Activists gathered in New York City’s Time Square on Wednesday to call for international regulation of the global arms trade. Amnesty International has launched a campaign for a global arms trade treaty under the auspices of the United Nations. Suzanne Nossel of Amnesty USA said weapons are too easily available worldwide.

Suzanne Nossel: “This would be the first treaty that regulates a trade in arms that results in the deaths of 1,500 people every day, half a million people every year in conflicts around the world. And we’ve used the banana as our motif because we discovered, to our astonishment, that bananas are more heavily regulated than small arms. There are more rules governing your ability to trade a banana from one country to the next than governing your ability to trade an AK-47 or a military helicopter.”