MISSING PIECES - Inter-Parliamentary Union

MISSING PIECES
THEME 6 MOTIVATIONS AND MEANS:
ADDRESSING THE DEMAND FOR SMALL ARMS
There has only been physical disarmament, not disarmament in the
mind. The gun is something these people use to live. It is their tool to
survive.
Man in Mazar e-Sharif, Afghanistan, September 2004 1
Supply and demand have become shorthand terms for describing
broad factors affecting the spread, use, and misuse of guns; approaches
to managing them; and means for reducing their negative
effects. Understanding what drives individuals and groups to
possess and use guns—the demand side of the equation—is equally important
for efforts to reduce availability and misuse. In fact, all sides of the
equation must be taken into account simultaneously if the international
community is to respond adequately to the problem of gun violence.
Guns can change hands several times—from manufacture to stockpile;
to broker, trader, and exporter—before they reach their first user. Factors
can be identified at each step in the life cycle of a weapon to explain why
guns are acquired. This theme looks at factors affecting demand by civilians,
communities, and non-state armed groups as end-users of guns;
offers an explanatory framework for thinking about demand; identifies
possible responses to the factors driving acquisition of guns at the individual
and group levels; illustrates demand interventions that have taken place
in Papua New Guinea, South Africa, and the US; and discusses the relevance
of this for policy development and action by parliamentarians and
civil society.
DEMAND IN THEORY
According to economic theory, demand for a commodity (e.g. guns) is a
function of individual and group preference, price (monetary and nonmonetary),
and resource availability. While preferences determine the moti-
110