POINT BLANK MADNESS
Shockingly, there are more guns in the U.S. than people. And as a new book illustrates, some have entire arsenals
AmeRIca’s baffling but lethal love affair with guns goes from strength to strength. New figures show 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. at the same time, americans are buying guns in record numbers, while texas lawmakers this week became the latest to vote to allow people to carry handguns without either a licence, background check or any training.
the british response is traditionally to sigh in weary bewilderment and just be glad that such a terrifying arms race doesn’t exist in the Uk. and yet there’s reason to be alarmed. british police report that a growing number of firearms bought legally in U.s. gun shops are finding their way illegally to the Uk, where they are being used by criminals who remove their serial numbers to make tracing them far harder.
between 2017 and 2020 nearly 900 illegal weapons seized in britain originated in the U.s., and officials fear that gangs can increasingly turn from knives to guns.
Last weekend, black Lives matter activist sasha Johnson was shot in the head at a London party. she was treated for her critical injuries in hospital.
back in the U.s., the most often quoted firearms fact is that it’s the only country in the world with more guns than people — around 12 guns to every ten people, or 390 million in a population of about 331 million (although if unregistered guns are also included, it’s estimated the total could be almost double that). However, those astonishing figures are deceptive — more than three-quarters of adult americans say they don’t own a gun, while a few people drastically drive up the total by owning vast arsenals, as they are legally entitled to do.
Fifty of those one-man, or frequently onewoman, armies are profiled in a shocking new book, the ameriguns, in which photographer Gabriele Galimberti asked members of Facebook gun enthusiast groups to pose with their weaponry.
they include clergymen and jewellery makers, as well as more predictable gun enthusiasts such as ex-servicemen and police. the photographer found a family in texas that owns more than 200 firearms.
Former Fedex delivery driver stephen Wagner, 66, from Pennsylvania, has 70, and still fondly remembers the moment when he was eight and his grandfather put a revolver in his hand, explaining how it worked. ‘We americans are very lucky,’ he told Galimberti. ‘It’s wonderful to have a bond of this sort with our country.’ n THE Ameriguns by Gabriele Galimberti, published by Dewi Lewis and Skinnerboox at £35.