The Scope and Implications of a Tracing Mechanism for Small Arms ...

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therefore, be greatly reduced to much less than the US$ 60 million involved
in the design of the Canadian CFR. For example, 14 of the African
countries, which signed up to Bamako Agreement, are presently
considering the purchase of FREDES and the FRT 3 to support their new
civilian firearms registration programmes.
Countries do not necessarily need to build systems as technically
advanced or as expensive as the Canadian Register. For example, when
South Africa first introduced their computerized Central Firearms Register
(CFR) it spent US$ 2.1 million each year on administration. An enhanced
system is being phased in at a cost of US$ 19 million spread over three years
with an annual budget of US$ 6.4 million to administer. Licence fees have
been increased to balance the higher costs. The CFR employs around 350
people.
As a further example, the UK Interpol National Contact Bureau (NCB)
undertakes less than 1,000 tracing enquiries annually. The annual budget is
less than US$ 1 million and employs just four permanent staff and, when
not involved in tracing, these staff are available for other tasks within the
NCB.
National centralized systems are more advantageous than regional ones.
Tracing on a national scale using regional systems can lead to the request
being routed through each individual region to check whether the country
has any record of a particular weapon. For example, the UK used to operate
regional systems for its national records of licensed dealers and private
owners. The chief officer for each of the 52 regional police forces
independently maintained their own system and there was no opportunity to
cross-reference their records. Consequently, it became possible for rogue
arms dealers to hide their diversion activities by registering sales to nonexistent
companies that were “located” outside the jurisdiction of their local
police record-keeping system. The introduction of a national database linking
each of the 52 regional systems has minimized the opportunity for fraud.
It is also important to link details of the weapons held by individuals
and commercial dealers to their licensing records, so that it is possible to
identify precisely what weapons each civilian owner or dealer holds and,
again, these need to be computerized. Where such records do not exist, for
police to trace a weapon will involve officers having to personally visit each
individual concerned in the chain of ownership to inspect their records and,