Tamarlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev

Russia is actually a much more diverse country than many realize, with several ethnic groups and states making up the larger Russian Federation. Chechnya is one of those states, home to an ethnic group known as Chechens. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya attempted to become its own independent territory as many of the former Soviet states did. A similar struggle took place in neighboring Dagestan, which, much like Chechnya, is a Muslim majority state within Russia where the suspects are believed to have lived for a time before emigrating to the United States. The Russian federal government launched several all-out wars to keep Chechnya within the country. The last open conflict ended in 1999, with Russian President Vladamir Putin accused of using excessive force against civilians.

Moscow’s victory in the North Caucasus has never been fully cemented, due to an on and off struggle between the separatists in the states and the central government. Various social media accounts discovered possibly belonging to the two suspects indicate that both share a heavy interest in Chechen issues.

Several Chechen separatists groups still exist and have carried out many heinous attacks over the years. The most notorious of these was in the Russian city Beslan, when a Chechen group took an elementary school hostage in 2004. More than 300 hostages were killed during the incident, including 186 children. Chechen separatists were also behind a hostage taking at a Moscow theater, which ended with the Russian government accidentally killing 130 of those inside the building. Chechens have also been identified or suspected as jihadi fighters in conflicts around the world, including in Syria, while continuing to wage an insurgency against Moscow for the establishment of an Islamic state in Chechnya.

Unfortunately, this does not tell us very much at the moment. An ethnicity does not indicate any sort of defined motive or ties to any possible group or groups and law enforcement has yet to provide any confirmation of the current reporting. Chechen groups also have traditionally focused their ire on Russia rather than targeting the United States. Finally, given their lengthy residence it is difficult to discern what — if any — ties or sympathies the two brothers have to Chechen terrorist groups. The older of the brothers — Tamerlan Tsarnaev — has been in the United States for years as a refugee and hoped to box for the United States in the Olympics one day.

In retaliation for the United States placing sanctions on Russian human rights violators, the Russian parliament has passed a bill banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian orphans. The action comes after President Obama signed the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” named for a Russian lawyer who died while in prison, into law on Dec. 14.

The Russians are responding with the Dima Yakovlev bill. The measure commemorates a young boy adopted from Russia who later died in the U.S and places travel sanctions on those Americans whom Russia has deemed violate the human rights of Russian citizens. The Russian Duma, or Parliament, voted unanimously in favor of the bill on Wednesday, and President Vladimir Putin is fully prepared to sign it into law. Putin attempted to head off criticism about the effect the ban will have on the already strained Russian system of care for its orphans:

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people’s patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

“There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?” he said, with sarcasm.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs Olga Golodets says that putting the ban into effect would not only violate Russian federal law, but also international law and a 2011 agreement that the U.S. and Russia put into place regarding adoption. At present, Americans adopt more orphans from Russian than they do any other country.

In the wake of the tragic events in Newtown, CT, a renewed debate about gun laws is forthcoming in the United States. With that in mind, the following is a look at the top ten gun exporting countries around the world, to see how the United States compares to them in that and other areas related to guns and gun violence. All of these numbers come together to paint a picture of a country with high ownership and production of guns, with high rates of death related to that ownership, and yet some of the laxest laws on the planet when it comes to regulating them.

When ranked among the top ten arms exporters, the United States is far and away in the lead in terms of sheer output. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States shipped off a total of $6.6 billion worth of arms in 2009, beating the next closest competitor, Russia, by over a billion dollars. Rounding out the list are Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, Israel, the Netherlands and Italy.

The data combines both private sales from arms manufacturers and government authorized arms trades between states. For a better look at how the latter looks, and how the United States still outperforms all other countries, Google has an interactive look at where all these guns go.

Not only does the United States ship off the most guns in the world, its people own the most guns among the top ten exporters. The Small Arms Survey in 2007 pulled together a database of several countries’ gun ownership per 100 people, and found that an average of 88 guns per 100 people within the U.S. In comparison, the next highest country, France, had only 33 guns for every 100 citizens.

Rather than looking at the sheer number of deaths caused by firearms in the top ten exporters, a more accurate way to compare them is by gun deaths per 100,000 citizens. In that ranking, for those who break gun deaths out from their annual murder rate, the United States is again at the top of the list, this per the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.

The United States in 2009 had 3 gun deaths for every 100,000 people over the course of the year, completely eclipsing the next nearest country’s rate of .96, coming from Israel, by a wide margin. When you factor in the .243 rate of France, the second-highest gun owning country, the United States’ gun troubles seem even more problematic. Notable in this context, in the aftermath of mass shootings, other countries have tightened their laws accordingly and seen a drop in gun violence.

One of the few areas related to gun ownership and violence where the United States does not come in at the top among the biggest arms exporters is the percentage of homicides within the country carried out using a firearm. In that statistic, Italy holds the first position, with the United States in second. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the Organization of American States, 60 percent of the murders in the U.S. in 2009 involved a firearm.