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

111
5. Individual Military Units
Armourers for individual regiments and units should hold
supplementary records:
• Individually listing all weapons supplied by the national central
agency; and
• All weapons captured or otherwise acquired by regiments and
taken into service (also notified to the national central agency);
• Details of any additional marks used for stock control crossreferenced
with each weapon’s recorded ordnance markings.
6. Commercial Arms Dealers (Surplus Ex-Military SALW)
• Make, Model/Type, Calibre;
• Country of manufacture and/or export;
• Markings used for record-keeping;
• Date of acquisition;
• Details to identify all parties involved, e.g. vendor, broker and
shipper;
• Date and method of disposal;
• Details to identify all parties involved in the sale, e.g. purchaser,
broker and shipper.
3.2 EXISTING NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL SYSTEMS
3.2.1 National Systems—Marking and Record-Keeping
Administration and enforcement controls for the manufacture, import,
export, and registration or record-keeping of small arms varies greatly
worldwide and it would be impractical in this paper to list individual
measures for every country.
However, in general terms, with regard to small arms manufacture,
every arms producing country has some form of regulation controlling the
production and marking of its weapons. Some may be no more than selfregulation
where marking is used for internal quality and stock control and
access to the manufacturers’ records is exploited by law enforcement
agencies on a case-by-case basis. Other countries, such as CIP member
States have statutory regulations requiring specific manufacturers’ markings,
including a unique identifier to guarantee quality and safety of the user. 5