[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 98 (Monday, July 16, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7662-S7663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     CONTROLLING THE PROLIFERATION OF SMALL ARMS AND LIGHT WEAPONS

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the 
proliferation of small arms around the world and, specifically, the 
remarks made by John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for Arms 
Control and International Security Affairs before the United Nations 
this past July 9 at the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade 
in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects.
  I begin by saying what I sincerely believe: I think it is right and 
necessary to limit the illicit sale of small arms and light weapons on 
a worldwide basis. In order to do that, however, one also has to 
address transparency and legal transfers of small arms and light 
weapons because so much of the illicit proliferation problem has its 
roots in legal sales. I was therefore very surprised that Under 
Secretary Bolton said the United States may well be opposed to measures 
being considered by the conference that are aimed at curbing the 
international proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
  Before I address Mr. Bolton's speech, and the question it raises 
about the direction of the administration's policy in this area, I 
would like to briefly sketch out the scope and scale of this problem:
  The worldwide proliferation of small arms--this includes shoulder-
mounted missiles, assault weapons, grenade launchers, and high-powered 
sniper rifles--is a staggering problem today. Right now there are an 
estimated 500 million illicit small arms and light weapons in 
circulation around the globe.
  In the past decade alone, an estimated 4 million people have been 
killed in civil war and bloody fighting, many of them with these same 
small arms.
  As a matter of fact, 9 out of 10 of these deaths are attributed to 
small arms and light weapons. According to the International Committee 
of the Red Cross, more than 50 percent of the 4 million people killed--
that is 2 million people--are believed to be civilians. The sheer 
volume of available weaponry has been a major factor in the devastation 
witnessed in recent conflicts in Angola, Cambodia, Liberia, Mozambique, 
Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan, as well as 
the sort of violence endemic to narcotrafficking in Colombia and 
Mexico. These conflicts undermine the regional stability, and they 
endanger the spread of democracy and free markets around the world.
  The United Nations and the Red Cross estimate that more than 10 
million small arms and light weapons, ranging from pistols to AK-47's 
to hand grenades to shoulder-launched missiles, are today in 
circulation in Afghanistan where the terrorist organization of Osama 
bin Laden is based.
  The United Nations estimates that over 650,000 weapons disappeared 
from government depots in Albania in the 3 years leading up to the 
outbreak of violence in the Balkans, including 20,000 tons of 
explosives.
  NATO peacekeepers and U.S. soldiers in the region are under threat 
and in danger from these weapons. In fact, the increased access by 
terrorists, guerrilla groups, criminals, and others to small arms and 
light weapons poses a real threat to all U.S. participants in 
peacekeeping operations and U.S. forces based overseas.
  Clearly, this is a substantial problem, and it has profound 
implications for U.S. security interests. It is because of the scope 
and scale of the problem that the United Nations conference on the 
illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, I believe, is so 
important.
  Unfortunately, as the Washington Post editorial on July 10 put it, 
Mr. Bolton's opening address ``appeared designed to cater to the most 
extreme domestic opponents of gun control''. Although I do not disagree 
with all that Mr. Bolton said, I want to ask that we examine more 
closely the implications of some of his statements, and how they 
conflict with both settled Supreme Court precedent and the goals of 
stemming the tide of illicit arms into the hands of terrorists, drug 
cartels, and violent rebellions.
  First, Mr. Bolton stated that ``The United States will not join 
consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our 
constitutional right to keep and bear arms.''
  As the Post's editorial points out, ``No such measures appear in the 
draft documents before the conference.'' Why, exactly, did he do that?
  I believe not only is Mr. Bolton wrong in his assertion about the 
connection between the Second Amendment and the work of conference, but 
in any case Mr. Bolton's position on the Second Amendment is in direct 
contradiction to decades of Supreme Court precedent.
  Not one single gun control law has ever been overturned by the Court 
on Second Amendment grounds.
  Contrary to the constant claims of the NRA, the meaning of the Second 
Amendment has been well-settled for more than 60 years--ever since the 
1939 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Miller. In that 
case, the defendant was charged with transporting an unregistered 
sawed-off shotgun across state lines.
  In rejecting a motion to dismiss the case on Second Amendment 
grounds, the Court held that the ``obvious purpose'' of the Second 
Amendment was ``to assure the continuation and render possible the 
effectiveness'' of the ``state Militia.'' Because a sawed-off shotgun 
was not a weapon that would be used by a ``state Militia'', like the 
National Guard, the Second Amendment was in no way applicable to that 
case, said the Court.
  If a sawed-off shotgun is not protected by the Second Amendment, why

[[Page S7663]]

