New Study Reveals That Americans Own 40% Of The World’s Guns
While the United States accounts for 4% of the world’s population, a recent study conducted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva has said that they own 40 percent of the world’s firearms.
There are more than one billion firearms in the world and approximately 85 percent of these are owned by civilians, with the remaining guns being owned by the military and law enforcement. The Small Arms Survey revealed that there are 857 million guns in the world owned by civilians, and Americans own 393 million of these – accounting for approximately 45%. This number is greater than all of the other top 25 countries combined.
One of the authors of the report, Aaron Karp, said “the biggest force pushing up gun ownership around the world is civilian ownership in the United States. Ordinary American people buy approximately 14 million new and imported guns every year.” American civilians also have access to more powerful weaponry than other countries, “why are they buying them? That’s another debate. Above all, they are buying them probably because they can. The American market is extraordinarily permissive.”
Another recent study found that just 3 percent of Americans (7.7 million people) owned 133 million firearms. Some of these super gun owners have collections that range from eight guns to 140, with the average owner having 17 guns. Philip van Cleave who is president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League defended the amount of guns people own by saying “Why do you need more than one pair of shoes? The truth is, you don’t, but do you want more than one pair of shoes? If you’re going hiking, you don’t want to use that one pair of high heels.”
Gun ownership rates vary around the world, with residents of the US owning 121 firearms for ever 100 people. There are 35 firearms for every 100 people in Canada, 39 in Montenegro, and 53 firearms per 100 people in Yemen.
