) that raises crime and death rates in many countries. As these criminal organizations become more prevalent in a country more people are affected. In the US in 2007 29,645 deaths occurrerd that were related to gun violence, 11, 920 being homicides and in the US we have a large illegal community. The next most violent country was France and it only had 2,964 deaths with only 170 being homicides (Newsweek). This new crisis is a global phenomenon that is affecting people all over. The black market mainly affects a few specific regions in the world, them being Africa, Central America, and the U.S. As these criminal organizations grow in size they have now reached the point where they outnumber some government agencies, and they are continuing to grow. These organizations are driven by one key factor; profit. William Rempel states that "The arms dealers are here, the brokers are here, and the money is here (Klare 16)." Government agencies have realized that organized crime is a problem and have started to make special task forces to deal with specific problems, some of them being local and some being global. One example of these task forces is the ICE task force or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements and they "combat smuggling organizations...smuggling of narcotics, illicit money, and other dangerous goods (weapons), people, and materials that threaten the well-being of the United States (Homeland Security)." The ICE task force is one of many that have been formed to combat illegal cross-border activities. The ICE force operates from two principal bilateral initiatives: Operation Firewall and Operation Armas Cruzadas. Operation Firewall deals with the smuggling of cash in bulk while operation Armas Cruzadas "to detect, disrupt and dismantle weapons smuggling networks (Homeland Security)." Armas Cruzadas is a plan to fight border violence between the US and Mexico, this violence is a result of criminal organizations attempting to exert their control over not only the democratically elected officials of the Mexican government but also rival criminal organizations. Many of the task forces that our government has have begun to work but they have only made a slight dent in the shell of the organized crime world. These criminal organizations have been getting smarter and now that the government has started to jeopardize their organization they are taking more precautions because they have the funds to do so. The government needs to make a bigger impact on the illegal market for it to do any good. The roots of the black market can be traced back to WWII and how directly after the war ended in 1945. The firearms question receded from the public while the war continued to rage on but "by 1945, there was a considerable pent-up demand [for guns] in a civilian market that had been neglected for nearly half a decade (Gun Control)." The demand was further spurred by returning soldiers whom showed a continuing interest in weaponry. When someone steals any amount of guns from a stockpile in the US (for example) those guns could end up anywhere in the world, they could be bought by a member of the Taliban in the middle east or by Colombian drug cartel members. The extent of the market is very hard to tell because you can't look at a gun and tell whether its legal or not. But the black market has had a great significance on society. Many wars or conflicts are often fought with illegal weapons because "illicit weapons... captured in battle (DPE)", so if a soldier picks up a weapon while in battle then its illegal. Earlier generations didn't have the power to stop the black market, they tried to but they couldn't. A Custom's service agent said "not a week goes by that we don't get definitive information on shipments of this type just in the Los Angeles are alone. Similar comments have been made by investigators in New York, Washington, Miami, London, Paris, and other centers of the clandestine trade (Klare 16)." The Customs service office announces each year that they have intercepted dozens of illegal arms transactions but top officials readily admit that they block only a fraction of the black-market traffic. They only had the power to intercept a few of the black market deals because many deals are shady and under the table. When the government addressed this problem in the past it didn't work because they couldn't keep up with how fast the market was moving and they didn't have the man power to stop it even if they did catch up to the market. In 1976/77 two U.S. gun companies used a very innovative way to get new weapons, they got valid OMC (office of Munitions Control) licenses to send the weapons which were usually in small batches to dummy firms in Botswana, Greece, and West Germany and then the equipment would be rerouted to South Africa (which at the time had an embargo placed on it) (Klare 23). This method had proven very effective in recent years because OMC's work load had increased from 40,572 to 49,165 applications in just three years, and with no significant employment increase it works out to he that if one man worked a 40-hour week and took two weeks of vacation that meant that he had to process an application every 17 minutes which wasn't nearly enough time to check the background on most of the applicants. This problem is still significant today because the government still doesn't have the man power to catch up with organized crime world, in general, and the new innovative ways that criminals are coming up with to evade governments in their illegal activities. To address the expansion of the black market i believe we should ban assault weapons in the United States unless they are being used by law enforcement agencies and hire more people to government agencies that focus on stopping the black market. This would be beneficial to the U.S. because it would cut down on violence and it would kill part of the black market and even some of its suppliers. "Every year, 50,000-100,000 people are killed directly by small arms and light weapons [these are mainly assault rifles] in 'low-level' conflicts... at least twice as many die indirectly as 'collateral (Markowski et al.), if we banned the weapons then we could cut down on this number. It might not be a significant cut down, but in the United States there would be. If there was a ban placed on assault weapons it would help constrict the market because SAWL, small arms and light weapons, are the main fuel for the illegal market. The ban would increase the want for weapons, like what happened during prohibition and how the Mafia came to fame by selling bootleg liquor. This is a great threat if a ban would be placed on assault weapons because people would still want their weapons and they would go to greater lengths to get these weapons. It seems like the ban would increase the market but not if government agencies hired more employes that are devoted to catching people involved with the black market. For my idea to be out into effect two things have to happen. First, the U.S. senate would have to pass a law that legally bans all kinds of assault rifles (an automatic rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine) in all 50 states, second government agencies would have to hire more employes devoted to breaking down the black market. Since there isn't just one agency that deals with illegal weapons trafficking it might be a good idea to start an agency that deals with this problem. If a ban goes into effect and there are more agents attacking the market it will eventually shrink to where it's not a major concern. This will of course