ABSTRACT
Weapons alone do not kill people; people with conventional weapons kill people. Whereas the primary function of weapons of mass destruction has been to terrorise humanity and devour talent and resources. This chapter looks beyond sources of weapons procurement and diffusion to the social underpinning of their use. Both crime and paranoia about crime feed the private arms trade. Paranoia is often fuelled by the media. The fear-of-crime culture prevalent among some privileged groups is in part a response to a real crime problem, but it also consists of simple race and class discrimination that labels any poor or non-white person as a security threat and that represents a desire to keep the poor away from the property and privileges of the rich. Just as important as the existence of violent mentalities are the unjust socio-economic structures that unfortunately survived the last decade’s wars.
