The World's Largest Army

[Dangermouse]

Taken from the Brownell's Jan newsletter,

The World's Largest Army

I bet you didn’t know this. . .

In WWII, Japan's highest-ranking naval officer was Isoruku Yamamoto. Although he was Japanese, and his loyalties were unquestionably with The Empire, he studied for many years in America, graduating from Harvard University. There is an oft-repeated (and sometimes disputed) quote attributed to him regarding the possibility of any nation taking a war to American soil:

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

Here is why he was correct:

America's Hunters. The World's Largest Army.

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great, considering there were over 600,000 hunters that got permits this year.

Allow me to restate that number: 600,000

Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to keep the deer population under control.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world.

And that is just FOUR states.

The total population of registered hunters in America today ranges from 23 million to 43.7 million individuals. (Based on annual data provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) As long as the American Hunter retains his right to Bear Arms, America will forever be safe from foreign invasion of troops.

Hunting – it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of National Security

Much could be said about countries who do not allow their citizens the right to have access to firearms,

DM

[ovenpaa]

..and we have how many FAC holders in the UK?

[TobyH]

Wonder how much 'friendly' fire it would cost them in fatalities!!

[dta europe]

i think the UK FAC figure is in the region of 450K

DTA Europe

[ovenpaa]

I had a feeling it was 450k-550k for FAC and SGC users with maybe 130k of them being FAC users? I did Google for it briefly but got sidetracked.

[dta europe]

Sorry I was wrong, that figure refers to the number of firearms in the UK with the FAC holders being around 130K

http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb0510.pdf

DTA Europe

[ovenpaa]

Many thanks for posting the Pdf link, it makes for interesting reading.

[Dangermouse]

Check here for Excel spread sheet http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/firearms1.html

If you check out the tabs you can see which forces are doing what,

DM

[ovenpaa]

Check here for Excel spread sheet http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/firearms1.html

Good find DM. Given how busy my local team are they do not have that many FAC/SGC users on the books which shows just how labour intensive the current licensing system is.

[dromia]

Don't know how robust the data is.

I used it when I was putting my business plan together and the person from fierarms licensing didn't recognsie the figures for her area.