In fact, there is no exact answer to this question.
And the point is not only that the circulation of weapons in Ukraine, as in many countries of the world, is divided into legal and illegal, but also that even statistical data on the number of registered owners of weapons is physically impossible to find.
So, based on the information obtained from the reports of the relevant agency and private sources, we can only roughly estimate that: there are about 800 thousand hunters, those who do not hunt but have hunting weapons – another 800 thousand, owners of “rubber bands” – at least 200 thousand, and we can only guess how many of those who were “awarded” with short-barreled rifles.
Let’s assume that all together about 2 million. people.
At first glance, the numbers are impressive, but it is only at first glance.
However, realizing that the military warehouses near Novobohdanivka exploded for a reason, and all the others were just as inevitably stolen and sold off, we still believed that there are about 2 million illegal weapons in Ukraine. units, but it turned out that our estimates were too optimistic.
With the permission of the Small Arms Survey (Geneva, Switzerland), a project that is the main international source of information on all aspects of small arms for governments, policy makers and academics, we publish data on the number of civilian weapons in Europe.
We deliberately provide information only on 44 countries in Europe, as we believe that the information on the number of weapons in Burkina Faso, Angola and South Africa and all 178 countries of the world, provided to us by our colleagues, will not be interesting to our readers.
So, look.
For the sake of completeness, it should be added that the first place in the world ranking is traditionally and by a large margin occupied by the United States, which according to the data for 2007 had 270 million. units of civilian weapons, i.e. 88.8 units per 100 people.
What should be noted – according to the Small Arms Survey, there are from 2,200,000 to 6,300,000 illegal guns in Ukraine. Given the complex coefficients, the researchers settled on the figure of 3,100,000. And this is really impressive.
It should also be noted that experts of the Small Arms Survey complain about the reluctance of some countries to report to the public data on the legal production, export and import of small arms. That is probably why there is no data on the number of registered weapons in Ukraine.
Thus, our honorable 84th place in the world ranking is based only on data on illegal weapons.
Thus, the European ranking of countries by the number of weapons per 100 people is as follows:
There are no surprises – Switzerland is quite predictably on the first place, and Ukraine got its “honorable” 36th place, we remind you, only due to illegal weapons.
There is another point that we drew attention to – the higher the country’s GNI, the more weapons it has. Or vice versa?
In any case, the picture becomes more or less clear and something has to be done with such a large number of weapons in Ukraine.
It is absolutely clear that the legalization of weapons will significantly reduce the number of illegal weapons, but for this we need a law on weapons, we emphasize – a NORMAL law on weapons, which will give Ukrainians the right, like all Europeans, to own short-barreled rifled weapons.
It is difficult to overestimate the positive consequences of the adoption of such a law. It will become the basis for the construction of the country’s military doctrine, reduce the level of street crime, allow to make changes to the Criminal Code related to self-defense with weapons in hand and so on.
And finally, it is time for all of us to understand – you cannot but respect an armed man, you cannot but respect an armed nation, you cannot but respect an armed country.
P.S. Ukrainian Gun Owners Association expresses its gratitude to Small Arms Survey (Geneva, Switzerland) for assistance in the preparation of this material.
Attention! Full or partial use of the material is allowed only with the mention of the following information, including active hyperlinks: Prepared by the Ukrainian Gun Owners Association with the permission of Small Arms Survey.