It has become very commonplace to note the shift from interstate to intrastate conflict in the world--civil and ethnic wars--whose resolution seems to resist the best efforts of the international community. It is understandable that this international community continues to search for tools that could be used to prevent such conflicts. This search has produced a wide array of methods that focus on both the root causes of conflict--poverty, inequities, ethnic rivalries--and on finding the more short-term steps that will put an immediate stop to the outbreak and acceleration of armed conflict. This report breaks new ground in calling for a renewed focus on the actual tools of violence--small arms and light weapons--that are the means by which hundreds of thousands of people, mostly innocent civilians, are killed and wounded each year.

Please click on the following link to read the full context of Edward Laurance's report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict.

http://www.ccpdc.org/pubs/weapons/weaponsframe.htm