Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country

This is a list of countries by estimated number of privately owned guns per 100 people. The Small Arms Survey 2017[1] provides estimates of the total number of civilian-owned guns in a country. It then calculates the number per 100 people. This number for a country does not indicate the percentage of the population that owns guns. This is because individuals can own more than one gun.

Map of civilian guns per 100 people by country from the Small Arms Survey 2017[1]

See also: Percent of households with guns by country. It gives the percent of households with guns. It is further broken down by the percent of households with handguns. Also, by the percent of adults living in armed households.

List of countries by estimated number of guns per 100 people edit

All the numbers in the main column of the table below are from the annex table of Small Arms Survey 2017. The briefing paper for it says: "Numbers provided here include all firearms in civilian hands, both licit and illicit." The annex table where all the numbers in the main column come from also includes some sub-national areas and territories such as Northern Ireland, Puerto Rico, Scotland, etc.[1]

"Notes" column links to notes section below the chart. The notes below the table are for additional info including additional data and alternative rates so the main column stays in descending order.

United Kingdom.[note 1] Small Arms Survey 2017 does not have a number for the UK.[1] It only provides numbers for these countries which constitute the UK: Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales.
Region and subregion names. Table source uses United Nations geoscheme.[3]
Computation method:

  1. survey(s) and expert estimate(s)
  2. expert estimate(s)
  3. analogous comparison

Notes edit

Return to top of table.

Some of the notes below refer to a previous version of the table that used numbers from Small Arms Survey 2007.[18] So some of the info below may be out of date.

  1. ^   United Kingdom. A GunPolicy.org page has a rate of 5.03 firearms per 100 people in 2017. 3.44 registered plus 1.59 illicit. That totals 5.03 per 100 people.[2]
  2. ^   United States. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of 2009 there were roughly twice as many guns per capita in the United States as there were in 1968: more than 300 million guns in all.[4][5]
    The vast majority of unregistered firearms in the U.S. are lawfully unregistered; a Federal registry is prohibited by law, and only nine states impose registration requirements upon some or all firearms. See Gun laws in the United States by state for specific details.
  3. ^   Finland. 1.5 million guns in 2016 in the official registry.[6]
  4. ^   Norway. 1.49 million guns in 2017 in the official registry.[7]
  5. ^    Switzerland. 876,000 guns in August 2017 in the official registries.[8]
  6. ^   Sweden. According to the Swedish National Police Agency in 2006, there were a total of 656,000 individuals who had a license for one or more guns;[9] 6.5% of the population. There were 2,032,000 guns or 21 guns per 100 residents. Of the 2,032,000 guns, 959,000 were rifles, 726,000 shotguns, 122,000 combination rifles, 88,000 pistols, 55,000 revolvers, 3,000 automatic guns and 78,000 weapons parts.
  7. ^   Germany. The number of legal guns in Germany is about 7 per 100 residents.[10] There are no reliable figures on the number of illegal guns in Germany.[11] The figure of 20 million illicit guns (≈24 per 100 residents) that is often cited on the web is an estimate attributed to the GdP, Germany's largest police union.[12] This number is wildly out of range with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's estimate on illicit guns (10% of the number of legal guns, corresponding to 0.5 million illicit guns or ≈0.7 per 100 residents).[13]
  8. ^   Venezuela. The number displayed in this table is very likely a significant underestimation. The actual number of guns per 100 persons may vary to more, with an unestimated number of illegal firearms held by civilians, around to 9 to 15 million.[14]
  9. ^   Poland.The number of registered firearms in 2017 survey (380k) is taken from official data for the year 2014,[15] even if data for the year 2016 (426k) should have been already available.[16] As of 2021 there's 658k registered firearms.[17]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Briefing Paper. Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers.[dead link] June 2018 by Aaron Karp. Of Small Arms Survey. See box 4 on page 8 for detailed explanation of "Computation methods for civilian firearms holdings". See country table in annex PDF: Civilian Firearms Holdings, 2017. See publications home.
  2. ^ Guns in the United Kingdom — Firearms, gun law and gun control.
  3. ^ "M49 – Standard country or area codes for statistical use". United Nations Statistics Division. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  4. ^ "Guns in America, By The Numbers". National Public Radio. 5 January 2016.
  5. ^ "Gun Control Legislation" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. 14 November 2012. p. 9.
  6. ^ "Aseiden määrä Suomessa vähenee – katso, missä ovat maan 1,5 miljoonaa asetta". Yle Uutiset. 18 January 2016.
  7. ^ (unverifiable) "Revisjonsrapport for 2017 om politiets behandling av våpensaker" (PDF). Riksrevisjonen. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  8. ^ "Près de 876'000 armes recensées en Suisse". Tribune de Genève. 18 August 2017.
  9. ^ "Arms legislation etc" (PDF) (in Swedish). National Police control ice. 31 May 2006.
  10. ^ "Deutschland, deine Waffen". 16 January 2018.
  11. ^ "Illegale Waffe im Schrank? Zeit, sie loszuwerden Seite 2/2: Die Zahl Illegaler Waffen – nichts als eine Dunkelziffer".
  12. ^ "Guns in Germany". Der Spiegel. 22 February 2013.
  13. ^ "Number of Privately Owned Firearms".
  14. ^ P.G. (7 July 2014). "Crime in Venezuela: Guns and money". The Economist. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  15. ^ "Liczba osób, którym wydano pozwolenie na broń (stan na 31 grudnia 2014 r.)" [Number of persons, who were issued a firearms license (as of 31 December 2014)] (PDF) (in Polish). Polish Police. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 January 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  16. ^ "Liczba osób, którym wydano pozwolenie na broń (stan na 31 grudnia 2016 r.)" [Number of persons, who were issued a firearms license (as of 31 December 2016)] (PDF) (in Polish). Polish Police. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 January 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  17. ^ "Liczba osób, którym wydano pozwolenie na broń (stan na 31 grudnia 2021 r.)" [Number of persons, who were issued a firearms license (as of 31 December 2021)] (PDF) (in Polish). Polish Police. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2022. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  18. ^ Keith Krause; Eric G. Berman, eds. (July 2022). "Small Arms Survey 2007 – Chapter 2. Completing the Count: Civilian Firearms". Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey. Retrieved 26 July 2022.

External links edit