第28章 View from the villages(4)

About 47 percent of Songtao’s 690,000 registered residents are from ethnic minoritygroups and many older than 40 cannot speak Mandarin, said deputy Party chief Zhou.

The language barrier, in turn, ties people to their land and strips them of the opportunityto find more profitable work away from home.

Around 100,000 people in Songtao still live in poverty, while the rural per capita netincome in 2009 was just 2,504 yuan, county government figures showed.

“The profits from selling guns (in comparison) is simply too tempting,” added Zhou.

“There’s always going to be people willing to take the risk.”

When Wu Bike could no longer afford a high school education in the wake of hisfather’s death in 1998, he said making guns seemed to be a reasonable option. The oldestof three sons and the family’s sole breadwinner, Wu learned to assemble Type 64 pistolsafter taking apart imitation guns (also illegal in China).

“I never gave it much thought. All my friends did it,” he told China Daily.

Soon after, Wu and three of his friends - all farmers in Songtao’s Daxing township- were caught by police in his cellar, where they had just sold a handmade Type 64 to amiddleman for about 500 yuan. Wu was sentenced to four years in prison but it did nottake him long to pick up where he left off.

In the summer of 2002, just months after his release, police again raided Wu’s houseand found about two dozen gun parts.

As the number of parts was lower than 30, the legal requirement for a prison term(a Type 64 pistol is made up of 32 to 33 parts), he was given three years of re-educationthrough labor.

Wu returned home in 2006, when county authority began shifting its gun-controlpolicies toward poverty alleviation after a substantial reduction in gun crime. Two yearslater, officials offered him 100 free pigs (and 50 yuan in subsidies for every sow) to start afarm. He credits the move with helping him to settle down and get married and, today, hishopes are on his 1-year-old son.

Songtao authorities have since 2006 spent roughly 5 million yuan on roads, drinkingwater supplies and power grid links in the 11 towns where gun crime was rampant (officialssay the arms trade has all but been wiped out in five of them). More than 900 people alsoregularly receive financial aid.

Yet, residents say the money is still falling short.

Wu’s home still has no running tap water and he is struggling to break even bybreeding pigs. Although his days as an underground gunsmith are over, he admits that isonly because he “dare not do it anymore”.

Shooting stars

The mass gun seizures have also had an effect on the rural balance. Since ruralshotguns were confiscated, the number of wild boar has soared, causing harm to farmersand their land, said a member of the gun taskforce who did not to be named.

Deputy Party chief Zhou acknowledged, however, that the main challenges with gunseizures remain economic ones.

“I can’t rule out the possibility that people (with the know-how) are migratingelsewhere (to make and sell guns),” he said. “Technical leakage is beyond our control.”

The ability to manufacture guns, which some learn from older generations and othersthrough work experience, is something people are usually keen to hold onto, said taskforcecaptain Long.

“The graffiti ads are almost never for real; the actual makers and dealers don’t putthings out in the open,” he said. “There has to be enormous trust between the partiesinvolved in the (gun) business. That’s why it’s always done in local circles, through friendsand relatives.”

The gunsmiths have long since gone underground, said Long, with some farmingduring the day and making weapons in remote hillside caves at night.

With a heavy reliance on kinship and blood ties, the gun taskforce has been keepinga close eye on the sons and nephews of veterans in the business. However, some havemanaged to pass their knowledge onto outsiders through their daughters “as weddinggifts”, added Long.

All nine officers on Songtao’s anti-gun taskforce are from minority ethnic groups (fourare fluent in the Miao dialect) and have at least a decade of experience with the police.

“My squad’s efforts have helped contain the local gun trade to the point that mostresidents dare not make guns anymore,” said Long, an ethnic Miao and the longest-servingmember of the team. “I promise you, we also catch about two-thirds of all people whocome here wanting to buy guns.”

Despite the clampdown and coordinated surveillance throughout the triangle,however, there is still room for the gunsmiths, dealers and prospective buyers to dobusiness.

Zhou blamed the fact that similar anti-gun endeavors in Chongqing and Hunan havenot been as consistent as those in Guizhou.

In Xiushan, a senior publicity officer with the police bureau who did not want to beidentified said gun seizure operations “were the focus of 2009’s campaigns”. He declinedChina Daily’s request for an interview.

In January 2009, Chongqing authorities launched a televised crackdown on illegalfirearms that involved 1,000 police officers and paramilitaries armed with bazookas.

Security bureau officials said the campaign resulted in four underground arsenals and 10weapon stores being destroyed, and the detention of dozens of suspects, all of whom werefrom Songtao.

Meanwhile, in rural Biancheng, China Daily reporters discovered it is still easy to buy7.62 mm caliber seamless steel barrels, an essential part of a wide range of revolvers, pistolsand rifles.

He Li, deputy director of the Ministry of Public Security’s firearms division, previouslysaid the barrels of illegal firearms were usually purchased, rather than homemade. However,although the barrels have no civilian usage, their manufacture and sale are not covered bythe law, he said.

“We can refine everything here, so long as you bring the steel,” said a womansurnamed Yang, who runs a small family hardware store in Biancheng.

Yu Chenkang and Hu Yuguang contributed to this story.

August 18,2010