MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US, only country with more civilian weapons than citizens; in Falklands, 62 weapons per 100 people

Gallup survey conducted in October 2020, showed about 44% of US adults live in families with weapons, and about a third of the population owns them personally.

The United States is the only country in the world where there are more civilian weapons than citizens. In effect, there are 120 weapons for every 100 US citizens and according to researchers from the Swiss organization Small Arms Survey even when the exact number of civilian firearms is difficult to quantify for several factors, including unregistered and illegal trade, researchers estimates that US citizens account for some 393 million, which is about 46% of all civilian weapons in the world.

However in the world's short list of weapons in the hands of civilians, the Falkland Islands figure second with 62 weapons per 100 people, according to the Swiss organizations. Falklands are followed by Yemen, torn by civil war with 53 units per 100 people.

According to a survey by the American Gallup Institute, conducted in October 2020, about 44% of US adults live in families with weapons, and about a third of the population owns them personally.

However, the production of firearms in the United States continues to grow due to increased demand. According to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the country produced 9 million firearms in 2018, double the number in 2008. January 2021 saw a record annual growth since 2013 in the number of requests for federal background checks required to acquire weapons – the number of requests increased by 60% compared to January 2020.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center in April 2021, almost a third of the US adult population is confident that there would be less crime if more people owned a gun. However, numerous studies indicate the opposite: easy access to firearms contributes to the growth of incidents with their use.

In effect over the past decades, firearms incidents have rocked cities across the United States, but many US citizens consider their right to bear arms, enshrined in the country’s constitution, and “sacred“. Meanwhile, opponents of the Second Amendment argue that it threatens another right: the right to life.

However the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,.” with such language creating considerable debate regarding the Amendment's intended scope.

United States also has the most per capita deaths due to firearms incidents than any other developed country. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation 2019, the United States is eight times higher than Canada, 22 times higher than the European Union, and 23 times higher than Australia.

At the same time, the highest indicator among all countries of the world falls on the states of Latin America and the Caribbean, primarily in El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras.

In the countries of the region, the situation is also aggravated by weapons coming from the United States. For example, in 2019, about 68% of the firearms seized by law enforcement agencies in Mexico, and about half of the weapons seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, originated in the United States. The trade off is normally drugs for weapons, weapons far superior and modern than those from the law enforcement officers in those countries.