Since the turn of this century, American gun manufacturers have made more than 131 million firearms for the United States. An additional 71 million firearms have been imported from abroad in those 20 years, according to a US Department of Justice investigative report. Together, the Americans therefore bought more than 200 million weapons for approximately 330 million inhabitants.
According to the report, arms production in the US is growing every year. In the year 2000, just under 4 million firearms were produced, in 2020 there were 11.3 million. The number of registered producers also increased, from over two thousand to almost seventeen thousand.
The most popular are small arms such as pistols and revolvers. The researchers are also concerned about so-called ghost guns, weapons that are put together at home with 3D printers or from parts bought online. In 2021, police seized 19,344 such weapons, the investigation said.
The number of deaths from gun violence also increased. In 2020, the highest level in more than 25 years was reached, with 6.1 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Justice Department’s investigation comes after a weekend of shootings. In the city of Buffalo, a right-wing extremist killed ten people and injured three. In Laguna Woods, California, a man shot five churchgoers. Shootings in the city of Milwaukee left 20 people injured by bullets in one night.
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