Karp, Aaron. 2005 ‘The Count Continues: Stockpiles: Military inventories.’ Small Arms Survey 2005: Weapons at War, p. 77. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1 July

Relevant contents

Military inventories

While there are clearly disparities in weapon-holding trends in armed forces (Table 3.1), a working assumption is that a 'multiplier' derived from a reasonable ratio of small arms to persons in any given military force can be applied to yield small arms stockpile estimates. At present, the Small Arms Survey's multiplier of choice is 2.25 small arms for every serving member of the armed forces (Small Arms Survey, 2001, pp. 76-77).

Table 3.1: Known military firearm inventories and multipliers

Country - Year - Armed forces personnel* - Military firearms - firearms per person
Canada: 2000 - 103,900 - 233,949 - 2.25
Central African Republic**: 1996 - 3,000 - 3,300 - 1.10
Finland: 2003 - 462,000 - 531,000 - 1.15
Macedonia***: 2003 - 11,650 - 85,446 - 7.33
Russia: 2003 - 3,360,000 - 15,000,000-45,000,000 - 4.6-13.4
Togo: 2000 - 6,950 - 12,850 - 1.85
Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia: 1989 - 705,000 - 3,115,000 - 4.42

*Active duty and reserves in all armed services.
**Excludes Presidential Guard.
***Personnel and firearms are for Macedonian Army only

Sources: Canada: Small Arms Survey (2001, p. 73); Central African Republic: Telephone Interview by Nicolas Florquin, Small Arms Survey researcher, with a former senior Central African Republic government official, 23 March 2005; Finland: Small Arms Survey (2004, p. 46); Macedonia: Grillot et al (2004, p. 16); IISS (2003, p. 76); Russia: Pyadushkin (2003, p. 29); 11SS (2003, p. 89); Togo: Small Arms Survey (2002, p. 82); IISS (2000, p. 285); Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Croatia: Gorjanc (2000); IISS (1989, p. 91).

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