Guns in the USA Update

In the last 8 years, gun sales have doubled from about 20 million to 40 million per year. (70% of sales are handguns.) We have more guns per capita than any other country, including Yemen, The Falkland Islands, Serbia and all the Scandanvian and European countries.

In the last 8 years, guns deaths have risen along with the increase in number of guns from about 32,000 to 40,000+ per year.

44% of American homes have guns, with the average gun owner possessing 5 firearms. Gun owners or their family members are 3x more likely to die from a gunshot than the non-gun-owning families.

As has been shown world-wide, as the number of untracked guns increases, so do the deaths, and visa versa. In Canada, for example, gun deaths went down 50% when buyers were required to have background checks and register their guns. In the United States, 40% of guns are sold without background checks or registration, and 191 our of every 192 guns in US are not registered.) 

In another example, in Australia mass shootings declined 95% over 10 years once semi-automatic firearms were restricted.

In an examination of 130 studies in 2016, death reduction occurred when stricter gun safety standards went into effect in 10 different countries around the world. (ABC). 

In the year following when the Brady Bill went into effect in 1993, 400,000 illegal guns were kept off the streets. Research shows us time and time again that the more safety controls that are put in place regarding gun use, the safer societies become.

Because of the popularity of civilian gun ownership in the United States, it's likely that we will overtake Brazil as having the highest rate of gun deaths per capita in the world. But it is helpful to know that if we moved in the direction of gun safety, honoring life like countries such as New Zealand, Japan, or Italy, many lives would be saved.

Most guns are purchased out of fear, and are used for "protection." However, 98% of all guns fired at a humans are used against people offensively, not defensively. In other words, except in the most violent corners of our nation, we are 50 times more likely to hurt someone else with our guns than for our guns to protect us.

We will never eliminate firearm deaths, but we could use successful strategies of other gun-toting countries to get us out of being in the top 1% most likely countries in the world to be killed by a gun.