Gun Violence Most Prevalent in the Americas Globally

Gun violence is a daily tragedy affecting the lives of individuals around the world. More than 500 people die every day because of violence committed with firearms.

Gun violence is violence committed with the use of firearms, for example pistols, shotguns, assault rifles or machine guns.

According to Amnesty International, gun violence is particularly prevalent in the Americas where there is easy access to firearms, weak regulations or poor implementation of laws designed to combat firearms violence prevail.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, corruption, organized crimes and a dysfunctional criminal justice system further have been fueling the problem.

About 500 people die daily around the world due to cases related to gun violence, with 44 percent being homicides.

Between 2012 and 2016, There were 1.4 million deaths related to gun violence globally. The majority of victims and perpetrators are young men, but women are particularly at risk of firearms violence perpetrated by an intimate partner. Sexual violence can also be facilitated by firearms.

Here are some statistics broken down for you;

Number of guns produced globally each year

The world produces Eight million new small arms and up to 15 billion rounds of ammunition are manufactured each year.

The small arms trade is worth an estimated 8.5 billion US dollars per year.

Two billion dollars’ worth of small arms ammunition transfers were reported to United Nations Comrade in 2013; one billion dollars’ worth of pistols and revolvers were reported for the same period.

Cases of gun violence worldwide;

Half of all firearm-related deaths in 2016 occurred in just six countries – all in the Americas – according to a study.

Brazil had the largest gun deaths toll, with over 43,000 people killed that year. The US was next with 37,200. It was followed by Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala.

Together these six countries accounted for 50.5 percent of the quarter of a million deaths from firearm injuries in 2016, a figure that includes homicides, suicides and accidental injuries.

Latin America takes the front line in high numbers of gun violence accounting to 72 percent in Brazil,91.1 percent in El Salvador ,58.9 percent in Honduras.

United states of America top the wealthier nations in firearm related violence. While it is difficult to know exactly how many guns civilians own around the world, by every estimate the US with more than 390 million is far out in front.

Wide access to firearms and loose regulations lead to more than 39,000 men, women and children being killed every year in the USA.

In the USA, firearm homicide disproportionately impacts African American communities, particularly young black men. 14,542 people in the USA lost their lives in gun homicides in 2017. African Americans accounted for 58.5 percent of these nationwide, despite making up just 13 percent of the US population.

Human rights activists in the USA have blamed all this violence on the government.

The global data for deaths from gun violence can surprise you. USA has a higher death rate from firearms than countries rated by the Fragile States Index as fragile places in the world from perspective of governance.

Countries like Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen are rated as worst countries to live in, but you cannot believe that they have not outsized USA in number of gun-based violence.

The reason as to why countries that are conflict prone could be having low cases of gun-based violence could be because those armed are concentrated in certain areas especially at military areas and militia areas. Americans have small arms in almost every street corner.

How some countries are controlling gun circulation.

1. Australia

Australia paid citizens to sell their guns to the government. – A spate of violence in the 1980s and ’90s that culminated in a 1996 shooting that left 35 dead led Australian Prime Minister John Howard to convene an assembly to devise gun-control strategies. The group landed on a massive buyback program, costing hundreds of millions of dollars offset by a one-time tax increase, that bought and destroyed more than 600,000 automatic and semiautomatic weapons and pump-action shotguns.

Over the next few years, gun-death totals were cut nearly in half. Firearm suicides dropped to 0.8 per 100,000 people in 2006 from 2.2 in 1995, while firearm homicides dropped to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2006 from 0.37 in 1995.

2.Japan

Japan puts citizens through a rigorous set of tests. Japan, which has strict laws for obtaining firearms, seldom has more than 10 shooting deaths a year in a population of 127 million people.

If Japanese people want to own a gun, they must attend an all-day class, pass a written test, and achieve at least 95 percent accuracy during a shooting.

From all these statistics, the world still has a long way to go to reduce gun-related violence and deaths, an estimation of 500 daily deaths is not a cakewalk to deal with.

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