The Global Arms Trade Interactive Inforgraphic

In the aftermath of the most recent mass shooting incident in Colorado, which in turn is merely the latest in a long series of tragic mass killings, the question of weapon propagation has once again come to the forefront, if not as much in the presidential race. This of course excludes the fact that for centuries the military industrial complex has long been the staple manufacturing core of many economies, and has competed only with banking when it comes to making a disproportionately small group of people disproportionately rich (even if it has "boosted" numerous economies alive in times of Krugmanian GDP stimulus need). Which is why we present the following interactive infographic from chrome experiments as a quick and dirty guide on who the biggest sources of arms trade (either imports or exports) in the world are. We doubt there will be many surprises over the usual suspects.

Press on the image for full infographic.

h/t Chase

Comments

[falak pema]

Ah the MIC world of mass weapons, not the ones we think will destroy the world in one big bang, but the world of little ones that kill us by a thousand cuts and make the Q-daffys and the Koreans the kings of the dirty despotic militarist world. Kindred to the drug barons and the oil barons of oligarchy construct. Brave new world of PAx Americana. We are still in Meyer LAnsky's and Don Corleone's world, banksters and crooksters,  except that it now wears the white gloves of first world respectability.  

[Uncle Remus]

What, you can't get an A4 in .308 either?

[Clint Liquor]

Mexican Drug Cartels smuggle tons of Cocaine from South America into the US, Africa, Europe, Russia and Asia. They also smuggle Heroin from Asia into all the previously listed areas.

Only a complete idiot would believe they have to get their firearms from the US.

[Hype Alert]

Not to mention human trafficking.  I'm sure the people (mostly females) were not allowed to defend themselves with small arms to begin with.  Yet their kidnappers had no trouble getting them.  And again, no problem getting the cargo into the country.  Even Acorn was willing to help with that.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Some of those firearms come out of US and Mexican armed forces' armories as "inventory shrinkage". You can bet that neither the US or Mexican Feds want THAT kind of info getting loose.

[q99x2]

Here they are on the move in Burbank.

[JR]

The only way to solve this crisis is to stop the making of play money by the private owners of the Fed who know no homeland with the exception of Israel. Whoever is going to fight on the side of Israel, the U.S. will be there with its leviathan military prowess and support. It is the U.S. and Israel who are the perpetrators of most of the massive crimes against humanity now assaulting the world.

Says Munib R. Masri in a recent op-ed piece in the NY Times from Nablus, West Bank :

Mr. Romney believes that Israel’s impressive economic growth is because of the country’s strong culture and that the Palestinian economy lags because — implicitly — our culture is inferior.

“As one of the most successful businessmen and industrialists in Palestine today (there are many of us), I can tell Mr. Romney without doubt or hesitation that our economy has two arms and one foot tied behind us not by culture but by occupation.

It’s hard to succeed, Mr. Romney, when roadblocks, checkpoints and draconian restrictions on the movement of goods and people suffocate our business environment. It is a tribute to the indomitable spirit of our Palestinian culture that we have managed to do so well despite such onerous constraints.

It was predictable that Mr. Romney would eventually visit our area — although he didn’t actually set foot on our land or see how we live up close and personal — in order to score points.

Palestinians were genuinely saddened, however, by the fact that he deliberately chose to ignore us. There was nary a word about our plight, our day-to-day challenges, our rights and our future. We were here, just meters away from his entourage, yet we were not on his radar or on his agenda.

Munib R. Masri, a businessman and industrialist, is the chairman of Padico, the Palestine Development and Investment Company.

Destroy the Second Amendment, and Americans soon will fare no better than the Palestinians in their occupied homeland; already life for the average American resembles more and more that of a Palestinian’s – TSA shake downs,  school strip searches, assassination hit lists originating in the Oval Office, the surfacing of FEMA-led takeover documents, Congressional approval of IRS transfer of wealth and job displacement of citizens, a false global war of terror used to legitimize the destruction of Americans' basic human rights, an all-power Department of Homeland Security with a 400,000+ employee army to keep Americans in check …

Says the NRA: Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan— are "two of the most rabid anti-gun justices in history,” and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also is a foe of gun rights. "If we get one more like those three, the Second Amendment is finished," says NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. "It'll be the end of our freedom forever."

[bagehot99]

I don't think the gun grabbers will ever succeed - if they have to expend lives forcibly taking each and every private weapon, which they will if they come for mine, they'll run out of lives long before we run out of guns.

[bank guy in Brussels]

US police agencies ran a real live experiment on gun-grabbing in Louisiana in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath

Americans gave up their guns like sheep, to any group of jackboots at the door

In any society there are only a few brave ones ...

It is one of the cleverest bits of psychology of the American rulers ... take the guns away last instead of first ... in the meantime, impoverish them and psychologically terrorise them with the police state, strip searches and groping, and the legal system ... chip away at all their other rights ... let American imagine they are 'free' if they have a gun while around them is a gulag prison system with 2.3 million prisoners already ...

[Uncle Remus]

You can't take that out of context of a natural disaster.

[BBullionaire]

Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Becomes Everyday Reality

[Darth Mul]

Nervi belli pecunia infinita...

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-secret-behind-an-iran-war-order.premium-1.456524

WOW.

[magpie]

Israel has a very peculiar government bond system.

[pursueliberty]

What most don't take into account is these aren't first time gun purchases in most cases.  I know a couple of people with over 100 guns who still purchase several a year, especially in the last few years.

I've been collecting for around ten years, and I have never purchased less than two in a year.  I've purchased as many as 20 in a single year.

I seriously know a kooky old man that has two collections, one private sale purchases and one he had to do paperwork on, kept in two locations.  The gun trade is far greater than what is seen on those forms.

[cougar_w]

White-hot.

[The Count]

You know what? As tragic as these incidents are, there is a price to pay when you want to be free. Fuck all the liberals that want only the government to have guns. Isn't that the way it was in East Germany and/or the Soviet Union? Tim McVeigh used diesel oil and fertilizer. I dont hear anybody saying BAN DIESEL FUEL, IT IS EVIL. You want to see a free nation with pro gun laws, look no further than Switzerland. Yes, the Swiss and Finns have the most unrestrictive laws in Europe. Both pretty civilized countries I dare say. And they too have a fair share of nuts jobs. 

[rosiescenario]

These numbers are absolutely shocking.....we imported over 50% more than we exported? Shame on our arms industry.