U.S. number one in arms imports

From the warm-and-fuzzy file, via an article in the Arizona Daily Star:

GENEVA — American demand for handguns has fueled a 28 percent jump this decade in world exports of pistols, rifles, shotguns and other small arms, a global report said Thursday.

The 2009 Small Arms Survey reported that the Untied States alone was responsible for about half of the worldwide increase in legal international gun sales between 2000 and 2006. The U.S. now accounts for over half of the world’s imports of pistols and revolvers and 45 percent of shotguns, it said.

“No other country imports more than 4 percent of the global total,” the 344-page report found.

It illustrated how U.S. purchases of hand guns — which averaged $173 million annually — have driven a sharp rise in exports from a number of countries.

Austria remained the world’s largest seller of pistols and revolvers with a 25 percent jump since 2000. Seventy-five percent of its exports go to the United States. Croatian exports soared almost 24 times in value since the start of the decade. The U.S. accounted for 98 percent of its 2006 sales of $27 million.

Gunmakers in Brazil and Italy also have been helped by booming American demand for small arms. ...

Article here. I'll bet the Austrian imports were mostly Glocks.