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When it comes to the arms trade, those of us who live in a quiet country may not be familiar with the subject, but the industry is one of the most lucrative areas of global trade. In a corner of Asia, there is such a small village. Relying on their unique natural conditions and geographical advantages, they have developed the weapon-making industry into a local industry, forming a huge industrial network. The villagers even proudly proclaimed: "Even high-tech missiles are not a problem, they have the ability to copy them".
Tucked away in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, this place, called Dara, is a small village, but beneath its dilapidated exterior lies a shocking fact: it is known as the world-renowned "Black Gun Capital of Asia". Today, weapons from the village of Dara are being smuggled to all corners of the globe, from the war-torn Middle East to Latin America, where drug trafficking and gang violence are mired, and these finely crafted firearms have become synonymous with violence and conflict. The villagers were gradually drawn into a larger and more complex chain of interests.
Let's take a closer look at why these towns are able to manufacture and sell firearms at will.
In 1979, the Soviet Union launched an invasion of Afghanistan with a massive military force, and the army moved quickly, quickly capturing major cities, including Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and a number of strategic points along the borders with neighboring Pakistan and Iran, within weeks.
Although the war lasted for a decade, causing enormous destruction and countless deaths, neither the Soviet Union nor war-torn Afghanistan emerged victorious, but the Pakistani village of Dara was unexpectedly the biggest beneficiary of the long-term conflict.
Before the war, Dara was an obscure frontier village that made a living from farming and small-scale trade, even though they had long ago made guns. However, with the Soviet invasion, many people in Afghanistan began to flee the fighting, and a large number of refugees poured into Pakistan, many of whom chose the village of Dara as their temporary refuge. Subsequently, the geographical location of the village of Dara made it a distribution center for supplies, supplying the resistance forces within Afghanistan. Over time, the village of Dara expanded, where refugees, smugglers, and more all came together, eventually forming a dark and complex area. As the war continued, the villagers saw a business opportunity to support their families in the manufacture of firearms.
How can the village of Dara make guns?
The tradition of gun-making in the village of Dara is no longer verifiable due to its age, but there is a local theory
At that time, the British had just conquered the Mughal Empire, and an unfortunate British mechanical soldier strayed into the village of Dara and received assistance from the villagers. As a token of gratitude to the villagers for their rescue, the mechanical soldier not only gave them his own weapons, but also taught the local residents the art of assembling firearms. As a result, in order to improve their living conditions, the residents of Dara Village began to manufacture and trade illegal firearms, and over time, an underground weapons industry chain from production to sales gradually formed, and the people of the village mastered the technology of making guns.
From the beginning of the aforementioned war, the village of Dara began to provide cheap firearms to some civilian forces. There is even a local proverb that "as long as you dare to give a prototype, I will dare to imitate it, and missiles are no problem!" It can be seen how rampant the local black gun industry is. However, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the gun shops in the small town of Dara lost their regular customers, but began to attract many gangsters from Southeast Asia.
Manufacturing in the village of Dara
In the village of Dara, many firearms workshops have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, with a total of more than 2,600 in total. These workshops are usually small, with no more than 20 square metres each. Here, there are workshops that specialize in the manufacture of stamped parts for cartridges, while others specialize in the manufacture of gun guards and stocks. There are even workshops dedicated to the manufacture of bullets.
The village of Dara has long been in a regulatory vacuum, leading to a mystery about the exact numbers and flow of its firearms, and the cost of black guns in the local market is surprisingly low, with the cheapest model rumored to cost just over $20. Villagers often recruit laborers to assist in the production of these imitations, and in recent years the production equipment introduced has become more sophisticated. However, cheap does not mean inferior quality, at least not in this small village. The craftsmen here have skills that have been passed down from generation to generation, and they know the construction and mechanics of firearms like the back of their hand.
These replica firearms are outwardly indistinguishable from the prototype and even comparable in some aspects of performance to expensive imports. If someone prefers historic weapons such as the World War II-era Karl 98k rifle, Springfield rifle, and classic Ruger or Mauser pistols, they can find the right collection here. However, Pakistan has also strengthened its governance in recent years. I believe that these phenomena will slowly disappear.
In fact, there have been similar black gun workshops on the mainland, and Hualong County in Qinghai Province was once regarded as the center of the country's illegal arms trade. Since the 90s of the last century, Hualong County has become famous for selling illegal firearms. At that time, almost every household ran their own weapon-making workshop, and they spent most of their days farming and at night switching to making weapons. In China's illegal firearms market, "Hualongzao" was also relatively famous at that time. However, as the rule of law in the mainland is becoming more and more complete, such workshops in the local area have long been cracked down by the law.
Hualong County
It is no exaggeration to say that the widespread spread of illegal firearms poses a major challenge to public safety. Given that the inhabitants of villages that sell illegal guns focus on sales rather than regulation, once these weapons enter the market, they can be resold anywhere, creating potential global insecurity.