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TEHRAN, June 21 - Americans own over 40 percent of the world's firearms, despite making up only four percent of the global population, according to a new study.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - There are more than one billion firearms in the world, but 85 percent of those are in the hands of civilians, with the remainder held by law enforcement and the military, the Small Arms Survey reported Monday.
Of the 857 million guns owned by civilians, 393 million are in the United States - more than all of the firearms held by ordinary citizens in the other top 25 countries combined, the survey found.
With a population of about 325 million, the US has more guns than residents living in the country.
The Small Arms Survey is an annual poll produced by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.
"The biggest force pushing up gun ownership around the world is civilian ownership in the United States," said Aaron Karp, one of the authors of the report which compiles new data from the last ten years.
"Ordinary American people buy approximately 14 million new and imported guns every year," Karp told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York.
A Gallup poll carried out in 2017 found that 42 percent of American households reported owning guns.
Americans have access to powerful firearms that are not available in many other countries due to tighter legislation.
"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," he said.
Gun ownership rates vary across the world, with 121 firearms for every 100 residents in the United States compared to 53 in Yemen, 39 in Montenegro, and 35 in Canada.
The survey comes amid a debate about US gun laws that was given fresh impetus by the massacre of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in February.
More than 30,000 gun-related deaths occur annually in the United States.
The US must take immediate measures to address its gun violence “epidemic,” including banning assault weapons and expanding mental health treatment, according to a study released in April by researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Source: Press TV
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