There is no ‘good guy with a gun’: Inside the gun lobby’s most pernicious myth

AlterNet logoWe don’t have more automobiles than people in the United States of America. We don’t have more televisions than people. We don’t have more radios than people. We don’t have more cell phones than people.

What we do have is more guns than people.

A recent report published by the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, found that there are more than 393 million firearms owned by civilians in this country. We have a population of 326 million. That means there are 120.5 firearms for every 100 American citizens, according to the Washington Post. It’s a fact. If every single person in the United States possessed a gun, including babies, elderly people and the infirm — even including those hospitalized and on their deathbeds — there would still be 67 million guns left over.  Sixty-seven million. 

View the complete September 8 post by Lucian K. Truscott IV from Salon on the AlterNet website here.