take a while because people will still try to get illegal weapons in but these new government agencies would easily repel them. If my recommendation was put into place it would not only get rid of the black market but it would also decrease the overall violence in the United States because we would be getting those weapons off the streets. So if we put a ban on all kinds of assault weapons and started a hired more government agents then we could put a large dent in the black market overall, and hopefully kill the market in the U.S. Banning the use and ownership of any assault weapon is very controversial because in history when something is banned and people want it bad enough, they will find a way to get it. If you look at prohibition you can see that when alcohol was banned moonshine became very popular and that could happen today if we banned assault weapons. This is part of the way the Mafia gained its vast riches because "during the 1920s, prohibition allowed criminals to make a fortune by selling bootleg alcohol throughout the country (History Study Centre)." Since this happened in the past when alcohol was banned it is likely that it would happen again if assault weapons are banned. People would say that the ban is "un-inforceable" because if you look back to the prohibition, illegal moonshiners were everywhere and they got away with it. The main reason that the illegal moonshiners got away with making and selling their product is that the police force wasn't very big and didn't know how to track them moonshiners and apprehend them. If we expand the number of people in the Customs service, government agency that mainly focuses on catching illegal gun traffickers, we would be easily able to stop the flow of weapons into the USA. If you look at the TSA and since they increased their employment, the security has also risen and now airports everywhere are very secure. Anyone who has been to an airport understands how much security there is and how hard it is to hide anything, i have had peanut butter taken from my parents bag because the security officers were suspicious that we had hidden something inside the thick liquid. If we do the same thing with the Customs service it would be almost impossible for anyone to smuggle weapons into the US. Another reason people would disagree with my recommendation is because it violates our 2nd amendment rights. The second amendment clearly states that "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed", this clearly says that no one can limit the guns that people have and buy. In 2008 the Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban from Washington D.C. saying that "the second amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia", this disrupted the court case United States v. Miller from 1939 where the decision was made that the second amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. As we move forward more people believe in the right to bear arms and more people are upholding that right strictly so placing a ban on guns would start a very large rebellion as people fight for their rights. Yes, the constitution does state that everyone has the right to bear arms whether he is associated with a state militia or not but when our safety is involved it becomes a delicate situation. In 1994 a ban was placed on the production of "military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines", in the years that followed "violent crime has dropped dramatically (Hienigan 965)." If the first ban on assault weapons decreased violent crimes then it should do the same today, even if it does violate the 2nd amendment its protecting us from ourselves. Between 1993-2001, violent crime dropped 54%, violent crime with a gun dropped 63%. Gun homicides, which had increased 43% in 1987 and peaked at over 17,000 in 1993, plunged 37% between 1994 and 2001 (Hienigan 965). These are major drops in violence and the ban was only enacted for 7 years, if my ban was in place for longer those percentages would be bigger. Yes putting a ban on assault weapons violates your 2nd amendment rights, but the costs are worth it in the end. You have to give a little to get a little, Ella Fitzgerald. Other people may argue that the ban would eliminate jobs in companies that specifically focus on the production of assault rifles. Companies like colt and barrett that are large producers of assault rifles but also produce other kinds of weapons as well, barrett is a large producer of sniper rifles and colt also produces pistols. If the ban was put into place it would hurt gun companies everywhere and they would be forced to lay off workers, directly following the weapons ban in 1994 there were 164,000 workers who got laid off in the next year alone, in 1993 in california 20,000 people got laid off (Cooper 7). This would likely happen if we placed a ban today, hundreds of thousands of people would lose their jobs and add to our already high unemployment rate. If in the first year alone 164,000 people lost there jobs then in the second year it might double that, it will continue falling unit the ban would be lifted. The ban would put people out of jobs at first but after a while it would be beneficial to the society. For these people being unemployed is good for the economy because these people can stimulate the economy. If the ban is placed then crime rates would fall and for normal citizens it takes a lot of stress off of them about the car being stolen or their house being robbed. This would encourage these people to start investing into their economy, instead of fortifying their homes from robbers they can go out and start businesses. If they start businesses then the unemployment would go down and there would be more businesses which is a great economical stimulus. This would then encourage more and more people to start businesses and there would be huge economic growth in the U.S. which is a great thing and the unemployment would fall rapidly because all these businesses would need people to run the stores. The ban, after a certain amount of "buffer" time, would prove to be very productive for the U.S. because we as a country our economy would become strong and there wouldn't be that much unemployment. The Black market is a growing problem in countries all over the world and if we don't do something about it soon it will become impossible to stop. To stop this growing problem I proposed that we place a ban on all assault rifles in the Unites States and we hire more government agents who are devoted to breaking down the black market. If we do these two things then we would kill a large portion of the market and its a good way to start the long process of completely breaking up the market. This is a pressing matter because the market is already very large, it includes corrupt people in our government and military who are just greedy. If nothing is done soon then the market will become so large that there wouldn't be any chance of stopping it. Between 1993 and 2001 when another ban was placed on assault weapons violent crimes with guns decreased by 63% (Hienigan 965), and that was only seven years. If another ban was put in place for a longer amount of time then that number could be much bigger. There are people who think that my statement is incorrect but they have valid points against my position but i have stronger counter points. But to make any of this all happen I need your support, if you support my position our neighborhoods will be safer, our schools will be safer, and our persons will be safer. All we are thinking about is the safety of this nations people.