Over one billion firearms now flood the world, most of which are owned by civilians, according to Geneva-based researchers. Americans alone possess 40 percent, more than all civilians combined in 25 other countries.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Gombert
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The Small Arms Survey compiled by Geneva's Graduate Institute and published Monday said the global civilian firearms stockpile had swelled from 650 million to 857 million between 2006 and 2017, accounting for 85 percent of all stocks.
Military arsenals held 133 million (13 percent) and law enforcement agencies 23 million (2 percent), raising the total to slightly more than one billion.
One of the study senior authors, Aaron Karp, told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York that an "extraordinarily permissive" US gun market had put 393 million firearms in the hands of Americans.
"Ordinary American people buy approximately 14 million new and imported guns every year, said Karp.
The study containing elaborate graphics concludes that Americans own almost 40 percent of the global stockpile, although they make up only 4 percent of the world population.
That 40 percent was more than the combined 25 top-placed nations and territories, said survey authors.
121 firearms per 100 residents
Among every 100 US residents there were on average 121 firearms. By comparison, Yemen had 53 per 100, and Montenegro and Serbia alike 39 firearms.
Canada and Uruguay followed, each with 35 firearms per 100 residents.
The majority of these deaths — 490,000 — occur in countries not directly affected by armed conflicts.
Mass shootings at concerts, clubs worldwide
The Las Vegas mass shooting is not the first to target concertgoers or the party crowd at a club. Attacks in France, Turkey and the UK also made headlines.
Image: Reuters/M.Blake
Las Vegas, US
On October 1, 2017, A local Nevada retiree carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, killing 59 people and wounding hundreds more at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas massacre is just the latest in a string of mass shootings in the US this year.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images
Orlando, US
Before the attack in Las Vegas, the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 was believed to be the deadliest in modern US history. Twenty-nine-year-old gunman Omar Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. George Wilson
Paris, France
The US band Eagles of Death Metal were performing at the Bataclan in Paris on November 13, 2015 when gunmen stormed the concert venue. A total of 130 people were killed that night, including 89 at the Bataclan, in coordinated attacks by several groups of gunmen and suicide bombers at various locations throughout the French capital. The "Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the violence.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Ruszniewski
Istanbul, Turkey
A shooting during New Year's Eve celebrations at Istanbul's popular Reina nightclub on January 1, 2017 left 39 people dead and dozens more wounded. The "Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the attack that was carried out by a gunman from Uzbekistan. He was arrested just days later. The trial is still pending.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/E.Gurel
Manchester, UK
A homemade bomb detonated on May 22, 2017 as concertgoers, including children, were leaving an Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena. Twenty-two people, as well as the bomber, were killed, and roughly 250 more were injured. Police said 22-year-old Salman Abedi had acted alone but that others had been aware of his plans.
On July 24, 2016, a Syrian refuge blew himself up in Ansbach in southern Germany, injuring more than a dozen people. The 27-year-old Syrian man, who had been denied entry to an open-air music festival because he did not have a ticket, detonated his bomb outside a wine bar.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Karmann
Nürburg, Germany - a precaution
At Germany's Rock am Ring music festival, authorities suspected a terror plot possibly linked with local Islamists in the western state of Hesse when they were unable to identify two Syrian workers. As a precautionary measure, all 87,000 festivalgoers were evacuated from the concert grounds on opening night, June 2, 2017. It turned out to be a false alarm - the workers' names were misspelled.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/T.Frey
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Gangs and private security firms
Listed among civilians in the latest survey were individuals but also private security firms, non-state armed groups, and gangs. And, the civilian firearm types ranged from factory-made handguns, rifles, shotguns, to even machine guns in some countries.
Japan and Indonesia ranked at the other end of the spectrum, with less than one firearm per 100 residents.
The authors noted, however, that only 28 countries had "released information on their military stockpiles and 28 did so regarding their law enforcement firearms holdings."
Transparency lacking
The remaining calculations were "based on estimates," said the study's authors while criticizing "governments' lack of transparency regarding their procurement, stockpiles, and transfers of small arms."
Compiling the data remained a "most challenging undertaking" and illicit firearms "outside of government control largely remain poorly documented," they said.
"More work is also needed to better understand illicit proliferation, incidences of armed violence, and people's perceptions of their security," said Eric Berman, the director of the Small Arms Survey.