does the Administration seem to be taking the position that the Second 
Amendment protects the international trafficking of shoulder-launched 
missiles?
  If an American citizen cannot freely transport a sawed-off shotgun 
across state lines, why can't we work to stop the international 
transportation of grenade launchers and high powered, military sniper 
rifles?
  This second amendment argument simply makes no sense, and has no 
place in this debate.
  Second, Mr. Bolton's opening statement attacked language that calls 
on governments to ``seriously consider'' curtailing ``unrestricted 
sales and ownership'' of arms specifically designed for military 
purposes.
  So Mr. Bolton essentially objected to even considering merely 
curtailing the ``unrestricted sales and ownership'' of military 
weapons.
  In point of fact the United States already curtails the sale and 
ownership of many of these guns.
  The National Firearms Act, for instance, places severe restrictions 
on the manufacture and possession of machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, 
grenades, bombs, rockets, missiles, and mines.
  We also passed the 1994 assault weapons ban, which stopped the 
production of semi-automatic, military-style assault weapons.
  These firearms have no sporting purpose, and our laws recognize that 
fact. Yet these guns contribute enormously to terrorist threats, drug 
cartel violence, and civil strife throughout the world.
  Congress has already recognized that curtailing the use of military-
style weapons is reasonable, appropriate, and even life-saving. To now 
object to a clause that would call upon other governments around the 
world to do the same is nonsensical at best, and undermines U.S. 
security interests--and the lives of U.S. military personnel--at worst.
  Next, Mr. Bolton stated that the United States would ``not support 
measures that would constrain legal trade and legal manufacturing of 
small arms and light weapons.'' That may be legitimate read on its 
face. People can understand that.
  Although it is my belief that the United States is not the biggest 
contributor to the problem of the global proliferation of small arms 
and light weapons--the United Nations has found that almost 300 
companies in 50 countries now manufacture small arms and related 
equipment--in 1999 the U.S. licensed for export more than $470 million 
in light military weapons.
  With the average price of $100-$300 per weapon, this represents a 
huge volume of weapons.
  The problem is that in addressing the issue of the international 
proliferation of small arms and light weapons one cannot simply address 
the illicit side of the equation without also looking at the 
interactions between the legal trade and the illegal trade.
  In fact, there is good evidence of an increased incidence of U.S. 
manufactured weapons--legally manufactured and legally traded or 
transferred--flowing into the international black market.
  In April, 1998, for example, The New York Times reported that the 
United States had to rescind pending licenses for sale of U.S. firearms 
to the United Kingdom based on the European Union practice allowing 
retransfer of guns between EU members without review or oversight.
  In 1999 the State Department stopped issuing licenses from the U.S. 
to dealers in Venezuela because of concern that many of the guns--
legally exported and sold--were in fact ending up in the hands of 
narco-traffickers and guerrillas in Colombia.
  In 2000 and to date in 2001, the ATF has processed more than 19,000 
trace requests from foreign countries for firearms used in crimes: 
8,000 of these guns were sold legally in the United States. So they are 
sold legally and they get into the black market and they become part of 
a crime.
  In 1994, Mexico reported 3,376 illegally acquired U.S.-origin 
firearms. Many of these weapons were originally sold legally to 
legitimate buyers but then transferred illegally, to many Mexican drug 
cartels. Between 1989 and 1993, the State Department approved 108 
licenses for the export of $34 million in small arms to Mexico, but it 
performed only three follow-up inspections to ensure that the weapons 
were delivered to and stayed in the hands of the intended users.
  According to the South African Institute for Security Studies, an 
estimated 30,000 stolen firearms--again, firearms originally 
manufactured and traded, sold or transferred in a legal manner--enter 
the illegal marketplace annually in South Africa.

  Given this undeniable connection between legal sales and illicit 
trade, the approach suggested by Mr. Bolton to the Conference--that it 
should only address one part of the equation while ignoring the other, 
appears to me to be untenable.
  I would also suggest that certain measures which may be seen by some 
as constraints on legal manufacture and trade--such as international 
agreements for the marking and tracing small arms and light weapons, or 
seeing that there are international regulations governing the 
activities of arms brokers--are in fact wise policy.
  Mr. Bolton also stated:

       Neither will we, at this time, commit to begin negotiations 
     and reach agreements on legally binding instruments, the 
     feasibility and necessity of which may be in question and in 
     need of review over time.

  Yet, as Mr. Bolton himself points out in his statement, the United 
States has some of the best laws and regulations on the books regarding 
the sale and transfers of light weapons.
  In my view it is clearly in the U.S. interest to see that those 
standards are replicated by the world community.
  Mr. Bolton's statement is fulsome in its praise of U.S. brokering 
regulations. Why do we not want to see others rise to the same 
standards?
  Mr. Bolton's statement cites U.S. regulations governing the transfer 
of military articles of U.S. origin and U.S. exports of small arms and 
light weapons.
  Instead of going it alone--with limited success even when it comes to 
some of our closest allies, like the United Kingdom, as the example I 
cited above indicates--shouldn't we be working to see to it that the 
rest of the international community adopts similar standards? I think 
so.
  In approaching the United Nations Conference, the U.S. government 
should negotiate and support making the trafficking of small arms 
traceable, strengthen international regulations of transfers, bolster 
rules governing arms brokers, and eliminate the secrecy that permits 
thousands of weapons to fuel crime and war without anyone's knowledge 
of their source.
  We should be taking the lead on this issue based on our foreign 
policy and national security interests, not taking the NRA line based 
on domestic political considerations.
  And U.S. leadership should ensure that the Conference is the first 
step, not the last, in the international community's efforts to control 
the spread of small arms and light weapons.
  The problem is you cannot look at the illicit trade of small arms and 
light weapons, which is killing millions upon millions of people, 50 
percent of them innocent civilians, without increasing the transparency 
of the legal market because so many of these weapons go from the legal 
market into the black market--the illicit market.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bingaman). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask consent to speak in morning business 
for 5 minutes, and following my remarks, the Senator from Washington 
speak.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I first thank the Senator from Washington 
State for her kindness letting me speak next. I hope to make an 
appointment in my office. I will cut my remarks short and give a 
summary and put the remainder in the Record. I appreciate her 
generosity and that of the Senator from West Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

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