Economist Feature on Gun Ownership

[LawBot5000]

One thing that is odd is that Switzerland is listed as having zero civilian firearms ownership even though they are using a nearly identical militia system to the US. Their entire military is "civilians."

The only difference is that the swiss government maintains their militia while the US government neglects the militia in favor of a professional military which is more useful for overseas expeditions.

 

[jlbraun]

Here is a more comprehensive list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_countries_by_gun_ownership

 

[MutinousDoug]

Where is Mexico? Why are Ireland and Scotland left out of the UK count? "Oh Yes! Please include me in your list of owners of illegal guns."
Where Are Somalia and the Sudan?
I call: Shenagans!!

 

[Neo-Luddite]

The U.S. numbers are 'inflated' by virtue of the fact that we have had (mostly) un-interupted transfer of heirloom weapons through families--and as pointed out--many don't see much use. I don't mind the numbers tending high for us, as it works in our RKBA favor--but those other countires (like France) have had purges and wars in their fairly recent pasts--maybe in fact meaning more "attic' guns than here not counted.

 

[CypherNinja]

jlbraun beat me to it. They left out many, many countries in order to get a smaller graph. France is actually 7th.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I wonder if the French carry small, underpowered, unreliable guns that say "LeGun" on the side in big, cheerful letters...
That joke only makes sense if you remember the early 80s.

Hah! I had a Le Car for awhile. It wasn't much of a car, but it lasted awhile when I couldn't afford anything better.

After glancing at the chart, I can truthfully tell you: I'm gladd the U.S.A. is number 1, but believe the rest of the world ought to get busy and try to catch up.

 

[green-grizzly]

Ecommunist.

They are stridently anti-gun, although they are a little more circumspect now that most of their readers are in North America. They received too many letters beginning with "Please cancel my subscription ..." Including mine.