According to Vox, the U.S. has 4.43% of the world’s population and almost 42% of the world’s population of civilian-owned guns.
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It’s hard to say exactly, but there may be as many guns as there are people in the U.S., or even more guns than people. Since not everyone is a gun owner, that means that the typical gun owner owns more than one. In fact, they own, on average, 6.6 guns each. Two-thirds of the guns in the U.S. are in the hands of 20% of the population. Gun manufacturers know this and market accordingly.
Gun ownership is correlated with both gun homicide and suicide. Accordingly, we also have the highest rate of gun violence of any developed country. In 2013, there were 21,175 gun suicides and 11,208 gun homicides.
This data was collected by the UNODC and compiled by the Guardian.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 32
Weekend reading | Of Means and Ends — July 11, 2015
[…] Americans own 42% of the guns on the planet. […]
msobel — July 11, 2015
Sounds like an evolutionary disadvantage ; maybe they will kill each other off.
prolibertate — July 12, 2015
This statistic is COMPLETELY misleading!
a) singling out "gun homicide" is utterly stupid; no one cares HOW someone was killed. You are just as dead when you are stabbed, bludgeoned, drowned, strangled or poisoned.
When taking into account ALL homicides, the US are not doing all that bad at all. their homicide rate of around 4.5 is higher than for most European countries but it is one of the lowest rates world-wide.
b) It gets worse: the presentation implies that the US, an immense geographical space composed of 50 States with vastly different gun laws and a population of over 300 million are homogeneous regarding guns and crime.
This is ABSURD!
A more detailed analysis finds that:
- the HIGHEST homicide rates occur in places with SEVERE RESTRICTIONS on gun rights and the LOWEST number of LEGAL guns, per capita!
- violent crime is not at all equally distributed over the population; 80% of all the victims of homicide by gun are CRIMINALS who have previously been to prison, as are their killers, i.e. 80% of all the homicides are GANG CRIMES.
For the rest of the US population, over 97% of the territory, the homicide rate is MUCH LOWER, i.e. about 1 per 100'000, AMONG THE BEST IN THE WORLD!
The US have a GANG PROBLEM, not a gun problem!
c) One also has to add that about 50% of the homicide victims are black, as are the killers, followed by Hispanics. White, Asian and Jewish people are far less involved in violent crime.
What good does it to ignore all those factors?
Oh, right: you just want to ban guns, you are not really interested in what works and what doesn't!
Jaki Benson — July 14, 2015
Guns are the best! I own 2 rifles and one pistol, myself, but more on the way. Gotta get my 6.6! "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." - Karl Marx
Kuluri Kuluraçi — August 1, 2015
In Medierrenean culture, people also have guns but we generally say "let it go" to the problems instead of killing so many people. Or maybe just Sun protects us. Who knows.
Marko — September 28, 2022
I feel like as long as you're using firearms to defend yourself, your family and your rights(as well as hunting or recreation) guns are fine as any other tool. That's where I stand: as long as you're not using firearms to harm anyone - you're good.
But then we have completely frustrating laws from lawmakers: banning silencers for hunting, various additional rules(I've even heard about banning thermal and night vision scopes https://gritrsports.com/optics/sport-optics/night-vision/ )