Guns Or Growth

Excessive or inappropriate arms purchases are a drain on social and economic resources which developing countries cannot afford. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter recognises that every state has a right to individual and collective self-defence. However, the UN Charter also requires all member states to 'promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms' in order to achieve 'economic and social progress and development' (Articles 1, 55 and 56) and 'to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources' (Article 26). A majority of states have, in addition, ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to contribute to the progressive realisation of these rights through international assistance and co-operation.

A report published by Amnesty International, IANSA, and Oxfam, for the Control Arms campaign. Published in association with Project Ploughshares, and Saferworld Every state has a right to self-defence, under Article 51 of the UN Charter. However, the UN Charter also requires all member states to e~promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedomse(tm) in order to achieve e~economic and social progress and developmente(tm) (Articles 1, 55 and 56) and e~to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the worlde(tm)s human and economic resourcese(tm) (Article 26). The countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East hold 51 percent of the worlde(tm)s heavy weapons. Excessive or inappropriate arms purchases are a drain on social and economic resources which developing countries simply cannot afford. The Millennium Development Goals will not be achieved without addressing the issue of sustainable development in all aspects of policy, including arms transfers. Both arms importers and exporters must ensure that arms transfers do not undermine sustainable development. For arms exporters, various export-control regimes already include this requirement, as does the proposed Arms Trade Treaty, but few governments fully respect these commitments. Lip service leads to arms falling into the wrong hands and the diversion of scarce resources from fighting poverty. To protect the social and economic rights of poor people, exporting governments must apply an effective and systematic methodology to assess whether proposed arms transfers will affect sustainable development. This report proposes such a methodology, and explains why, excepting legitimate security needs, arms transfers with an adverse impact on sustainable development must not go ahead.

"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE AND SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE By a prize-winning young historian, an authoritative work that reframes the Industrial Revolution, the expansion of British empire, and emergence of industrial capitalism by presenting them as inextricable from the gun trade "A fascinating and important glimpse into how violence fueled the industrial revolution, Priya Satia's book stuns with deep scholarship and sparkling prose."--Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies We have long understood the Industrial Revolution as a triumphant story of innovation and technology. Empire of Guns, a rich and ambitious new book by award-winning historian Priya Satia, upends this conventional wisdom by placing war and Britain's prosperous gun trade at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the state's imperial expansion. Satia brings to life this bustling industrial society with the story of a scandal: Samuel Galton of Birmingham, one of Britain's most prominent gunmakers, has been condemned by his fellow Quakers, who argue that his profession violates the society's pacifist principles. In his fervent self-defense, Galton argues that the state's heavy reliance on industry for all of its war needs means that every member of the British industrial economy is implicated in Britain's near-constant state of war. Empire of Guns uses the story of Galton and the gun trade, from Birmingham to the outermost edges of the British empire, to illuminate the nation's emergence as a global superpower, the roots of the state's role in economic development, and the origins of our era's debates about gun control and the "military-industrial complex" -- that thorny partnership of government, the economy, and the military. Through Satia's eyes, we acquire a radically new understanding of this critical historical moment and all that followed from it. Sweeping in its scope and entirely original in its approach, Empire of Guns is a masterful new work of history -- a rigorous historical argument with a human story at its heart.

Abstract: This paper introduces the first effort to quantitatively document the small arms market by collating field reports and journalist accounts to produce a cross-country time-series price index of Kalashnikov assault rifles. A model of the small arms market is developed and empirically estimated to identify the key determinants of assault rifle prices. Variables which proxy the effective height of trade barriers for illicit trade are consistently significant in determining weapon price variation. When controlling for other factors, the collapse of the Soviet Union does not have as large an impact on weapon prices as is generally believed.

Excerpt from The Gun and Its Development This book, first published in 1881, was written with a view to supplying such information relative to fire-arms as is most frequently sought by a sportsman Owing to numerous recent inventions it became necessary not only to rearrange the matter, but to rewrite the book when the sixth edition was needed. The author thanks those critics who have pointed out literal faults in this book, and he has done his best to remove ambiguities and correct errors. He sees no reason to make any alteration of importance, and, in matters of Opinion, adheres to what he has already written, so that this ninth edition is, with the exception of a few minor alterations and some additional pages upon Gun Trials, Single Trigger mechanisms, Miniature rifles and the Rifle Club movement, practically a reprint of the last one. In the arrangement of this treatise the author has followed a method which appears to him the best suited to convey an accurate idea of different small arms and of their capabilities under varying conditions. From the nature of the subjects treated it is impossible that the book could be wholly free from technicalities, but no endeavour has been spared to make the contents readable intricate mechanisms, instead of being described in detail, have been freely illustrated; technical data are presented in tabular form, and theories relative to the action of explosives, the flight of bullets and shot pellets, have been concisely explained. The thanks of the author are due to many sportsmen and others who by their investigations and experience have added to his knowledge of guns and gunnery possibly in some instances the sources upon which the author has drawn have not been acknowledged, but the omissions are unintentional. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.