Citation

Kopel DB, Gallant P, Eisen JD. UMKC law review 2005; 73(4): 1-45.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, University of Missouri, Kansas City)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Today, many international gun prohibition advocates have recognized that, even though world-wide gun prohibition is not achievable in the near future, gun prohibition can be advanced in individual nations. Single-country (or single-region) gun prohibition is called micro-disarmament. Success stories of micro-disarmament are a very important part of international gun prohibition advocacy. This articles examines six case studies of microdisarmament. In three of those cases - Albania, Bougainville, and Cambodia - microdisarmament has seriously harmed human rights. Limited disarmament in rural Guatemala was followed by a crime wave, but it is not clear that the former caused the latter. In San Miguelito, Panamana, there was a successful program to convince youthful gangsters to surrender their guns, in exchange for participation in a government jobs program. In Mali, northern tribes rebelled against the corrupt central government which starved and oppressed them. After the central kleptocarcy was replaced with a democratic government, the new government recognized that the northern rebellion could not be violently defeated; when the new government agreed to respect the rights of the northern tribes, the northern tribes laid down their arms. In Mali, disarmament was not the cause of peace, but rather the result of a successful war for indigenous self-determination. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=742626

Language: en