By Mary B. McCord

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, culminated a year of increasing private militia engagement with the public — sometimes in forcible opposition to government policies or, in the case of January 6, in an attempt to “stop the steal,” and sometimes in supposed augmentation of law enforcement’s role to provide protection for persons and property against what the militias deemed “violent anarchists.” These groups, often dressed in military uniforms, armed with semi-automatic assault rifles, and bearing a full accoutrement of military gear, pose a threat to public safety, stifle the constitutional rights of others, and undermine our democracy.

Why have such private paramilitary organizations gone largely unchallenged? The answer lies in part in the widespread mythology that they are protected by the Second Amendment, a mythology promoted by those who attempt to rewrite history to support an insurrectionist view of the Second Amendment. But this view is not supported by history, the text of the Second Amendment, or its interpretation by the Supreme Court. Far from enabling private militias to be a check on a tyrannical government, as modern private militia members would have us believe, the founders intended the militia — all able-bodied men available to be called forth by the governor in defense of the state — to be subordinate to and governed by the state. Indeed, as this essay explains, private militias are not authorized under federal or state law, are not protected by the Second Amendment, and are unlawful in every state.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. 2021. 10p.

By Jennifer Carlson

The summer of 2020 was a summer of mass unrest. Protesting the thousand-plus, disproportionately Black and Indigenous lives taken every year by police violence, millions of Americans mobilized for racial justice and police accountability under the banner of Black Lives Matter. Their message was not new — the Black Lives Matter movement was founded years earlier in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the murder of Trayvon Martin — but its urgency felt renewed amid egregious cases of anti-Black racism, police violence, growing political polarization, and white supremacist extremism. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Dion Johnson, and Breonna Taylor — a handful among thousands — yet again spotlighted police complicity with and perpetuation of anti-Black violence, invigorating months of protests and calls for police accountability, police demilitarization, police defunding, and even police abolition. The demands themselves differed in substance; some focused on closing down police departments altogether, while others emphasized the fiscal necessity of redirecting public funding from police to other agencies.1 But the gist of these calls was unanimous: they insist that to transform rather than merely reform the institutions within American society that perpetuate anti-Black racism, police must be decentered as the go-to institution for solving not just problems of crime but social problems more generally. Anti-Black racism within policing is one slice of the entrenched tendency in 20th- and 21st-century America to treat a wide panoply of social problems as problems of crime and bloat the criminal justice system as the catchall state apparatus to address those problems — a dynamic that legal scholar Jonathan Simon describes as “governing through crime.”2 The protests, the demands, and the community organizing of 2020 may have been immediately focused on the criminal justice system, but because that system has so thoroughly penetrated vast realms of American society as a core vector of anti-Black racism, the message carried by the protesters reached far and wide — including gun politics. Often buttressing the well-worn terms of the gun debate, those in favor of increased gun regulations declared that “police violence is gun violence,” while others promoted gun ownership as a way to put the message to “defund the police” into practice. But the challenge that the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests have posed to American gun politics goes far beyond rehashing the usual sides of the gun debate in the key of anti-Black police violence. Rather, this challenge invites those invested in the gun debate to consider their own complicity with the criminal justice system and how, by decentering crime and criminalization within the gun debate, that debate might be transformed. In short, the summer 2020 protests challenge us to imagine anti-racist gun politics.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2021. 10p.

By Public Safety Canada

Overall crime rates in Canada have been decreasing over the past several decades. Despite this, there has been a marked increase in recent crime trends involving gun and gang violence (GGV). For example, between 2013 and 2020, Canada experienced a 91% increase in firearm-related homicides. At Canada’s borders, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has reported an overall increase in firearms seizures over the last five years. GGV-related issues are complex, cross-jurisdictional and multi-sectoral. Given the nature of gang violence and the knowledge that organized crime groups are involved in a variety of criminal activities and illegal commodities, interventions must be comprehensive and include activities across the spectrum of prevention, intervention, and enforcement. While provinces and territories (PTs) are responsible for the administration of justice, including policing, in their jurisdictions, there is also a federal role for supporting a multi-faceted coordinated approach to address GGV. To respond to these increased crime trends, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada was mandated to work with provincial, territorial and municipal counterparts to develop a strategy for the federal government to best support communities and law enforcement in their ongoing efforts to make it tougher for criminals to secure and use handguns and assault weapons and to reduce GGV in communities across Canada. From this, Budget 2018 committed funding over five years to establish the Initiative to Take Action Against Gun and Gang Violence (ITAAGGV). This horizontal initiative supports Public Safety Canada (PS) (as the lead agency), the CBSA, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) with investments across three themes.

