Some people who perish at the hands of the gunman are themselves criminals. But increasingly they are innocent men women and children caught up in a situation not of their making. There are so many guns in the world that it is estimated there is one weapon for every ten people. And every year half a million people are killed by armed violence. That is one person every minute.

So a number of Non Governmental Organisations including Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms are campaigning for a global Arms Trade Treaty. Surprisingly, there is currently no comprehensive international treaty on arms.

In the Caribbean the demand for and use of, illegal and legal small arms and light weapons is a big political challenge. It obviously causes tragic loss of life. And the wider society has to deal with the victims of gun violence and all the social fall-out including the dislocation of families and psychological effects on women, children and the elderly who have suffered from gun violence. But it is also a threat to the democratic process and economic development.
For tourists, fear of crime (even though hardly any gun crime in Jamaica is directed against tourists) is often cited as a reason for not sampling Jamaica's excellent tourism product. And business generally can be put off investing because of crime, including gun crime. Haiti is the country worst affected, but it is a problem across the region.

In 2005, Jamaican law enforcement officers recovered some 683 illegal weapons. Many of them were high-powered and of a sophisticated calibre. This represents an increase in the 620 weapons which were recovered in 2004. Yet Jamaica does not manufacture or import small arms or light weapons on a large scale. So the question is "Where are all these guns coming from?" And countries like Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone manufacture very few weapons but are flooded with guns and small arms, which are used to kill and maim hundreds and thousands of people.

And the problem with guns in Jamaica (and elsewhere) cannot be measured merely by the number of guns in circulation. The frightening reality is that the likelihood that a gun will actually be used to kill someone is higher in
Latin America and the Caribbean region than in any other region in the world.
And, sadly, the likelihood that a gun will be used to kill in Jamaica is higher even than most other countries in the region. In absolute terms, Jamaica has the lowest number of guns in Latin America and the Caribbean.
(Not including Haiti). But it has the fourth highest level of gun killings per 100,000 people.

The debate on gun crime usually focuses on: law enforcement issues; the breakdown of communities; poverty; unemployment and the psychology of the gun man. But it is worth considering how governments and international institutions can stop guns getting into the wrong hands in the first place.
Many western countries are major producers of handguns, shotguns, and ammunition. And they make millions out of this deadly trade. They need to regulate it more strictly. Campaigners are calling for an international convention on arms brokering and trafficking; an international convention to mark and trace guns and small arms; international criteria governing small arms export and the destruction of surplus weapons.

Some of this is easier said than done. Countries like Russia and the former Yugoslavia are awash with arms and have very weak customs services and security forces to enforce any new rules. Even in Britain the customs, service did not keep records of illegal weapons seized until recently.

But it is worth trying to see what can be done by international institutions to regulate the legal trade in small arms and light weapons. Preventing the illegal trade is even more difficult but it should certainly be attempted. I will do everything that I can in the British Parliament to campaign for stricter controls on the international arms trade.

The trade fuels conflict, poverty and human rights abuses all over the world. And the faceless men who trade in the arms are just as guilty as the gun-men themselves. They too have blood on their hands.