During WWII, fearing a German invasion and having effectively disarmed the population, Great Britain was desperate for small arms. Their desperation was so great that they begged the US for firearms to arm the citizens if necessary. Hundreds of thousands of rifles and handguns were sent from the US to Great Britain, most from US armories, but many thousands were loaned by ordinary US citizens with little hope of ever seeing their firearms again.
Also, the Japanese flat out rejected an invasion of the US mainland because they knew that the US citizen was probably the most heavily armed citizen in the world.
Thank you for those facts, which I was not aware of. I will gather this information along with some of the other I am receiving and send a follow-up email to those I sent the original too. This is too important to quit talking about!