Ottawa: His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Ministers of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2023. 40p.

By André Desmarais

Forensic science institutions have a key role to play—not only in criminal investigations, but also in the broader fight against illicit arms proliferation. However, their ability to play this role depends on their capacities, which are not well understood. A new Briefing Paper on the forensic services in Guinea aims to fill this gap.

Building on previous case studies on forensic services in Chad, Mauritania, and Niger, Arms Monitoring in Guinea: A Survey of National Forensic Services by ballistics specialist André Desmarais—co-published by INTERPOL and the Small Arms Survey’s Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) project—examines capabilities, limitations, and needs of Guinea’s forensic services. It finds that information on calibres, models, and ammunition types of seized weapons is limited, and that the country lacks a central firearms database. Based on this analysis, the study provides tailored suggestions for areas of improvement, as a way to support Guinea in significantly reducing illicit arms flows.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2020. 12p.

ByHugh Griffiths and Matt Schroeder

For more than a decade the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), in defiance of UN sanctions, has found ways to systematically smuggle arms and other illicit goods in and out of the country. This Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey provides a detailed overview of how the DPRK evades sanctions by employing its diplomatic resources and exploiting key loopholes relating to transport, logistics, and proliferation finance.

Covert Carriers: Evolving Methods and Techniques of North Korean Sanctions Evasion emphasizes the importance for UN member states, logistics companies, and global banks to adequately screen and monitor North Korean activities and transactions. The study also highlights how new information-sharing mechanisms would strengthen the ability of states, private industry, and the UN Panel of Experts to better detect ongoing North Korean violations and dismantle existing sanctions evasion networks.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2020. 20p.

ByGergely Hideg and Anna Alvazzi del Frate

The year 2018 was characterized by a decrease in lethal violence in several of the world’s hotspots, primarily due to a significant de-escalation of the armed conflicts in Iraq, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Syria. The homicide rate also decreased marginally due to population growth outpacing the nominal increase in killings between 2017 and 2018. These two trends jointly resulted in a modest positive change in the rate of violent deaths globally in 2018 which, at 7.8 violent deaths per 100,000 population, is at its lowest since 2012.

Still Not There: Global Violent Deaths Scenarios, 2019–30, a Briefing Paper by the Survey’s Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) project provides an updated trend analysis of global violent deaths and develops global-level scenarios for the years leading to 2030. Based on 2018 figures from the Small Arms Survey’s Global Violent Deaths (GVD) database, the paper also includes a specific analysis of developments in Northern Africa and the five nations of the G5 Sahel region. It finds that under a business-as-usual scenario, Northern Africa’s violent death rate would remain relatively stable by 2030. By contrast, under the same scenario, the fatality rate in the G5 Sahel region would increase significantly. The paper also looks at how, for the first time, the GVD database now permits the analysis of disaggregated data for female victims of firearm killings for the period 2004–18, further increasing its gender relevance.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2021. 16p.

By Fiona Langloisa, Damien Rhumorbarbea, Denis Wernera, Nicolas Florquinb, Stefano Caneppelea and Quentin Rossy

Using a crime script analysis, this research aims to document how smugglers operate when they traffic arms from the US to foreign countries. Our study is based on an analysis of 66 cases that have been judged by US courts (2008–2017). The criminal activities involved are detailed in a series of distinct scenes, according to Cornish’s theory. Five scripts have been developed, based on the means of transport used by the traffickers: road transport, commer-cial airlines, postal services, freight transport and crossing the border on foot. Results suggest that most criminals prefer to operate according to an established modus operandi. This commonality suggests that the potential exists for the professionalisation of this criminal activity. Indeed, offenders are likely to maintain it to reduce effort and risk. Complementary sources of information would help to enrich the approach proposed in this study and to address the challenges posed by complex cases.

Global Crime, 2022, VOL. 23, NO. 3, 284–305

ByAnne-Séverine Fabre, Nicolas Florquin, Aaron Karp, and Matt Schroeder

The Caribbean region suffers from some of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths, at almost three times the global average, as well as one of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths among women. Firearms are used in more than half of all homicides, with this proportion reaching 90 per cent in some countries. While much emphasis has been placed on firearms control at both the political and operational levels, illicit firearms, and the dynamics of illicit arms markets in this region have received little research attention. The multiple impacts of these realities on the region can be seen via human consequences, socio-economic implications, and security challenges.

