Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun (52 page)

1
.

Russia has about 1,550,000 police guns and the US about 1,150,000 – with similar ratios per officer as India.
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-24-Annexe.pdf

2
.

American state and local police officers, on the other hand, have an average of 1.3 official firearms each –
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-24.pdf

3
.

There are an estimated 500,000 to 4 million guns in South Africa:
http://africacheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-Proliferation-of-Firearms-in-South-Africa-1994-2004.pdf
About 5 million people in South Africa do not have access to clean tap water.
http://africacheck.org/reports/claim-that-94-of-south-aclaim-that-94-in-sa-have-access-to-safe-drinking-water-doesnt-hold-water/
The Cape gangs reportedly hold about 10 per cent of the guns in the region:
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/2010/en/Small-Arms-Survey-2010-Chapter-04-EN.pdf

4
.

N. M. Campbell, J. G. Colville, Y. van der Heyde and A. B. van As, ‘Firearm Injuries to Children in Cape Town, South Africa: Impact of the 2004 Firearms Control Act’,
The South African Journal of Surgery (SAJS)
51, 3, 2013, p. 92;
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/26/south-african-guns-are-us

5
.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/gangs-south-africa-western-cape

6
.

Coloured is the ethnic label for those of mixed ethnic origin – their ancestry from Europe, Asia, and the various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of southern Africa.

7
.

Figure quoted by Andre Standing in a 2005 Institute of Security Studies policy discussion paper.

8
.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/bonteheuwel-residents-say-cops-are-failing-1.1683639#.U-s6-Vbobx4

9
.

http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/LEGGETT2.PDF

10
.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Cape-Town-cop-shot-dead-20130723

11
.

The gangs often tried to get their hands on police pistols; in 2009, nearly 3,000 police guns were lost or taken;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/7085320/South-Africa-police-lose-3000-guns-a-year.html

12
.

http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/LEGGETT2.PDF

13
.

It’s estimated there were 4,600 deaths as a result of police action in the seven years after apartheid ended; D. Bruce, ‘Interpreting the Body Count: South African Statistics on Lethal Police Violence’,
South African Review of Sociology
, 36, 2, 2005, pp. 141–59.

14
.

Of the shots fired 34 per cent were in barricade scenarios, 36 per cent involved hostages, and 21 per cent a suicidal subject – death by cop. First published in
Tactical Response
, September/October 2005;
http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/details?id=3879

15
.

http://rt.com/usa/police-sniper-suicidal-boy-870/

16
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http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/michael-blair/
; see also:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535424/Fury-schizophrenic-teen-Keith-Vidal-shot-dead-Southport-Police.html
and
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/01/news/mn-45199

17
.

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/iyanna-davis/

18
.

Ibid.

19
.

http://longisland.newsday.com/templates/simpleDB/?pid=345¤tRe cord=1501
.

20
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In the thirty-five police ‘deadly force incidents’ since 2001, a firearm was only recovered from the suspected criminal in twelve cases. Nassau police officers had also shot at someone in a moving car at least ten times since 2006, despite department protocols forbidding firing at a moving vehicle; credit to these observations must go to
http://data.newsday.com/long-island/data/crime-and-punishment/nassau-deadly-force/
; the Nassau Police did not respond to my request for an interview.

21
.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cirg/tactical-operations
; in 1987 the Minneapolis Police Department conducted thirty-six SWAT team raids. In 1996 the same department carried out 700 raids. In 1989 the number of police offers in the tactical operations branch of the Portland, Oregon, Police Department was two. By 1994 this number was fifty-six. This was even as violent crime fell.

22
.

http://nineronline.com/2011/10/unc-charlotte-swat-team-–-an-asset-we-hope-to-never-use/

23
.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904

24
.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-militarization-of-police-state-usa/5377240?print=1

25
.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/24/georgia.gay.club.lawsuit/

26
.

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-11-07/health/os-illegal-barbering-arrests-20101107_1_criminal-barbering-licensing-inspections-dave-ogden

27
.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/aiyana-stanley-jones-detroit
.

