Americans Armed to the Teeth
August must be prime time for releasing global study results because here's another doozy: the United States has 290 million guns in circulation, which equates to about one per person or 90 per 100 people -- depending on who's crunching your numbers -- and the highest per capita ratio in the world. Either way it's a staggering stat and one that contrasts to those in the other "northern industrial states" like Canada, Sweden and Germany, where there is an average of 30 guns for every 100 people.
But not so fast, Will Rogers. Before you go grab your Bowling for Columbine deluxe DVD, notice what coordinator of the Small Arms Survey, Keith Krause, has to say, specifically about the 9 per 100 ratio in Brazil, a country well-known for serious urban crime problems, "There's no clear relationship between more guns and higher levels of violence." That does seem to run contrary to conventional gun control logic.
But the study's conclusions are far from pro-American and its hoary Second Amendment either, chastising the States for promoting world-wide weapon proliferation, most recently with strong inflows of arms to American-led forces in Iraq even as the US government "cannot actually account for all of the weapons that they have transferred." Meanwhile, major gun-producing countries like Germany, Krause says, should make greater efforts to insure that guns don't end up in the wrong hands.
Switzerland, where the study was created, also takes it on the jaw for having the fourth highest per capita gun possesion in the world but transparency (i.e. government registered information on ownership and exports) that falls well behind that of other European countries and the US. The survey finds that Switzerland sells guns to countries in violation of human rights like China, Russia, Indonesia, Israel and Turkey, Guinea, Pakistan, Serbia. Not to mention having a suicide rate far above the European average.
Those who dispute the validity of the SAS study point out that it does not distinguish between guns used for hunting and those used for self defense -- not that this would be an easy task. If I know my average American midwestern householder well, which I think I do (southern Ohio, represent), your average living room 12 gauge shotgun usually functions as both, hunter offensive and criminal defensive. Analyse that.