Arms And Consequences

According to statistics compiled in 2007 the United States has the distinction of representing the country with the highest gun ownership rate in the world.  Gun ownership is enshrined in the American Constitution, noted as the Second Amendment and purportedly reflecting the country's frontier heritage.  An average of 88 people per hundred in the United States can proudly boast gun ownership. And Americans are generally proud of the place gun ownership has in their country.

The United States does have a reputation of gun homicides, held largely to be attributable to the number of guns in circulation.  Those responding to criticism from within by that demographic that supports a movement to curtailing gun ownership under the law - currently a state proposition, not a federal one - insist, like the National Rifle Association - a sturdy lobbying group with huge influence - that gun ownership is a right and an answer to public safety.

The worst firearm murder rates are in Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica.  The United States has a gun-murder rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people, despite its reputation as gun-unsafe.  In Guatemala, for example, where 13.1 per 100 citizens own guns, five thousand lost their lives, representing 34.81 gun-murder rate.  In South Africa where gun ownership is 12.7 per 100,000, 8,319 people were murdered by firearms.  Venezuela, with 10.7 per 100,000 ownership listed had 11,115 people killed by guns in 2007.

Countries like Cyprus, Norway, Austria, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Qatar, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Slovenia, Armenia, Estonia, Slovakia, Israel, Moldova, Maldives, Hungary, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Lithuania, Romania, Japan and Singapore hardly rate a blip on the gun-murder scale.  Brazilians reflect an awfully large murder rate bouncing off their 8 per 100,000 gun ownership rate.  Venezuela is just as bad and Mexico is rated high along with Colombia.  The Philippines has a high gun-homicide rate as well.

People use gun ownership for a sense of personal protection in countries where self-defence is rated highly, where law and order and general population security is lacking.  When public security is at an ebb and people feel they must create their own defences, they insist on arming themselves.  Surprisingly enough, civilized countries like Italy and Argentina have quite high rates of gun homicide.  Turkey, where 12.5 out of 100 own guns, had 535 gun deaths in 2007, Armenia with the same rate of gun ownership had 9.

Gun ownership and the concomitant death by gunplay is a fairly accurate reflection of society, its customs and values and respect for human dignity and life.

Estonia had three gun deaths in reflection of the 9.2 per 100 gun ownership, while Costa Rica with 9.9 guns per 100 population had 201 deaths attributable to gunplay.  Egypt, with 3.5 guns per 100 people, registered 453 gun deaths, while the West Bank & Gaza with almost the very same gun ownership rate (3.4) had 105 deaths from guns.  Sierra Leone, with a 0.5 rate of ownership had 128 deaths, while Nepal with a 0.8 gun ownership rate had 84 deaths.

There are, simply put, parts of the world where violence is part of everyday life, and irrespective of the number of people who are armed, deaths result in alarmingly large numbers, while in other places where governments are represented at both ends of the scale - liberal democracies as opposed to strictly authoritarian - tells the tale in and of itself in the fact that firm government control and the social contract mitigate against gun violence.