India is home to one of the world’s largest small arms industries, but it is often overlooked in international discussion because it mostly supplies domestic military and law enforcement services, rather than civilian or export markets. Small arms procurement by the Indian government has long reflected the country’s larger national military procurement system, which stresses indigenous arms production. This policy has changed since the 1990s, but its legacy will continue to affect Indian official small arms procurement for decades to come.

Authorized small arms imports to South-east Asia were worth at least USD 443 million in 2016, a 48 per cent increase from 2015, as revealed by the Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update 2019: Transfers, Transparency, and South-east Asia Spotlight. This increase, combined with the diversification in their small arms trading partners, highlights the region’s growing significance for international small arms flows.

The 2018 edition of the Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update—analyzing the small arms authorized trade in 2015—finds that the global authorized small arms trade was worth at least USD 5.7 billion in 2015, with small arms ammunition exports valued at USD 2.3 billion. The total value represents a seven per cent decrease between 2014 and 2015, mostly due to a USD 198 million decline in exports by top exporting countries the United States, Brazil, and Italy.  

Although the number of craft-produced small arms and light weapons is difficult to estimate, they are prevalent and range broadly in sophistication and quality.

Improvised and craft-produced firearms remain an important source of firepower for a wide range of actors, including tribal groups, poachers, criminals, insurgent groups, and even some states and quasi-state groups. In various locations, these weapons account for most of the firearms used in crime; in others, their production is institutionalized, providing essential income for local gunsmiths.

Based on extensive research in four Nigerian states, the Briefing Paper Handmade and Deadly: Craft Production of Small Arms in Nigeria finds that the use of craft-produced weapons in firearm-related crime in those states ranges from 32 per cent (Adamawa state) to 69 per cent (Plateau state).

Criminals purchase weapons unable to fire live ammunition legally and at low costs across Europe, converting them into lethal firearms with little to no training or expertise. The Small Arms Survey report From Legal to Lethal: Converted Firearms in Europe provides a detailed examination on the topic.
 

Self-loading rifles were first issued in military service in 1896 and remain the primary infantry weapon for all modern military forces. They are durable weapons, with examples produced in the 1930s and 1940s still documented in modern conflict zones. Recent research suggests that some 175 million self-loading service rifles have been produced to date. This figure does not include civilian-owned rifles and is very likely an underestimate. 

Behind the Curve: New Technologies, New Control Challenges, an Occasional Paper from the Small Arms Survey, looks at three recent developments in small arms manufacturing, technology, and design—polymer frames, modular weapons, and 3D printing—as well as the use of new technologies for improved small arms control.

Translated into Arabic by the EU-LAS project.

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Firearms conversion—mechanically altering an accessible replica firearm to function as a ‘real’ weapon—has been widely used by those wishing to circumvent legislation that restricts access to firearms.

Rifles, including assault rifles, have constituted the bulk of military small arms production in the 20th and 21st centuries, and are manufactured widely throughout the world.

There are thousands of companies, from some 100 countries, that produce small arms, light weapons, and their ammunition.