Black Market Guns – how do they get there?

The Kalashnikov rifles used in the recent Paris attacks must pose the question to many – “how do people get hold of these arms?”.  Obviously the criminal underworld and the black market come to mind.  A Brussels specialist advised that with them filtering through from wars in other countries it is “easy” to get hold of a Kalashnikov rifle for under £1,000. The troubled neighbourhood in Brussels – Molenbeek, which apparently spawned some of the characters who took part in the appalling Paris terrorist killings, is known for gangs selling drugs and guns and also focusses around Brussels South train station.  

People involved in this sub-culture have to nurture trust amongst extremely illegal networks to ever get anywhere close to achieving what the evil people did in Paris. The Balkan wars of the 90’s left weapons “floating around” which went eventually into “civilian hands”.  The Geneva-based Small Arms Survey estimates up to 6.2 million guns are still held by 25 million from “leftover wars”.

Europol – the EU based police agency warns that conflicts in Lybia and Ukraine could lead to more arms being available to terrorists. We all hope that agencies do as much as they can to clean areas of dangerous weapons and clamp down on their availability to bitter opponents of the West.