http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=adxxJpl6uN7g

Americans love their guns. The first battle of the American Revolution wasn't because of taxes or stifling freedom of press or freedom to assemble - but from the attempt by the British soldiers to disarm Massachusetts at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The brigade sized American irregular element used guerrilla style ambushes against a half brigade sized element of British regulars, and the Americans won the day with small arms, to protect their guns.

Small arms, for those of you not in the know, are the pistols, shot guns, rifles, assault weapons, and some machine guns, carried and used by individual soldiers. These are usually differentiated from "light weapons," like RPGs, anti-tank weapons, some heavier machine guns which are "crew served" - that is, that need at least two people to operate. From gang wars, to civil wars, to army on army wars, small arms are almost always the most important weapons, because they are small, cheap, and require very little training to use.

About 80 million private Americans own about 200 million guns, about a third of the world's total of weapons. Pause and think about that for a second. The Vietnamese military and paramilitary forces probably have around 10 million under arms, and weapons for everyone else are outlawed. In China, around 7 million military and paramilitary, and gun ownership is strictly outlawed for others. In North Korea, around 6 million. Compare that to 8 million registered guns in New York City (which has fairly strict regulations by US standards), and 2 million unregistered guns. These three largest armed forces combined are outgunned about 9 to 1 by private Americans.

Demand in the US spiked for weapons this year, as Democrats took over the Congress and White House, causing a spike in international arms trade. Americans love guns so much, the American gun industry can't keep up - hence Americans receiving 27% of all international gun transfers. American suppliers sell 22% of international transfers (including 49% of military grade weapons), as American weapons have strong brand reputations of quality, and of course the cachet of American firepower. Not to mention the US finds it useful for countries to depend on the US (and not Europe, Russia or China) for military weapons.

The international small arms trade isn't a very big business - only around $4 billion in legal, reported small arms transfers reported in 2006. Compare that to about $6 billion per year in Apple iPod sales, or $3 billion per year in Tide laundry detergent. Of course the purpose of guns is not to make profits, but to be able to cause losses. In the US, about 31,000 people were killed by guns in 2006. Most of those deaths, about 17,000, were by suicide, and about 13,000 homicides. Gun violence is a much smaller preventable cause of death than other behavioral problems - about one in 6,500 guns will kill someone per year, generally the gun's owner. Compare that to the 440,000 smoking related deaths per year caused by the 47 million smokers in the US, where each smoker has a 1% chance of passively committing suicide each year.