Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. We did an opinion poll over the last couple of months in six countries on people's attitudes toward controlling the international trade in small arms and light weapons. I'll dig out the actual question itself. There were a number of questions. One was, “Do you support better

Foreign Affairs committee  Apparently, very many people think it's too easy to obtain one. They may be referring to illegal ones, because there are many illegal weapons circulating, as we know.

Foreign Affairs committee  I really don't know; I've never tried.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's important not to be overwhelmed by the numbers and the size of the problem. We're not going to fix this problem at this UN conference, but we have a unique opportunity to make some progress, to begin to set some standards that can then be carried forward. I think it

Foreign Affairs committee  I'd be happy to answer that, because this is a poll we commissioned. It is an opinion poll of people's sense of things. Presumably it refers to illegal and legal, but people sense that it's too easy to obtain a weapon. In each of those countries, people overwhelmingly felt it was

Foreign Affairs committee  We'll have to get that information for you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Do you know?

Foreign Affairs committee  First, we're not talking about a ban on the manufacture of weapons; we're talking about regulation of the transfer of weapons.

Foreign Affairs committee  We're saying that for arms that are going to violate international humanitarian law, which particularly applies to conflict situations, there should be regulation of the transfer of those sorts of weapons into conflict situations.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm quite certain that any global principles that are adopted would allow sportsmen to obtain whatever rifles they wished.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are lots of them. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but certainly there are plenty of weapons.

Foreign Affairs committee  What these global principles would do would be to set an international standard by which national governments could be held to account. They would be held to account only to the degree that people in their own countries are going to hold them to account. Global standards will giv

Foreign Affairs committee  I wonder if I understand your question properly. You're suggesting that people living under a repressive regime should get guns in order to rebel and fight against a violent revolution?

Foreign Affairs committee  If I could add, the one bright light in this is the effort by the west African countries that have declared their own moratorium on producing and importing weapons, small arms and light weapons. They've just made that permanent, which is something we applaud. It's an example to t

Foreign Affairs committee  To date, we have not received an official response from the government, although we expect we will. The minister has not had the opportunity to meet with us yet. We've requested a meeting.