My favorite piece of trivia used to be: "US civilians own more firearms than every police force and military in the world combined". This was based off Small Arms Survey's 2010 estimates of US civilians at 270 million and police + military at 226 million[0].
But according to the Small Arms Survey's 2018 report linked in the article, the factoid has been upgraded to: "US civilians own more than _twice_ as much firearms as every police force and military in the world combined". (US civilians at 393.3 million vs police + military at 155.7 million [1])
I can't find the details, but I recently read of a county sheriff that told a state legislature that if they passed a law that would end up requiring him to send deputies to many homes in his territory to confiscate their guns, he would decline to do so, because he thought that it would be a suicide mission.
Bottom line, the number of guns in private hands causes many government officials to fear the people. For gun rights advocates this is a feature; for gun control advocates, it's a bug. I think that this is the fundamental divide between the two camps.
I've never quite understood the usefulness of the 'assault weapon' rhetoric. Basically any semi-auto firearm with the ability to take a detachable magazine is easily capable of causing mass murder. Either ban pretty much all semi-autos or you're wasting your time. It's like fighting diabetes by banning Coke but ignoring Pepsi.
But even in this New Zealand situation, where they are doing it 'right' and are banning them all, they still trumpet it as a ban on 'military style assault weapons'. I guess if they change the definition of 'military style' to include most semi-autos it would be more rational, and it does seem like the media is heading that way.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 23.5 ms ] threadBut according to the Small Arms Survey's 2018 report linked in the article, the factoid has been upgraded to: "US civilians own more than _twice_ as much firearms as every police force and military in the world combined". (US civilians at 393.3 million vs police + military at 155.7 million [1])
[0] http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Not...
[1] http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Pap...
Bottom line, the number of guns in private hands causes many government officials to fear the people. For gun rights advocates this is a feature; for gun control advocates, it's a bug. I think that this is the fundamental divide between the two camps.
But even in this New Zealand situation, where they are doing it 'right' and are banning them all, they still trumpet it as a ban on 'military style assault weapons'. I guess if they change the definition of 'military style' to include most semi-autos it would be more rational, and it does seem like the media is heading that way.