28
.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140919/NEWS03/140918916

29
.

http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/swat-throws-grenade-in-playpen/

30
.

In 2014, fifty US police officers were shot and killed in the line of duty. In the fifty years before 2014, thirty-one police officers were unlawfully shot and killed in the line of duty in England, Wales and Scotland. Thanks to the Police Roll of Honour for this information:
http://www.policememorial.org.uk

31
.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/07/militarization-local-police-america

32
.

As
The Economist
reported: ‘In 1986, its first year of operation, the federal Assets Forfeiture Fund held $93.7m. By 2012, that and the related Seized Assets Deposit Fund held nearly $6 billion’;
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

33
.

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_22594279/homeland-security-aims-buy-1-6-billion-rounds

34
.

The company also found that in the summer months, gunfire increases, and that 42 per cent of all gunfire happened in June, July and August. In the worse place that they looked at, they found on average over eight bullets were shot every single day for an entire year within a single square mile;
http://www.shotspotter.com/policy-implications

35
.

Others would contest this figure as being on the low side. As the
Washington Post
reported: ‘Officials with the Justice Department keep no comprehensive database or record of police shootings, instead allowing the nation’s more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings as part of the FBI’s annual data on “justifiable homicides” by law enforcement’;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/
; the website
http://www.fatalencounters.org
has an arguably more accurate figure and these numbers are quoted later in this book.

36
.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/08/armed-police
;
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/2011/en/Small-Arms-Survey-2011-Chapter-03-EN.pdf

37
.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf

38
.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not-just-ferguson-11-eye-opening-facts-about-americas-militarized-police-forces/

39
.

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21591877-when-pupils-get-trouble-silly-reasons-results-can-be-serious-perils

40
.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/education/report-criticizes-school-discipline-measures-used-in-mississippi.html?_r=0

41
.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/one-nation-under-guard/

42
.

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/philippines0409webwcover_0.pdf

43
.

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/philippines0514_ForUpload_0_0_1.pdf

44
.

http://www.hrw.org/ru/node/82034/section/12

45
.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020701-265480,00.html

46
.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/brazil-police-still-have-blood-their-hands-20-years-massacre-2013-07-24
; police in the United States arrest 37,000 people for every person they kill.

47
.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/03/police-violence-brazil
; the US Department of State’s annual report for Brazil in 2013 states that: ‘human rights problems included excessive force and unlawful killings
by state police; excessive force, beatings, abuse, and torture of detainees and inmates by police and prison security forces’.

48
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/about-us/highlights/highlight-iava-ib3.html
; from 791 in 2004 to 1,421 in 2010.

49
.

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Brown-Journal-Kopel.pdf

1
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Many of these twenty-one countries are small tropical islands in the Caribbean or the South Pacific, like Saint Lucia or Vanuatu. Their defence is, largely, their remoteness or their natural environment; both deterring an invasion.

2
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-34.pdf
; in South America, for instance, it’s thought about 1.3 million military guns are ‘undoubtedly superfluous’; Argentina has over a half million guns they don’t need – over 77 per cent of its total number – and in Guyana as many as 83 per cent of their military guns may be surplus to requirement.

3
.

L. Themner and P. Wallensteen, ‘Armed Conflicts, 1946–2010’,
Journal of Peace Research
, 48, 4, 2011, pp. 525–36.

4
.

http://ploughshares.ca/pl_publications/the-wars-of-1997-introduction-to-the-armed-conflicts-report-1998/

5
.

http://www.genevadeclaration.org/measurability/global-burden-of-armed-violence/global-burden-of-armed-violence-2011.html
;
Global Burden of Armed Violence
(2011). This figure of 55,000 conflict deaths a year seems to accord with another major analysis of deaths in wars that happened between 1946 and 2002 – as outlined in
The Human Security Report
, published in 2005. That review concluded there has been a clear but even decline in battle deaths since the Second World War and that wars between states were deadlier than civil wars.

6
.

Joakim Kreutz and Nicholas Marsh, ‘Lethal Instruments: Small Arms and Deaths in Armed Conflict’,
Small Arms, Crime and Conflict
, 49, 2011.

