A nation of gunmen, and an enormous waste of human lives, victims of conflicts over firearms: This is the synthesis of one of the darkest sides of American society and its solid democracy. The United States presents itself with almost 400 million weapons owned by civilians, a number that exceeds the number of inhabitants: approximately 120 weapons for every 100 people. And among the most frequent uses of this arsenal is that of shootings for the most absurd and obvious reasons in the well-known banality of evil: racial hatred, psychopathy, personal anger, emulation, political and religious extremism.
Every day, this is the certified average, there are at least two mass shootings (an incident in which at least 4 people are injured or killed). The killers inspire each other, they infect each other with the methods of their massacres and, absurdly for a In a country where tax evasion leads to prison and someone throws away the key, and where punishment is guaranteed, political, administrative, and judicial authorities are powerless. Paralyzed.
The continuous massacres perpetrated by American gunmen—in bars, shopping malls, schools, universities, corporate headquarters, and anywhere else where a community exists that deserves to be protected and respected—have created not a trail of blood, but an ocean of corpses.
Despite the widespread distribution of firearms, there is no mandatory public register for rifles and pistols owned by private individuals (as in: “Do what you want”), but statistics from highly reliable sources allow us to capture the frightening scale of the phenomenon.
According to a 2025 report drawn up on the basis of data collected by
Ammo.com, the most important online platform for the sale of firearm ammunition, approximately
1 person on 3 (between 32 and 34 percent) of the American adult population owns pistols and rifles, and between
40 to 52 percent of families live with at least one gun At home. The United States holds nearly half the world's civilian weapons, with one of the highest densities in the world.
Two factors are supporting and fueling the silent slaughter of innocent gun victims (gunshots, among other things, are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents) in America: one ideological, the other purely economic.
Americans consider the possession of pistols, rifles, and machine guns, even enshrined in the Constitution, an essential and inviolable freedom. To do what? To defend oneself, of course, but also to indulge in an act of madness, revenge, or mad resentment. And to fuel any form of hatred, including racial hatred, which always smolders beneath the ashes.
As for the economic cause that has transformed Americans into a nation of gunslingers, the lobby of the firearms industry, from manufacturers to the army of dealers in the sector, is extremely powerful: it influences the White House, Congress, individual states and all the highest levels of political and administrative power. There is even one National Rifle Association, which presents itself transparently and legally as the “gun lobby,” and has a very strong influence not only in the halls of power, but also in the circuit of public opinion. On the other hand, the words "no to guns" remain virtually unpronounceable in a country where 70 percent of the population supports the ownership and use of weapons and rifles by individual citizens for their own safety and security, and never mind if a fatal gunshot is then fired out of revenge or a simple outburst of anger. Or, worse, out of intolerance based on skin color. America seems condemned to forever coexist with its exposed nerve as a country of gunslingers.
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