With more guns per resident than any other country on earth, the US also suffers from the highest number of gun deaths per capita.

So, why does America love guns so much?

Well, the basis for the US’s gun policy is the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

It states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Since it was written in 1791, gun control laws have been narrowed down, and varied from state to state.

However, America’s love of guns still comes from their early history.

The founding fathers understood that in most conflicts, the more powerfully armed force usually wins.

The Second Amendment was intended to fight tyrannical oppression, defend against invaders, and guarantee the right to self-defense.

The right to self defense is actually found in the British common law on which the founders based much of the constitution.

Inherent in America’s birth is the idea that freedom and liberty must be defended with force.

Today, although the political and military situation has changed, many Americans continue to associate freedom with gun ownership.

Pro-gun advocates, such as the National Rifle Association, argue that guns allow people to protect themselves against criminals with guns.

It’s argued that since guns are so ubiquitous, gun control laws would only prevent law abiding citizens from having guns.

Meanwhile, criminals would ignore those laws and crime would increase.

A 2014 Pew study confirms that American attitudes have shifted towards gun ownership rights instead of gun control.

This suggests that people believe it is safer to have guns for protection than to limit gun ownership.

The most repeated argument for associating freedom and guns, is that the United States government was intended to exist only at the whim of its citizens.

In 1946, a town in Tennessee led an armed revolt against the police and sheriff. He had restricted their voting rights, unlawfully jailed and fined citizens for profit, and rigged an election.

As it says in the declaration of independence "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it".

It's argued that the Second Amendment is supposed to guarantee the people’s ability to actually get that done.

Still, despite the potential freedom from tyranny, conflicting studies can’t seem to determine whether or not gun controls actually lower violent crime.

However, researchers at Harvard determined that in nearly every case, more guns equals more homicides.

In the US, children are 17 times more likely to be murdered with a firearm than in other countries.

Still, it is doubtful that Americans will ever transition away from conflating guns and freedom.

Europe has a very different relationship with guns than the United States, but do the gun control laws there really work? Well, check out our video.

In other places, like Lithuania and Romania, few civilians own firearms because at one point they were part of the Soviet Union, which had extremely strict gun laws.

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