Everyone has guns right? I mean, most families that I know keep guns in their house, so that obviously means that the same is true throughout most of the world....right?
Wrong.
I was talking to a shop keeper in Monistiraki the other day about action movies; The Expendables, to be more specific. Naturally the conversation began to take a turn, and soon we were talking about Martial Arts. From Martial Arts we got to gun disarms, which made the shopkeeper bring up something interesting. He asked me a question:
"Does everyone in the United States own a gun?"
"Well," I said as I thought of the answer, "not everyone."
"But a lot of people?"
I stopped and thought once again. I wasn't exactly sure of what he meant with the term of "a lot". A lot in comparison to Greece? Probably.
"I mean, I know quite a few people who own guns in the States," I responded, "I think more people own guns in the United States than here in Greece." I didn't actually have any statistics to prove that, but as I look at the numbers now I can see that his opinions on gun ownership were not without good reason.
America ranks number one in the world for both percentage of the population with a privately owned gun, and number of privately owned guns. America's 88 guns per 100 people absolutely blows Greece's 22 guns per 100 out of the water. Having grown up around families with guns my entire life I had never really thought that it was unusual to have guns in your home, but apparently it is not very common in Greece, and most other countries at all. It's one of those things that you don't notice until you look at in in comparison to another country.
We really do have a lot of guns here in America thanks to our Second Amendment, and it's just interesting to think that that is one thing that really stands out about the United States.
Wrong.
I was talking to a shop keeper in Monistiraki the other day about action movies; The Expendables, to be more specific. Naturally the conversation began to take a turn, and soon we were talking about Martial Arts. From Martial Arts we got to gun disarms, which made the shopkeeper bring up something interesting. He asked me a question:
"Does everyone in the United States own a gun?"
"Well," I said as I thought of the answer, "not everyone."
"But a lot of people?"
I stopped and thought once again. I wasn't exactly sure of what he meant with the term of "a lot". A lot in comparison to Greece? Probably.
"I mean, I know quite a few people who own guns in the States," I responded, "I think more people own guns in the United States than here in Greece." I didn't actually have any statistics to prove that, but as I look at the numbers now I can see that his opinions on gun ownership were not without good reason.
America ranks number one in the world for both percentage of the population with a privately owned gun, and number of privately owned guns. America's 88 guns per 100 people absolutely blows Greece's 22 guns per 100 out of the water. Having grown up around families with guns my entire life I had never really thought that it was unusual to have guns in your home, but apparently it is not very common in Greece, and most other countries at all. It's one of those things that you don't notice until you look at in in comparison to another country.
We really do have a lot of guns here in America thanks to our Second Amendment, and it's just interesting to think that that is one thing that really stands out about the United States.
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