Amnesties and cash rewards may not be enough to deal with the problem of the proliferation of illicit small arms

Adding to the people’s despair in a bankrupt country are regular reports of gun violence. Last Saturday, TV channels and news websites posted CCTV footage of a shooting incident in the Negombo wholesale fish market. A young man was gunned down by a suspected contract killer at point-blank range. On Tuesday, two more people were shot dead at Kudawella in Tangalle and Bodarakanda in Dikwella.

Three gun violence deaths in four days are shockingly too many and disturbing. They point to the stark reality that gun violence is a growing problem in Sri Lanka and that whatever the authorities are doing to curtail gun crimes and deal with the proliferation of small arms is woefully inadequate. 
According to police statistics, for the first seven months of this year, 43 people have been killed or injured in gun violence. This shows a significant increase in the number of gun violence incidents this year when compared to 36 such incidents for the whole of last year.

It is virtually impossible to count the number of illicit firearms circulating in society given the reality that almost all the illicit guns are in the hands of underworld figures. During the last stages of the war, studies by the National Commission against the Proliferation of Illicit Small Arms revealed there were about 500,000 illicit firearms in Sri Lanka. After the war, about 100,000 small arms were recovered from LTTE camps, hideouts, and surrendered rebels.

But since then, the small arms proliferation crisis has deepened with the growth of the narcotic drug trade. Guns are liberally used not only in drug gang fights but also by despondent people to settle personal disputes. A disturbingly emerging trend is the hiring of gunmen to settle personal disputes by people who have little faith in the country’s judicial process, which is nightmarishly costly for litigants while cases drag on for years and, sometimes, decades.

More illicit guns in society mean more killers. This, in turn, makes the price of hiring a killer affordable based on the demand-and-supply theory.
Where they get weapons is a question the authorities need to find out. It is believed that unrecovered LTTE weapons have ended up in the underworld. In addition, the poorly guarded, porous borders of Sri Lanka make it easy for arms to be smuggled into the country.

Certainly, the proliferation of small arms increases insecurity among the people. At a time when the government is placing much hope on tourism to increase its foreign reserves, making the country free from gun violence will give a fillip to its efforts to market Sri Lanka as a peaceful country for tourists

Certainly, the proliferation of small arms increases insecurity among the people. At a time when the government is placing much hope on tourism to increase its foreign reserves, making the country free from gun violence will give a fillip to its efforts to market Sri Lanka as a peaceful country for tourists.
It should be mentioned here that, despite the rising gun violence incidents in Sri Lanka, the country’s gun violence death rate per 100,000 population was far below the average global gun death rate, according to the worldpopulationreview.com website, which carries the 2019 figures.

As illicit firearms pose a serious threat to the security, stability, and development of a country, fuelling crime, violence, and terrorism, the United Nations has launched several initiatives to address the issue. They include the UN Firearms Protocol and the Programme of Action (PoA) on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). The two instruments were adopted in 2001, and since then they have been reviewed every two years under the auspices of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs.

To deal with the crisis, successive Sri Lankan governments since the end of the war in 2009 have issued gun amnesties in 2010, 2013, and 2016. The Police have even offered cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of suspects with illegal firearms. But these measures have resulted in the collection of largely unlicensed pistols, shotguns, and homemade galkatas, totaling around 5,000. What was handed over during amnesties was only a tiny fraction of the underworld’s illicit arsenal of automatic weapons.
If the authorities fail to rein in the deteriorating situation, very soon Sri Lanka may have to pass legislation recognising the people’s right to be armed. This is similar to the United States, where the Second Amendment of the US Constitution says: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Second Amendment is part of the US Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791 by the US Congress. The amendment was influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which granted Protestants the right to bear arms for self-defence against potential “Catholic tyranny”.
However, the free availability of guns and gun ownership under the Second Amendment have seen a rise in mass shootings in the US. Each time a mass shooting occurs, it triggers a debate on whether there should be more gun control measures. Efforts by the Obama administration to bring in more gun control measures have been met with strong protests and legal battles.

However, widespread gun ownership has a deterrent effect, just like nuclear weapons. No country will go to war with a nuclear-armed nation. Similarly, criminals, armed or otherwise, will think twice or more before causing harm to an armed, peaceful citizen. The gun lobby argues that widespread gun ownership decreases violence by deterring potential offenders from committing crimes and by enabling law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and others from harm. They cite evidence from Switzerland and the State of Vermont in the United States to support their argument that the prevalence of licensed firearms is inversely correlated to violent crimes.
If everyone is armed, it takes society back to the state of nature, where life is brutish and selfish. It will be a return to the 19th-century Wild West, where men were more likely to be killed by a bullet than due to old age and disease before they reached the age of 45.

In the fight against gun violence, the Sri Lankan government cannot afford to shoot blanks. It must bite the bullet and shoot down the problem with out-of-the-box solutions. It cannot take a kitchen knife to a gunfight. Strict law enforcement, intelligence-based searches, and strict policing of the sea borders could be some of the measures the government could take to deal with the issue.
It can also study the strict measures countries like Japan and Singapore have taken to ensure virtual zero gun violence.