most armed civilian population?

[jimmyj]

Here's one for the experts, what nation do you think has the most heavily armed civilian population? My pal and I were discussing this and could not come to a clear agreement. We seem to think it's probably ******, but what do you think?

Note: We have no idea what we are talking about for the record, just guessing.

 

[Ridgewalker]

If you're talking about the total number of firearms in private possession it has to be the United States. Our pop. is much larger than Israels.

If you're talking about percentage of pop. that has a firearm...you could be right although every person I know has a gun or 15 laying around.

 

[jk96]

As of 07

U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people | Reuters

 

[jimmyj]

Interesting. We started off thinking it was the US because the population can afford a lot of guns but we didn't think we were right. Thanks for the speedy replies. Niether of us wins any bragging rights over the other though!

 

[chh]

The report was on civilian ownership. ****** and Switzerland(I think I remembered that one right) have a mandatory militia with the firearms kept at home, but the weapons are not civilian owned. The last time I saw a ranking that figuired that in they both ranked pretty high per capita. The US still ranked #1 as best I remember.

 

[ShenandoahJoe]

Wikipedia says USA, Yemen, Switzerland, Iraq, and Serbia are the top 5, with the USA far ahead. That's guns per person, not percentage of households with guns.

 

[jdbower]

Some of it also depends on how you want to count (and what you're looking to show...). For example, if there are 9 guns for every 10 citizens but each gun owner averages 4-5 guns each then only 2 out of 10 citizens is armed. Another country with an equal population where there are 6 guns per 10 people but the average collection size is 2 would have 30% of the population armed. It depends on how you want to count "most heavily armed" to decide who the winner is.

And then we can get into the differences between the definition of firearms (an airgun in NJ needs a firearm permit, for example) and how we'd weight a military-grade weapon vs a handgun vs. a squirrel-hunting rifle to make things even more complicated. Plus what estimates they use for guns that exist outside the system (legally or illegally) can skew the results. So, if you let us know who you want to win I'm sure we can arrange the stats accordingly

 

[chh]

if you let us know who you want to win I'm sure we can arrange the stats accordingly

That is probably the most truthful statement in the entire thread/

 

[Tig]

To add to the discussion of what "heavily armed" means, consider the following.
In a country like Switzerland ,which has mandatory military service. Every service aged person will have their military weapon at home. They may keep the weapon as a semiautomatic when the leave the service. Contrast that to Canada where I believe the vast majority of guns are hunting rifles and sportsmen will generally own several (conservative estimate from my experience). Each gun being for a different hunt. eg; one weapon for each of bird, small game, deer, moose, black powder and bow seasons.
So in Switzerland a greater percentage of people will have weapons than in Canada, but in Canada a gun owner will have more weapons.
So now in a one on one comparison, who is more heavily armed? Me with five or six guns at home and a hunting license? Or my Swiss cousin with one automatic weapon and military training? Even if I traded one of my guns for his military weapon I'd expect his training to give him a decided advantage in any sort of meaningful contest.

 

[jimmyj]

Our chat was about which county has the most guns per person. That said, all if this is interesting and I would not want to mess with any at the top of the list!