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Florquin, Nicolas, and Shelly O'Neill Stoneman. 2004 ‘Civilian Small Arms Stockpiles.’ A House Isn't a Home Without a Gun: SALW Survey of the Republic of Montenegro; Section 2.1 (Table 3), pp. 3-4. Geneva: South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC) and the Small Arms Survey. 1 June

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Civilian Small Arms Stockpiles

Existing Data

Legal civilian holdings, however, represent only part of the picture, as a number of Montenegrin civilian firearms are unregistered. The police seized 7,378 illicit small arms and light weapons between 1998 and 2003, more than 60% of which were handguns (pistols and revolvers). Other common illicit weapons in Montenegro include hunting rifles (17% of seizures) as well as assault rifles and automatic guns (17%). In addition, the police seized 634 grenades, 734 kg of explosives, and more than 100,000 items of ammunition over the same period of time.

Estimating the number of unregistered weapons is a difficult task. A Vijesti article dated 27 January 2003 quoted members of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) declaring that some 25,000 illegal weapons were in circulation in Montenegro. This number is likely to be an underestimate, as it appears to be drawn from the number of weapons the Montenegrin government handed over to its Reserve Defence Force, which was said to have peaked at 25,000 members in late 1999. A more recent estimate provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) suggests that the number of illicit weapons circulating in Montenegro is around 40,000. Here, we use 40,000 as a minimum estimate of the number of illicit weapons.

Below, we consider the number of small arms in civilian hands by relying on insights from key informant interviews, and the analysis of several proxy indicators. As presented in Table 3, this analysis suggests that 40,000 is most likely a lower threshold of the number of illicit weapons in civilian hands, as the available data suggests there may be as many as 89,000.

Civilian held small arms estimate:

Type: Registered
Minimum: 86,000
Maximum: 86,000
Estimate (error margin): 86,000 (+/- 0 %)

Type: Unregistered
Minimum: 40,000
Maximum: 89,000
Estimate (error margin): 64,500 (+/- 38 %)

Type: Total
Minimum: 126,000
Maximum: 175,000
Estimate (error margin): 150,500 (+/- 16 %)

ID: Q3583

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