Gun Culture Facts and Figures

No nation on earth has a gun culture that quite compares to that of the United States. The U. S. accounts for about 5 percent of the world's population, yet it possesses nearly 50 percent of all guns on the planet. There are, in fact, more guns in the United States today than there are people, although only about one in three Americans reports owning a gun. Not only do Americans have far and away the most guns, they also have far and away the most gun crime and the most deaths by gun homicide or suicide. The Second Amendment promises freedom to own firearms, but this freedom is not absolute and has been subject to political negotiation for centuries. Today, a variety of lawmakers and politicians seek to expand or curtail the freedoms of the Second Amendment, aided or hampered by the influence of very powerful lobbies and interest groups. What's more, the United States has exported some of its gun culture abroad, and many nations across the world have been affected by the American right to bear arms.