7
.

Ibid.

8
.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a498077.pdf#page=68
;
http://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2004/08000/A_U_S__Army_Forward_Surgical_Team_s_Experience_in.1.aspx

9
.

Made by F. N Herstal, 200,000 of these general-purpose machine-guns are in use by over ninety militaries around the world.

10
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/F-Working-papers/SAS-WP1-Iraq.pdf

11
.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111600865.html
;
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05687.pdf

12
.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-314944.html

13
.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05687.pdf

14
.

Ibid.

15
.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11107739

16
.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

17
.

https://www.iraqbodycount.org
(accessed on 21 April 2014). This reached a feverish peak in 2006 with 2,334 gunfire-related deaths in July 2006 and 2,118 in October 2006.

18
.

And the numbers of civilians dying at checkpoints got worse as the war went on. In 2004, when I was there, the war logs showed twenty-two civilian deaths. By 2005 it was nearly 300.

19
.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/world/haditha-iraq-haunted-by-marines-shooting-spree/2011/12/09/gIQAEzJblO_gallery.html#item0

20
.

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/18/nation/la-na-nn-soldier-suicide-rape-iraq-girl-mahmoudiya-20140218

21
.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/israel-ranked-as-worlds-most-militarised-nation/

22
.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/israel
; Aaron Karp, ‘Trickle and Torrent: State Stockpiles’,
Small Arms Survey 2006: Unfinished Business
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),
Chapter 2
(Appendix I), p. 61.

23
.

www.gunpolicy.org

24
.

http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2013/12/01/eyes-like-hawk-snipers-discover-secrets-special-training/

25
.

One British soldier, among the 330 trained snipers reported to be operating in the UK forces, was said to have killed thirty-nine Taliban. Each of the 8.59mm bullets used by UK snipers in southern Afghanistan had cost about £20, compared to the Javelin anti-tank missile, which then cost £70,000.

26
.

http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/any/by-date-of-death/wb-gaza/palestinians-killed-during-the-course-of-a-targeted-killing

27
.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/15/army-taliban-sniping
; though the sniper’s art in war certainly pre-dated this. Faced with the devastating impact of mechanised gun slaughter, General Hiram Berdan from the North and General Robert E. Lee from South in the American Civil War both set up units of designated sharpshooters.

28
.

After 550 kills, though, Häyhä was shot in his lower left jaw by a Russian soldier. He did not die, regaining consciousness on 13 March 1939, the day peace was declared. The Finns lost 22,830 men compared to 126,875 Russians, who had an invading force 1.5 million strong. As one Red Army general recalled, ‘We gained 22,000 square miles of territory. Just enough to bury our dead.’

29
.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270414/British-sniper-sets-new-sharpshooting-record-1-54-mile-double-Taliban-kill.html

30
.

A. Wacker,
Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger Knights Cross
(Pen & Sword, 2005), p. 149.

31
.

Ibid., p. 119.

32
.

http://news.sky.com/story/678761/israeli-army-t-shirts-mock-gaza-killings

33
.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/26/jewish-population-west-bank-up

34
.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/violence-by-extremists-in-the-jewish-settler-movement-a-rising-challenge

35
.

Credit to Max Hastings for these observations:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2703531/MAX-HASTINGS-Ive-loved-Israel-brutality-breaks-heart.html

36
.

http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/after-cast-lead/by-date-of-event/wb-gaza/palestinian-minors-killed-by-israeli-security-forces

37
.

http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/2csoldrs.htm

38
.

http://www.warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers

39
.

Ibid. The use of children carrying guns marks the conscience of modernity’s conflicts. Boys as young as ten were used by the Khmer Rouge. Children made up about 50 per cent of the insurgency in Sierra Leone. Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance army in Uganda abducted at least 20,000 children to become fighters or sex slaves. The list of countries that have used children carrying guns in the recent past goes on . . . and on: Burundi, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Burma, India, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Bolivia, Colombia. Even the US army acknowledged that around sixty seventeen-year-olds were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004.