9781422273517

3.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2016. By comparison, New Hampshire had 9.9, and Alaska and Louisiana both hit 20. On the international stage, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Finland have about 3 gun deaths per 100,000 people. The South: Liberal Gun Laws Predominate Several of the states in the South (comprising all Atlantic coast and inland states south of Washington, D.C.) have the highest gun ownership rates across a variety of statistics. Southerners are most likely to own any firearm, most likely to own only a handgun, and most likely to own a handgun in conjunction with a rifle and/or shotgun. Southerners are also, by far, the most likely to report owning a gun for protection against other people (nearly three in four southern gun owners) and also the most likely to report owning a gun for protection against animals (nearly one in four southern gun owners). By total count, no state in the country has more registered guns overall than Texas, possessing as many guns (over 700,000) as the next two states, Florida and California, combined. What’s more, Texas also leads the lists of many different types of registered weapons: it has the most registered machine guns, the most short-barreled rifles, the most registered destructive devices (such as grenades), and the most registered silencers (nearly a quarter of a million; no other state has more than 85,000). Texas’s long history of gun ownership and the state’s cowboy culture play roles in its topping the list: one of the most expensive guns ever auctioned, an 1836 Colt Paterson revolver, was purchased in Dallas in 2011 for nearly one million dollars. After capturing the famed outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, Texas Ranger Frank Hamer kept their pistols and sold them to a collector. Fisher County, in northwestern Texas, is known as “the worst place to rob a gas station,” since half the population has

Chapter 1: Mapping America’s Guns

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