[‘Sana] Muhammad never thought that the pistol he kept for self-defense would one evening kill his own child, when the boy took his father’s gun to play with.
In Yemen there are many such tragic stories about gun victims. It is not unusual to read a newspaper report about a bride who has been accidentally killed by her new husband on their wedding day as he celebrates by firing into the air and loses control over his Kalashnikov AK-42, which is the most popular gun in the country.
Men in Yemen have been obliged to give up part of their traditional manhood following the ban last August on weapons carrying in the cities, a ban that the authorities are working tirelessly to enforce.
The Yemeni Ministry of Interior has deployed hundreds of security personnel at almost all entrances of the capital to inspect for firearms. Drivers and passengers have to show their IDs to patrolling police at main intersections, as the police are also searching for 160 wanted security suspects.
Deputy Interior Minister Mohammed Al-Qawsi told The Media Line that his ministry released 234 arms dealers after about two weeks under arrest. All guns confiscated from 300 closed firearms shops are being held by the authorities until further notice.
Al-Qawsi said the Yemeni constitution guaranteed the right of all civilians to possess firearms for self-defense purposes. However, owners are prohibited from carrying guns in public in an attempt to reduce crime and human and property losses.
"People can have their own guns in their homes for self-defense,” said Al-Qawsi. “However, they have to register their guns so that in the case of a crime or an incident of self-defense the guns used can be easily identified.”
Despite the strong Yemeni tradition that is associated with weapons in different forms, Yemenis realize the high cost of this phenomenon and support the move.
Abdul-Rahman Abosh, a cab driver in Sana’, told The Media Line, “I don’t want to see guns in the streets. I really encourage the government to chase those carrying arms.”
It took Yemen several decades to realize the danger of firearms in the hands of a mostly tribal society with a 65 percent illiteracy rate.
For almost a year now, the security apparatus in Yemen has so far confiscated around 150,000 weapons at checkpoints and city entrances. Al-Qawsi said that 148,000 small arms have been confiscated from citizens.
According to Al-Qawsi, the figure behind the ongoing anti-gun campaign, the ministry has been trying to implement the law that regulates small arms carrying since the parliament has been delaying the new draft law.
This crackdown on arms has resulted in a remarkable decrease in the usually alarming figures of crimes and deaths resulting from gun fighting. There were 628 criminal incidents in the two-month period prior to the execution of the campaign, while there were 364 incidents in the two months after the campaign started, a decrease of 42%.
There were 59 gun-related deaths in the two months before the campaign; only 20 such deaths were reported in the two months after the commencement of the campaign. The authorities reported an 80% decrease in public arms carrying in the main cities.
The Ministry of Interior officially declared that firearms were involved in 79.21% of the total annual crimes committed by civilians.
According to the Small Arms Survey 2007, Yemen is one of the most heavily armed and most violent societies in the world. The demographic distribution of its citizens indicates that more than one quarter of the population of about 22 million are adults. Thus, the average adult civilian owns up to three firearms.
The survey concludes that Yemenis own between six and 17 million firearms – 61 firearms for every 100 civilian. This is by far the lower estimated figure against claims that there are more than 40 million firearms in Yemen.
Internationally, the survey found that civilians owned approximately 750 million firearms worldwide, roughly 75% of the known total, with 270 million owned by U.S. civilians. The United States is the leading country in possession of firearms; excluding the U.S. from the survey brings the average down from one gun per seven people to one gun per 10 people.
Moreover, the U.S. is home to roughly 35-50% of the world’s civilian-owned guns. Roughly, in the U.S. 4.5 million firearms are bought out of some eight million new firearms manufactured annually worldwide.
Abdul-Rahman Al-Marwani, president of the Peace House, a local NGO working to eliminate revenge and stop arms carrying, told The Media Line that this phenomenon was very destructive to Yemen. A study by his organization found that Yemen lost hundreds of millions of dollars every year because of small firearms.
Moreover, the Ministry of Interior said that 50% of the 45,000 crimes that took place in a four-year period were the result of firearms.
Civil society organizations are working hard to validate a new draft law that regulates the possession and carrying of small arms; however, their efforts are clashing with the wills of influential tribal figures who are also members of parliament.
The proliferation of guns in Yemen does not only harm civilians, development and investment in the country, it goes beyond the borders to affect the neighboring oil-rich Saudi Kingdom.
Kingdom officials have expressed concern over gun smuggling from Yemen. They believe that Al-Qa’ida cells in Saudi Arabia receive their arms and ammunition from Yemen, a situation that led to the signing of a security cooperation treaty between the two countries in 2003.
Yemen tried, with Saudi and U.S. support, to purchase small and medium weapons from its civilians at a cost estimated to be $50 million. While this may seem to be a large amount, it is relatively small in comparison to the real volume of firearms in Yemen.