Weapons Compass: The Caribbean Firearms Study—a joint report from the Small Arms Survey and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS)—examines firearm holdings, illicit arms and ammunition, trafficking patterns and methods, and the socio-economic costs of firearm-related violence in the region. This Report examines these issues by drawing on data and information collected from 13 of the 15 CARICOM member states and from 22 Caribbean states in total. The study also incorporates the results of original fieldwork undertaken by regional partners, including interviews with prison inmates serving firearm-related sentences, and research in selected hospitals related to gunshot wounds and the associated medical costs and productivity losses for patients.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, and Trinidad and Tobago:CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security, 2023. 178p.

By Small Arms Survey

The Small Arms Survey's annual report provides an overview of the Survey's work from the previous year. It highlights the main activities undertaken by our projects and units, the publications that were released, the Survey's outreach work, as well as important institutional and financial developments.

Geneva, Small Arms Survey, 2023. 15p.

By Justine Fleischner

Since the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have sought to tighten their control over arms possession among their provincial commanders, the men under them, as well as civilians, and to rein in smuggling activity. Despite these efforts, however, smuggling continues, influenced by local dynamics in the provinces and long-standing clandestine arms trafficking networks.

Smuggling Dynamics under Taliban rule a new Situation Update co-authored by the Small Arms Survey and Afghan Peace Watch - reports on the recent field investigations in the country, and the risks for arms proliferation under the Taliban.

KEY FINDINGS • Fieldwork in Afghanistan under the Taliban confirms the presence of weapons markets in key border areas, significantly increasing the risks of arms proliferation in the region. Of particular concern is smuggling in border areas with Pakistan, where the state faces the growing threat posed by the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP).1 • Weapon trafficking dynamics under the Taliban appear to be highly localized owing to internal Taliban dynamics; commercial, political, and security interests; and longstanding cross-border ties between armed groups, fighters, and for-profit smuggling networks. • While weapon seized weapons among rank-and-file Taliban fighters. Weapon prices have since regained most of their value, as the Taliban have consolidated their control over former Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) stockpiles. • The Taliban have taken steps to formalize the process of buying, selling, and transporting weapons internally. Taliban officials in each province issue weapon permits and licences for a tax or fee, which generates additional revenue for, and enhances the governance authority of, local officials. The Taliban’s intelligence apparatus, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), has also seized hundreds of weapons following door-to-door searches of civilian and former ANDSF homes, as well as from weapons smugglers operating without the authorization of the Taliban. • Anecdotal reporting suggests that the Taliban have been particularly careful to assert control over remaining stockpiles of US-manufactured M4 and M16 assault rifles, night vision and thermal sights, and other high-value items not normally in circulation in the region. M4s and M16s are valued at roughly two to three times the price of an AK-pattern assault rifle. Nevertheless, groups allied with the Taliban, including the TTP, continue to gain access to US weaponry. These supply patterns indicate an inability or unwillingness to block these transfers, further complicating relations with Pakistan.

Geneva, SWIT: Small Arms Survey, 2023. 8p.

by Oluwole Ojewale

This study explores the complex relationships between urbanisation and transnational organised crime, focusing on how illicit arms shape urban violence and are leveraged by criminal groups. It maps the nexus between arms trafficking actors and criminal groups operating in other organised markets in urban contexts and proposes interventions that engage with diverse layers of urban governance and stakeholders in the cities. The study focuses on Bamako and Lagos as urban centres in which arms trafficking and urbanisation intersect. Key points l There are multiple drivers and enablers of arms trafficking. l Armoury theft is a major source of illicit weapons and ammunition. l Arms trafficking is highly segmented and spatially concentrated. l Illicit firearms enter cities through various entry points. l Organised crime groups operate across multiple illicit businesses. l Elite support to ethnic militias drives private armament outside of state control. l The centralised governance framework on security forecloses potential collaboration from subnational governments to address urban arms trafficking.

OCWAR-T Research Report 2 . ECOWAS Commission, 2023. 38p,

By Nelson Alusala

This policy brief reviews the state of physical security and stockpile management (PSSM) in Central and Southern Africa as at 2022. Africa’s most progressive legally binding instruments for controlling small arms and light weapons can be found in these regions. The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) Convention became legal in 2017 and the Southern African Development Community Protocol was revised in 2020. However, compliance with these instruments requires commitment from all stakeholders, including civil society. Key findings ∙ The region’s long-term stability depends on good principles of physical security and stockpile management (PSSM). Until ECCAS members enforce policy and implement steps to improve the PSSM of arms and ammunition in government possession, leakage and diversion to non-state actors will continue undeterred. ∙ Implementation should be next. The Kinshasa Convention, like the Arms Trade Treaty and UN Agenda 2030, are considered some of the latest instruments on disarmament, human security and development. The review of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Firearms Protocol in 2020 aligned the SADC region with the latest developments, and the African Union (AU) vision for silencing the guns by 2030. ∙ A review of other regional instruments is required. This is vital, especially for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and other Related Materials, and the Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region, the Horn of Africa and Bordering States.

