The Changes that Occurred After Enforcement of the Arms Trade Treaty Discussion
The arms trade or the arms industry is a global business that deals with the manufacturing, distribution, and selling of military weapons and technology. The weapons are used for defense, personal, national, and
international defense. The arms industry is concerned with research, innovation, development, engineering, manufacturing, and commercialization of the military tools, equipment, material, and the facilities. Arm dealers
manufacture weapons for the people and the armed forces of the U.S (Cherkassky, 2013). Arms trade is a serious business that attracts special stake holders.
The importance of gun business is marked by the fact that the weapon can kill instantly if misused. There have been cases where individuals caused massive killings of innocent people in the streets and even in school from their privately owned weapons. In 1994, the U.S Congress passed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban on semi-automatic firearms, for ten years. The law was enforced after the killing of a teacher and 34 children were
killed in Stockton, California in 1989. Recently, the politics on gun policy came up again after similar shootings occurred on the streets resulting in death of innocent people (Epstein & Walker, 2015). Such events led to the introduction of gun laws in many nations so as to control the ownership and acquisition of firearms. Besides the illegal use of the firearms, the process of acquisition is questionable and other instances.
There have been illegal procurements of guns across borders of different nations. Black markets have operated in many years supplying guns to illegal groups and terrorist groups. The black markets serve the purpose
because they do not follow the legal process of registration and identification which ties the owner to the weapon. Therefore, the firearms are cheap and supplied in large quantities. The reason for such activities
is because of the many years of unregulated fire arm trade which enhanced smuggling activities. Even today, with the many policies and regulatory laws on fire arm trade there still exist smuggling activities. Weapons are
produced and sold for both military use and for personal protection and hunting purposes. Why is there a need for a common international legislature on trade of weapons?
Countries have operated in the small illegal weapon trade for many years. The trade occurs globally and especially in developing countries that are faced with the challenge of political instability. Smuggling of
weapons constitutes some form of organized crimes. They aid in illegal trades such as exchange of illicit drugs and human trafficking. The smuggled weapons are usually copied replicas that are not original. The
weapons fuel war in terrorist-controlled countries and armed militia groups in unstable countries. Illicit sale and use of guns cause both indirect …
