yemen-silah

“Gallup recently conducted a survey on guns, and what Americans think of them,” wallstcheatsheet.com reports. “The results of the poll showed that shockingly, 63% of Americans think having a gun in the home makes the home safer.” The only thing shocking about that statistic is that anyone’s shocked by it. America is a gun-owning nation (thank God). Although no one knows how many Americans are tooled-up (again, thank God), Pew Research tells us that there are “anywhere from 270 million to 310 million guns in the United States — close to one firearm for every man, woman and child.” But not that close, really. Gallup reckons less than half of American householders have a gun on the premises. Compare that to Yemen . . .

With frequent incidents and conflict that take place in Yemen which has a population of 25 million, there are close to 60 million guns in the hands of civilians. According to official government statistics, in recent times with the amount of conflict the limit seems to be far more than the 60 million. In the country where there are groups competing for power, despite the economic crisis there is an increase in arm sales and that prices for weapons have come to a ceiling amount.

I think the worldbulletin.net writer’s trying to say that 60m guns in Yemen is too many. Nonsense! Still, he or she does provide some interesting insight into another pro-gun culture = and pricing structure.

Sellers in this market explain that being able to purchase guns easily and that tribal agreements were a dominant form of trade in towns like Sa’da where guns are sold openly and freely but there were other towns where sales were sold more underhandedly. Arms dealer Abdusselam el-Mecidi said that Yemeni’s had a lot of demand for guns and rifles and traditionally carried guns on their belts. Giving information regarding prices Mecidi also said that American made Glock guns were very popular and prices started from $3200. Another gun that was popular was the Russian made Makarov PM, which had a starting price of $700. Gun sales are pushing beyond borders. They are selling guns at the Harad border into Saudi Arabia.

One of the arms dealers at Harrad, Said Atiyye explained that there was an obvious increase in gun sales with many being sold across the border, saying that “guns are being sold as if they are knives. Guns are hidden amongst the knives and smuggled across the border. In each shipment there are 15 guns that are smuggled across”. In the Yemeni constitution there is nothing that stops anyone from possessing a weapon. Article 9 of the Constitution states that “Yemeni citizens are entitled to possess guns for personal use and for self defense”.

Non-infringeable entitlement, one hopes. Anyway, c’mon America! C’mon gun lobby! Must do better!

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58 COMMENTS

    • I’m responsible for 10 of those guns for myself, I’m encouraging my wife to pull her weight so that we can all someday beat Yemen’s remarkable ratio.

    • I get the humor of the article, but I am far more concerned with the ratio of gun owning households. We really need to work on messaging and education to turn more homes into gun owning homes. If that number starts to go the other direction, the ratio of guns/person matters little.

      As people grow up their political leanings are slowly built up and learned by the interactions with their immediate family. A child who grows up in a hoplophobic “progressive” household will likely grow up to be a hoplophobic anti gun voter. Barring a life experience that changes their mind towards legal, constitutionally protected self defense.

      If less than 50% of the voting age families in this country owns guns, then we are playing a dangerous game of numbers. Unless some other unifying measure brings other voters into our column we are on the wrong side of the majority when our rights go to a vote.

  2. Iraq had a very high rate of gun ownership and no gun laws under Saddam. Now that they have been “liberated” by our beloved Homeland they have very strict controls.

  3. I see a couple of smellys in that pic I would make him an offer on! Kept in a dry climate by men who honor and appreciate fine weapons they are probably in excellent condition.

    And I think that figure from Gallup is BS. I know far too many people who would lie to pollsters about weapons simply because they do not trust those taking polls.

    • My gut is that the +/- 300 million guys is way too low, but even folks who would admit owning guns to a pollster would probably lowball the number. And guns don’t expire – properly cared for, a gun made in in the 1900s will still function just fine.

    • And a makarov for $700.
      Is that USD, or whatever Yemen uses for money? Maybe they just have a 4:1 ratio to USD.

      Or maybe they all get their guns from Firearms Concierge

      • Demand drives up the price. Be happy they are American made guns bring in money for American jobs.
        Who would have imagined, American Glocks for $3200…. It’s a marvel of capitalism.