ENACT Africa, 2022. 11p.

By Nelson Alusala

Without effective security and stockpile management systems, the wave of political instability in the two regions is likely to endure.

This policy brief reviews the state of the physical state of security and stockpile management (PSSM) in West Africa and the Sahel as at 2022. Through desk research and policymaker interviews, it explores key policies and practices. It questions whether governments struggle to maintain their arms and ammunition because they bite off too much, encounter unforeseen consequences that lead to the exposure and diversion of weaponry, or are just negligent. Regardless, loss of life and the destruction of property continue unabated as criminals, violent extremists and other non-state actors take advantage of the armouries’ sub-standard security.

Key findings ∙ The region (West Africa and the Sahel) implemented several PSSM measures from 2011 to 2020; and the African Union (AU) decided in December 2020 to extend the Silencing the Guns initiative until 2030. ∙ Interventions in the region were not harmonised and were short-lived, making their impact difficult to quantify. Most initiatives were programmes and capacity-building training rather than disarmament and/or practical steps to secure the safety and security of national stockpiles. ∙ The movement of people between countries oblivious of borders is a tradition linked to pastoralism and transhumance. However, the corridor proclaimed for this purpose has been subsumed by human settlement, leading to herder-farmer conflicts that have exacerbated the demand for illegal arms. These have put excess pressure on national stockpiles.

ENACT Africa, 2020. 12p,

By The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence'

The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (ESGV) has issued a report with five policy recommendations that states must implement immediately in order to protect democracy in the face of a growing armed insurrectionist movement. The insurrection at the Capitol last January 6th was the loudest expression of a continuing effort by armed insurrectionists to upend government The report offers new insight and analysis and serves as both an examination and a warning that, if left unaddressed, armed insurrectionism will continut to pose a threat to the country. It also examines the significant overlap between insurrectionist activity and White Supremacism and the deadly combination of guns and hate.

Washington, DC: Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, 2022. 31P.

By The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

Gun violence is an American public health crisis decades in the making. The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that 39,707 people, 86% of whom were male, lost their lives to gun violence in 2019. Gun death data are the most reliable type of gun violence data currently available -- but gun deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of gun violence. With this report, it is our mission to share the most accurate and up-to-date data related to gun deaths while we advocate for more and better data related to gun violence in all its forms. Ultimately, we strive to apply these data to create and implement life-saving policies and programs that will end the gun violence epidemic

Washington, DC: Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. 2021. 37p.

Joseph Blocher, Reva B. Siegel

Government regulates guns, it is widely assumed, because of the death and injuries guns can inflict. This standard account is radically incomplete—and in ways that dramatically skew constitutional analysis of gun rights. As we show in an account of the armed protesters who invaded the Michigan legislature in 2020, guns can be used not only to injure but also to intimidate. The government must regulate guns to prevent physical injuries and weapons threats in order to protect public safety and the public sphere on which a constitutional democracy depends.

For centuries the Anglo-American common law has regulated weapons not only to keep members of the polity free from physical harm, but also to enable government to protect their liberties against weapons threats and to preserve public peace and order. We show that this regulatory tradition grounds the understanding of the Second Amendment set forth in District of Columbia v. Heller, where Justice Antonin Scalia specifically invokes it as a basis for reasoning about government’s authority to regulate the right Heller recognized.

Today, a growing number of judges and Justices are ready to expand gun rights beyond Heller’s paradigmatic scene: a law-abiding citizen in his home defending his family from a criminal invader. But expanding gun rights beyond the home and into the public sphere presents questions concerning valued liberties and activities of other law-abiding citizens. Americans are increasingly wielding guns in public spaces, roused by persons they politically oppose or public decisions with which they disagree. This changing paradigm of gun use has been enabled by changes in the law and practice of public carry. As courts consider whether and how to extend constitutional protection to these changed practices of public carry, it is crucial that they adhere to the portions of Justice Scalia’s Heller decision that recognize government’s

“longstanding” interest in regulating weapons in public places.

