Number of guns per capita by country

This is a list of countries by estimated guns per capita (number of privately owned small firearms divided by number of residents).

The Small Arms Survey 2007, provides an estimate of the total number of known civilian-owned guns in a country per 100 people. These numbers do not clarify which percentage of the population owns those guns.

The figures also do not directly represent the number of guns available, since in some countries, such as Israel, a significant number of civilians have government-owned military guns in their possession, which would not be included in the figures below.

The ownership rate reported is the average estimate taken from a survey from the Small Arms Survey 2007. This survey also gives the minimum and maximum estimates, which are based on other surveys with estimations. Note that for some countries, this margin of error is considerable. For example, Yemen, ranked near the top with an ownership rate of 54.8, has a low estimate of 28.6 and a high estimate of 81.1. While the United States is ranked for the highest gun ownership rate unambiguously, Yemen (based on the margin of error) may rank anywhere between 2nd and 18th.

Data was acquired by GunPolicy.org and are mainly based on second-hand surveys from 2007 (Karp, Aaron. 2007. "Completing the Count: Civilian firearms - Annexe online." Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 27 August) and 1999 (United Nations. 1999. "Analysis of Country Responses." United Nations International Study on Firearm Regulation.) Updated figures are calculated figures by gunpolicy.org. The figures cited are estimates for "private gun ownership (both licit and illicit)".

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