There is an emerging research on the influence of arms imports on violent intrastate conflicts. Having recently found a positive effect of certain types of major conventional weapons (MCW) on intrastate conflict (Pamp et. al 2017), we turn in this paper to analyzing the effect of small arms and light weapons (SALW) on domestic conflict onsets. We derive a number of hypotheses from a simple theoretical framework we have developed for the analysis of weapons inflows. Using data provided by the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, these expectations are tested on a large panel of countries. In doing so, we employ a simultaneous equations approach to take into account the endogeneity of arms purchases which arises from the fact that the anticipation of violent conflict may increase the inflow of arms. We compare our results for SALW with our previous findings on MCW.