        • You are being silly if you think that the 3200 is going for American workers. The Glock is probably going for the same dealer price… then it gets smuggled out and that adds to the price. Every node you pass you add on to the price.

        • I think the $3200 must be going towards Glock building a factory in America because there isn’t one yet.

    • HOLY COW!!! I just checked, there’s backpage.com for Yemen. Damn. I guess I’ll be flying there sometime to do a little freelance FFL work.

  5. The number of guns really doesn’t matter so much as the percentage of households that have one.

    “Beware the man who only has one gun, he probably knows how to use it.”

    • While I respect the old west. The man with only one gun, is taken out of the fight by only one malfunction. That old credo was well and good in world of revolvers and break action shotguns, but modern semi-autos can experiance malfunctions and anyone would do themselves a favor to have other options just in case. Further more. One round doesn’t do all things. I know people do shoot handguns to +300 yards, but if you are able to have a rifle for that job why not also have one? Let me tell a story to illustrate my point better.

      Once My sensei’s sensei from Japan came to teach us a class. We were all training with the katana. The main do all sword of the samurai. He told us that we had trained well but that we needed to start learning to use the katana while wearing the wakazashi.
      (The wakazashi is the short sword of the samurai that is worn in the belt with the handle at the belly button. When wearing the wakazashi for the first time you tend to smack your elbow on in when swinging the katana.)
      When experiancing these injuries we asked our Japanese sensei, “Do we really have to wear these, they are getting the the way of swinging our swords?”
      He said, “A warrior wears 2 swords so he can always keep fighting when one is bent, broken, or dull. A farmer is given a sword to fight, and runs away when the fight is hard. Are you warriors, or farmers?”
      No one questioned wearing their wakizashi again.

      You say, “the man with one gun is an expert because he isn’t distracted by learning other guns”
      I say: A warrior is as proficient in as many weapons has he can possibly be, so that he always has options, and always strives to be better. Are you a Farmer or a Warrior?

      • I think Jerry Miculek, KJW, Chuck Norris, etc. have a lot more than just one gun. I’m not in their league and I have a lot more than just one gun. As a samurai said, a malfunction with a single gun takes you out of the fight.

      • Certainly it’s a good idea to have a spare of the gun you most commonly use (or something close to the same, e.g, a compact and a full size that both take the same magazines), and certainly there are different jobs for different guns. I’d say every responsible person in a household should have a handgun, there probably ought to be others stationed in certain places; there ought to be at least one shotgun and one semi auto rifle–and that’s assuming the family doesn’t hunt or shoot clays, which increases the number of jobs for a gun to do.

        Past that, you’re an afficionado, and you are collecting guns for the hell of it. Nothing wrong with that [far from it!], but it’s good to recognize that it doesn’t really add to preparedness. (With one exception: if SHTF you can arm your friends and neighbors.)

        • @neiowa.

          True. My mistake was in thinking of direct defensive use. Those .22s are at one remove from that but it’s a supporting relationship. (Of course in rural areas they are good for (non two legged) pest control, as well.)

      • That wasn’t exactly what I was going for…

        There are 300 million guns in private hands in the US (citation needed – I have to believe it’s a little higher). But there are FAR from 300 million gun owners. I would rather see 300 million gun owners each with a rusty Hi-Point than 10 million weekend warriors with 30 never fired ARs in the safe.

        The more people exercising their natural, civil, and constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms the better.

  6. countries like Yemen, Saddam era Iraq, and arguably even the current US prove that gun ownership does not imply freedom.

    • Perhaps. However, the Second Amendment only holds that the right to keep and bear arms is necessary to the security of a free state. It doesn’t hold that it is a sufficient condition.

      • Agreed. So many seem to miss the concept that the 2A itself isn’t freedom, it was put there to preserve freedom. One could easily argue the US is a very well armed police state oligarchy.

        • A plutocratic oligarchy. As demonstrated by the recent vote here in WA state, in which a handful of billionaires got the best “democratic” results money could buy. And by the fact that there are no federal legislators whose net worth is not measured in multiple millions.