We show how government’s interest in protecting public safety has evolved with changing forms of constitutional community and of weapons threats. And we show how this more robust understanding of public safety bears on a variety of weapons regulations both inside and outside of courts—in constitutional litigation, in enacting legislation, and in ensuring the evenhanded enforcement of gun laws. Recognizing that government regulates guns to prevent social as well as physical harms is a critical first step in building a constitutional democracy where citizens have equal claims to security and to the exercise of liberties, whether or not they are armed and however they may differ by race, sex, or viewpoint.

116 Northwestern University Law Review 139-201 (2021)

By Joseph Blocher

Although the Second Amendment tends to dominate the discussion about legal limits on gun regulation, nothing has done more to shape the state of urban gun law than state preemption laws, which fully or partially limit cities’ ability to regulate guns at the local level. The goals of this short Essay are to shed light on this “Statutory Second Amendment” and to provide a basic framework for evaluating it.

89 University of Chicago Law Review 557-580 (2022)

By Joseph Blocher, FoNoah Levine

Litigation, scholarship, and commentary about gun rights and regulation tend to focus nearly exclusively on the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms—a constitutional guarantee that was for all intents and purposes legally inert until the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. But to fully understand the landscape of gun litigation, it is important also to account for other constitutional gun rights claims—those that do not derive, at least not directly, from the Second Amendment.

In Part I of this short Article, we highlight some of the most prominent of these claims, including those deriving from the Due Process Clause, Takings Clause, and the First Amendment. Our goal in doing so is primarily to describe and illustrate, not to evaluate, though it is worth noting that some of these claims appear much stronger than others—and perhaps stronger than some courts have credited. Moreover, and perhaps surprisingly, some of these constitutional claims sometimes cut against the interests of gun owners (for example by calling into question the constitutionality of “parking lot” laws that require private business owners to permit guns on their property).

In the second Part of the Article, we address two broad and more speculative questions. First, how do these constitutional claims interact with more traditional Second Amendment arguments? Evaluating that question suggests much about how litigants perceive the relative strength and utility of their rights—for example, whether other rights are a more fruitful basis for gun-related claims. And, going forward, the answers will depend greatly on what the Supreme Court decides in the pending case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which involves the question of whether the right to keep and bear arms extends outside the home.

We conclude by asking what this polycentric constitutional understanding of gun rights illustrates about the constitutional rights and interests of others, including those who support gun regulation as a means to preserve not only their own physical safety, but their freedom to engage in free speech, assembly, worship and other constitutionally salient activities.

77 New York University Annual Survey of American Law 175-198 (2022)

By Hannah S Laqueur, Christopher McCort, Colette Smirniotis; Sonia Robinson , Garen J Wintemute 3

Firearm-related interpersonal violence is a leading cause of death and injury in cities across the United States, and understanding the movement of firearms from on-the-books sales to criminal end-user is critical to the formulation of gun violence prevention policy. In this study, we assemble a unique dataset that combines records for over 380,000 crime guns recovered by law enforcement in California (2010–2021), and more than 126,000 guns reported stolen, linked to in-state legal handgun transactions (1996–2021), to describe local and statewide crime gun trends and investigate several potentially important sources of guns to criminals, including privately manufactured firearms (PMFs), theft, and “dirty” dealers. We document a dramatic increase over the decade in firearms recovered. shortly after purchase (7% were recovered within a year in 2010, up to 33% in 2021). This corresponds with a substantial rise in handgun purchasing over the decade, suggesting some fraction of newly and legally acquired firearms are likely diverted from the legal market for criminal use. We document the rapid growth of PMFs over the past 2-3 years and find theft plays some, though possibly diminishing, role as a crime gun source. Finally, we find evidence that some retailers contribute disproportionately to the supply of crime guns, though there appear to be fewer problematic dealers now than there were a decade ago. Overall, our study points to temporal shifts in the dynamics of criminal firearms commerce as well as significant city variation in the channels by which criminals acquire crime guns.

J Urban Health (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-023-00741-y

By The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC_

Since 2020, guns have been the leading cause of death in the United States for children and teens. While the proliferation of gun access and gun violence often dominate national, state and local headlines, little has been done to understand the views young people have on these pervasive issues.

To address this gap, Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) and SPLC came together to study young people’s access to guns, experiences with gun violence, feelings of safety and mental wellbeing, as well as their views on male supremacy, racial resentment and the Second Amendment.

Our U.S. Youth Attitudes on Guns Report provides groundbreaking insights into young people's perceptions, fears and proximity to guns and gun violence. This nationally representative survey of 4,156 Americans aged 14 to 30 and qualitative focus groups lay bare the ubiquity of guns and gun violence in the lives of young Americans.

Montgomery, AL: SPLC, 2023.