More weapons than inhabitants in the United States

Gun handguns shot handgunHandgun. Photo: Norway Today Media

The United States is the only country in the world with more firearms than there are inhabitants, and the risk of being shot and killed is 30 times higher than in Norway.

 

Of around 650 million firearms in private ownership in the world,nearly half (48% of them) are found in US homes.

The number of firearms per capita is more than three times as high in the United States as in Norway, while it is more than a hundred times as high as in Japan, and Romania.

More and more weapons

According to Congressional CRS, there are now more than twice as many firearms in private ownership in the United States as there were 50 years ago, with figures adjusted for population changes.

Statistics produced by the University of Washington, reproduced by NPR,show that at the same time, in 2016 there was more than 30 times as high risk of being killed by firearms in the United States as there was in Norway.

With 3.85 firearms deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, however, the US list does not hit the peak. It is dwarfed by Latin American countries like El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, and Honduras, where the risk is up to ten times as high as it is in the USA.

40 deaths a day

Over 2,100 people were killed by firearms in the United States, approximately 40 per day, showed an overview of the Gun Violence Archive.

There have been 34 alleged mass shootings where four or more people were shot by one perpetrator this year, eight of them at schools.

Eight of this year’s mass shootings have taken place in schools, the last one reported
to have been at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were allegedly killed.

Increasingly more

In 2017, 15,593 people were shot and killed in the United States, an increase of 24%
from 2014. In Norway, there were two killing from firearms last year. Mathematically minded people may notice that 15,593 is considerably higher than 30 times 2.

There were 376 alleged mass shootings in the United States last year. This was an
increase of almost 28% from three years earlier.

 

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today

1 Comment on "More weapons than inhabitants in the United States"

  1. Christie Jarvie | 23. February 2018 at 23:27 |

    Yes as an American I am throughly disgusted by the current gun laws in our country. There are many groups that are forming at this time to protest the corrupt NRA organization, and politicians who take money from them. This insanity of gun culture in the United States needs to change now. This past week many large corporations that had offered discounts and benefits to the NRA have been dropping their support to the NRA. The protests need to continue, and will as many millions of people are very much against this gun organization, and the politicians that that get support from them.

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