Private weapons ownership was severely constrained in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, and the NATO-led peacekeeping force, SFOR, had a major role in securing and eliminating the now-excess weapons. As I was briefed c. 2001 by the British contingent, the Royal Army had struck on a highly effective approach to gathering weapons: they would ask the housewives about unwanted arms, when their menfolk weren't around. The Brits would pick up the weapons and the women, when asked where their gun had gone, would say NATO grabbed it, and isn't amazing how good their intel is?
Best example was one day a British patrol stopped by an isolated farmhouse in the north of the Republika Srpska. The housewife was home, her husband and her brothers and brothers-in-law off working and/or drinking. She asked the troops to come out to the barn, where hubby had kept a couple of weapons from his "time with the boys." The soldiers thought, "nothing unusual; probably the normal couple of rifles, maybe a grenade or mine or two." They walk in after her, and she points to a pile of hay, on top of a large tarp. Once they clear the covering aside, there it stands in all its glory: a T-55 tank. In running condition. Ok, the patrol thinks, THAT's certainly not allowed under the peace accords!
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