Arms control is a term for restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction. Arms control is typically exercised through the use of diplomacy which seeks to impose such limitations upon consenting participants through international treaties and agreements, although it may also comprise efforts by a nation or group of nations to enforce limitations upon a non-consenting country.
On a national or community level, arms control can amount to programs to control the access of private citizens to weapons. This is often referred to as gun politics, as firearms are the primary focus of such efforts in most places.
Read more about Arms Control: Enactment, Enforcement, Theory of Arms Control, History of Arms Control, List of Treaties and Conventions Related To Arms Control, Arms Control Organizations
Famous quotes containing the words arms and/or control:
“Sleep takes off the costume of circumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every will rushes to a deed.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)