"That's what separates this country," noted Brian Mobley, a concealed handgun trainer in League City, which also boasts the highest number of concealed-gun licenses in Texas. "We're the most heavily armed country in the world, but we're also the freest country in the world."

Fortunately, we can assess such an argument not through historic hagiography and patriotic revision, but through the facts at hand. If such a right correlates so directly with democratic freedoms within America, such realities should exist elsewhere, correct?

Not exactly. Compiling data from the most recent Small Arms Survey (SAS), the most wide-ranging international survey of civilian gun ownership, and the Freedom House Index, which tabulates both political rights and civil liberties, it's apparent that the correlation between democratic structures and a well-armed citizenry is, at best, slight. Here's the Freedom House index, in red (a higher ranking means less freedom), compared with the number of guns, in blue:

According to Dr. Justin Silver, a statistical researcher at Rice University, the Spearman correlation between the two tallies is only -0.33. (Such correlation is negative because Freedom House, via a one-through-seven scale, tacks a lower score to nations with greater freedoms.) The relationship is observable, but minor.

"I don't see any trend," said Arch Puddington, vice president of research at Freedom House. "Press freedom, the freedom of expression, is a pretty good indicator of the direction a country is going in -- if leadership is circumscribing the freedom of expression, the likelihood is that they're doing other unworthy things as well." But a link between an armed citizenry and democratic realities? "That's baloney."

Unsurprisingly, those who stake such a relationship often limit the nations they cite. The gun-toting United States (88.8 civilian guns per 100 residents, according to SAS) and Switzerland (45.7) are typically juxtaposed with the relatively gun-free China (4.9) and Cuba (4.8) as sufficient proof that a populace needs to amass arms in order to keep one's government at bay.

But regardless of how often the maxim is repeated, such cherry-picking obfuscates the reality that the U.S., Switzerland, China, and Cuba are but a handful of the 175 nations for which we have comprehensive data. Just because these four countries fit within a pro-weaponized argument does not lend it legitimacy. After all, Ghana (0.4) and Indonesia (0.5), both within the bottom 10 of the world's gun-owners, were each tabbed as "Free" by Freedom House, while the heavily-armed Yemen (54.8) and Saudi Arabia (35.0) remain among the most repressive countries in the world.

A quick scan through the list continues the point. Chile (10.7) comes in with the same arms rate as Venezuela, but the nations present starkly divergent civil freedoms. Russia (8.9) is slightly more armed than Ireland (8.6). The Netherlands (3.9) is on par, as far as weapons go, with oppressive Turkmenistan (3.8). Israel and Georgia see the same arms rate as Iran and Belarus and yet exist on opposite ends of Freedom House's rank.