New York- A news study on Monday revealed that Americans own 40% of the world’s firearms, the country only makes up 4% of the world’s population.
According to the Small Arms Survey there are more than a billion firearms in the world, 85% of those firearms are in the hands of civilians and the rest owned by law enforcement’s and the military.
The survey was conducted by Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said their estimates are based on multiple sources, including civilian firearms registration data from 133 countries and territories and survey results in 56 countries.
Of the 857 million civilians that own guns, 393 million are owned by people living in America, this is more than all the firearms of the Top 25 countries combined.
Aaron Karp one of the authors of the report said, “the biggest force pushing up gun ownership around the world is civilian ownership in the United States,”
Karp addressing a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York, he added, “Ordinary American people buy approximately 14 million new and imported guns every year.”
It is well known that Americans have access to powerful firearms, assilant rifles that have caused many mass shootings, which are not made available in many other countries due to tighter legislation.
Karp said, “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.”
Photo Credit- Livemint
Leave a Reply