Source: Time
The U.S. has more firearms than any other country in the world.
At least 50 people died and more than 50 were injured after a gunman identified by police as Omar Mateen opened fire in a crowded Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The attack, occurring against the the backdrop of a bitter presidential election, led to familiar political debates over gun control and terrorism. Whatever comes of those debates, the shooting underscores a simple, indisputable fact: The United States of America has a lot of guns.
More than any other country in the world, in fact, by any measure.
American citizens own hundreds of millions more firearms than the residents of the next closest country, India, and more than 88 times the number of weapons as Australia, a country whose gun control policyPresident Obama has frequently praised.
TIME examined 10 countries across the world and their gun laws, supply and culture—and the result shows just how much of an anomaly U.S. gun ownership is, in part of course because it is one of a handful of nations that extends some form of constitutional right to bear arms. The countries below are ordered from fewest number of total guns to most:
Japan has some of the oldest gun restrictions in the world, dating back to firearm controls implemented in the 16th century. David L. Howell, professor of Japanese history at Harvard University, said the Shogunate restricted the manufacture of guns and banned most private ownership. Those measures effectively quashed any chance of Japanese gun culture, according to David Kopel, a Second Amendment scholar and author of The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Laws of Other Democracies? Japan’s current laws effectively ban all but hunting guns and air-powered rifles for target shooting and require a clean bill of mental health, ammunition restrictions and inspections by authorities in order to own firearms. “It’s sort of like how people like you and I might feel about Sarin gas,” said Kopel, who also serves as reserve director at the Independence Institute, a think tank that has received grant money from the National Rifle Association’s Civil Rights Defense Fund. “They think ‘Why would a person own one?’”
Australia, a former British colony, has a strong frontier spirit like the U.S.—but the two countries have very different attitudes on guns, especially when it comes to self-defense. Namely, Australian law doesn’t recognize self-defense to be a reasonable justification for owning a gun, said Philip Alpers, an associate professor at the Sydney School of Public Health in Australia, and founding director of GunPolicy.org, a pro-gun control website that promotes a “public health” approach to reducing gun violence.“By and large people are horrified at that thought,” he said.“When you might get a robbery at a 7-Eleven and someone suggests you should be allowed to keep guns on the premises, all hell breaks loose in the media.”
Australia’s already low gun ownership rate dropped further when a spate of mass shootings in the 1990s led to significant restrictions on the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, handguns and pump-action shotguns, including a 28-day waiting period, buyback programs, a genuine reason for ownership and in-person police inspections before a license can be granted.
Categories: America, Terrorism, The Muslim Times, USA, War On Terror, World