      • I’m reminded of a quote from Solzhenitsyn:

        “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

  9. Yemen is interesting in that is being torn apart by three or four different groups and none of them seem particularly “moderate” though I understand that term is relative.

    So many Yemeni homes with guns doesn’t really mean much. After all a gun is only a tool. A tool dependent on the user and that users allegiances.

    From what I’ve read those allegiances are basically to impose a will regardless of which group one is allied with. Each group looks like a tyrant vying for total power so in that way they’ll all lose. There was one group of separatists who appeared to want to be left alone then turned and took over the capital because the gov in charge cut off the handouts so they didnt really want to be left alone. They wanted free shit and to push people around.

  10. People in Yemen, mostly the poor, are willing to spend a fortune on their guns for self-defense because Yemen is an extremely dangerous place. Not as dangerous as Ferguson, maybe, but still dangerous.

      • I am a twelve hour drive from Feguson, but I am still debating whether to keep a .308 semi auto in the trunk just in case the riots break out here too. (Balanced against the risk of it getting stolen.)

  11. Get rid of the NFA and I’ll bet we Americans could pass the Yemenis AND boost the national economy in a heartbeat as newly- made Thompsons, MP-40’s, BARs, and etc. rolled off assembly lines.

    • Of the two, I’d rather get rid of the GCA than the NFA, but both are highly repeal worthy and would have a substantial impact on gun ownership rates in this country.

      • The NFA is an easier target at the moment, because it’s easier to argue the arbitrary nature of the regulation. The GCA, among other things, made it illegal for convicted felons to possess arms. I disagree with it, but that’d be a harder fight.

    • You can buy a semiauto Thompson or BAR now but very very few are sold. Adding a full auto is just a “shiny thing”. Military or civilian world.

      You want/need auto you need REAL machine gun with a minimum of a bipod and if you’re serious a tripod.

      • I really don’t have an interest in a semi-auto Thompson. If I could buy one with full auto and an appropriate length barrel with stock for around the same price as a semi-auto, I would buy one today. Even if I hardly shot it, I would love to have one.

  14. Numbers and ratios make no difference. The only concern would be if American households were turning in legally owned guns to the police (measurable reducing percent of households with guns), but I don’t think the nation as a whole has ever been that brainwashed before.

    What would be nice is to see more department stores with a sporting goods section. The days of mail-in orders from Sears are over, but I can still find Smith and Wesson banners at the local Fred Meyer.

  15. When was the last time you walked into the LGS and every rifle had a sling? They’re utilitarian by neccesity

    • Tom, by all accounts you should also be down to your last boat by now. Either that or you owned a compete flotilla. 🙂

    • I sure hope you are not taking the “boating accident” concept seriously. It will not be valid when the government comes for the guns. If one looks at a bit of history they will learn that government thugs will not take any answer but delivery of the weapons on their registration lists.

      There have been numerous gun seizures the world over, throughout history. About the only one to date that was not bloody was Australia – but then, they didn’t go door-to-door. In most cases gun confiscation was brutal. If they came to your house to collect guns on registration lists you had to deliver the listed weapons. Otherwise you were arrested, sent to prisons or camps, or shot on the spot. Given the current direction of our Police State, it would be foolish to expect any different here.

  18. Guns or no guns, I would rather live in Great Britain or Australia than in Yemen. Civilizational breakdown can’t be much fun from up close.

    The 2nd Amendment protects our freedom not in and by itself, but in combination with other aspects of our way of life. It’s a simbiotic relationship: guns alone won’t do it, but with the guns gone, the liberty in the US would be irrevocably diminished too.

  19. That 60 million number is highly unlikely.

    http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/2007/en/full/Small-Arms-Survey-2007-Chapter-02-EN.pdf (page 45)

    “Assertions that its 20–25 million people have 50, 60, or even 80 million guns are very popular in Yemen, where they have become a nationalist trope (see Table 2.2). Such figures are impossible to accept literally.”

    “The Small Arms Survey concludes that Yemenis own between 6 million and 17 million firearms…”

    We probably have them beat on guns per capita.

  21. I think I like that “2nd Amendment” better. Not much room for debate. “U.S. citizens are entitled to possess guns for personal use and for self defense”.

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