As some of you know, I am also a member of the Executive of the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFSA). Acting in both capacities, I spent a week at the Biennial Meeting of States on illicit trading in firearms. It's a UN function.
Like our Liberal Canadian government, the UN seems to be convinced (on no visible evidence) that imposing new and strict regulation on the good and honest people who try to obey the rules will somehow prevent the bad and dishonest people from continuing to acquire and distribute illegal guns. The UN wants to reduce the numbers of illegal guns in the hands of criminals, insurgents, oppressive governments, and terrorists, focussing on the problems in Africa, the former Eastern Bloc, and Latin America.
Their problem, as I see it, is that the UN's "Program of Action" (which is intended to get rid of those military firearms now in the hands of criminals, insurgents, oppressive governments, and terrorists) has been operating since 2001. There is no indication that it is being successful, or that it will ever be successful. Some governments are still transferring their surplus military small arms to criminal dealers who act illegally, and those criminal dealers are making fat profits by trading the illegal guns across national borders for money, diamonds, or drugs.
Obviously, if those criminal dealers are not obeying the rules, the rules cannot control the activities of the criminal dealers. It is much like our situation in Canada, where over-regulation is strangling the honest dealers and honest citizens--but is a total failure at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, at preventing criminals from carrying illegal guns, and at preventing criminals from using their illegal guns. Nor are those rules preventing large numbers of illegal firearms from routinely entering Canada to supply the illegal marketplace.
You've probably read about people being caught crossing the U.S.-Canada border and bringing an illegal (in Canada!) handgun with them. That is only the tip of the iceberg, and no one is talking about the larger shipments that are crossing national borders every day.
Ever watch a big ship, loaded with containers (you know, those big rusty boxes the size of the rear end of a semi-trailer truck) steaming into port? It will be swiftly unloaded by massive cranes, the boxes will be stacked on land, and other boxes will be put onto the ship, which will sail off to another country. Let's take a closer look at that.
The unloaded boxes will be placed on semi-trailers or trains, and will leave the dock area very quickly. Fewer than two per cent of those boxes will even be opened for Customs inspection, and most of the opened ones will not have their contents removed to make sure that the entire shipment is legal. There may be contraband in the far end of the container, with legitimate goods in the front end to impede access to the contraband.
The VWXYZ Corporation (a perfectly legal exporting firm) loads a container with cartons of canned peas. The container is loaded on a truck, and a driver takes it away. He is going to the docks, but he turns off the highway when half way to his destination. He drives the truck into an old warehouse rented by criminals, where it is swiftly unloaded. Contraband is put into the rear part of the container, and then enough canned peas are put back to conceal the contraband--perhaps half the canned peas, perhaps 75 per cent of them, even perhaps all of them if there is room. Containers are often shipped half empty.
The container is taken off the truck at the docks, and put onto a ship. Its papers say it contains canned peas, and is going to the ABCDE Company (a perfectly legal importing firm) in another country.
When the ship arrives, the container is processed by Customs. They don't open it--who wants to look at canned peas? The papers get rubber stamped, and the container is loaded onto another semi. The driver drives it out of the bonded area, waving his rubber-stamped papers at the gate guard, and disappears down the highway. Ten miles away, he pulls off the highway and into a warehouse, where the contraband is removed and the concealing canned peas are put back. If the scam is elaborate, the criminals may add more canned peas to keep the weight consistent with what it says on the papers.
Sometimes, a tip or some suspicious circumstance can cause Customs officers to open a container and search it--but that happens to fewer than two per cent of containers. That means that 98 per cent of the contraband shipments--guns, drugs, illegal diamonds, etc.--will always get through.
Think about that. On such shipments, the smugglers are making at least 100 per cent profit, and usually more. If they lose two per cent of the shipments, that's just a cost of doing business.
I can't fault the Customs officers. There are not enough of them, and they literally cannot search every container. It is all they can do to keep the goods flowing smoothly into and out of the ports, and that is vitally necessary for any trading nation.
But it does mean that smuggling contraband, including guns, drugs and illicit diamonds, into and out of our country--or into or out of some small African, former Eastern Bloc, or Latin American country--is a cinch.
For as long as smuggling is that easy, excessive over-regulation of the honest dealers among us will be useless.
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