Re­cent da­ta pub­lished by the Small Arms Sur­vey sug­gests that while there has been a rel­a­tive­ly small in­crease in the num­ber of au­to­mat­ic weapons be­ing seized, hand­guns (pis­tols and re­volvers) are the most com­mon cat­e­go­ry of firearm re­cov­ered by au­thor­i­ties.

The quan­ti­ty of weapons found and oth­er trends in gun traf­fick­ing and vi­o­lent crimes were high­light­ed in a re­port com­piled by the sur­vey in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cari­com IM­PACS, the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

The re­port ti­tled Path­way to Pol­i­cy: Firearms Traf­fick­ing and Pub­lic Health in the Caribbean, ac­knowl­edged that while there has been a “mod­est rise” in the seizure of AK and AR-type ri­fles in re­cent years, they still re­flect a gen­er­al­ly small per­cent­age of the to­tal num­ber of guns seized.