Effort to curb illegal firearms bears fruit

Dar es Salaam. The government’s efforts to control illegal firearms ownership are paying off after a new report indicated that the stockpile of civilian guns has fallen by 123,000 in the past two years.

The Geneva-based Small Arms Survey says Tanzanian civilians own 427,000 guns, a decrease from 550,000 that were in private hands in 2016.

With a population of over 50 million, Tanzania has had one civilian fire-arm per 100 residents. But with the fall in number, the country has now less than 1 civilian firearm per 100 residents (1 firearm per 80 residents).

President John Magufuli launched the firearm verification exercise two years ago by becoming the first to surrender his firearms for inspection. There have also been efforts to mop out small arms that found their way into into the country from neighbouring war-torn countries.

In East Africa, Kenya has the largest number of civilian gun ownership at 750,000, a significant rise from 680,000 in 2016. Most of these guns are illegally owned, having not been registered by the licensing authorities.

Uganda, on the other hand, reduced its civilian arms stockpile from 400,000 in 2016 to 331,000. Ethiopia’s privately-owned guns stand at 377,000, according to the survey, while Rwanda’s stack is 66,000 guns.

In Africa, Nigeria tops the list of private gun ownership with 6.1 million guns, followed by South Africa (5.3 million), the report says. The US, which has the highest civilian gun attacks and deaths, tops private gun ownership with about 393.3 million guns in civilian hands, accounting for 45 per cent of the world’s total.

It is followed by India with 71.1 million, China with 49.7 million, Pakistan with 43.9 million and Russia with 17.6 million.

The report estimates that of the one billion firearms in global circulation as of 2017, 857 million (85 per cent) are in civilian hands, 133 million (13 per cent) are with the military, and 23 million (2 per cent) by law enforcement agencies.

The estimate of over 1 billion firearms worldwide at the end of 2017 also includes 133 million such weapons held by government military forces and 22.7 million by law enforcement agencies, according to the survey.

While the United States was dominant in civilian ownership in 2007 and 2017, the report said the US is only fifth today in military firearms holdings, behind Russia, China, North Korea and Ukraine. It is also fifth in law enforcement holdings, behind Russia, China, India and Egypt.

Another analysis conducted by GunPolicy.Org of the University of Sidney indicates that out of the 427,000 guns in civilian hands, the number of rifles is reported to be 18,050.