Edinburgh, August 27 (RHC)-- Reverend Jesse Jackson, a prominent civil rights activist in the United States, has said that Americans have become "much too violent" and the number of guns in their hands shows that the country is "playing with mayhem."

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Jackson reflected on the heightened racial tensions in the United States over the past year, where police violence against African-Americans has surged and armed attacks against racial minorities has been on the rise.

"We've simply become much too violent. We make the most guns and we shoot them. Americans have approximately three guns per person on average," the civil rights activist said.

Under President Barack Obama, gun production in the United States has seen a 140 percent increase, reaching 10.8 million firearms in 2013, the most recent year for which the statistics are available. Around 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the country raking in between 2 to 3 billion dollars for gun manufacturers.

Reports by The Gun Violence Archive indicate that over 8,300 have been killed and 17,000 people have been injured in various U.S. shootings since the beginning of 2015. "It's just fundamentally wrong and dangerous to have such easy access to weapons."

The Reverend Jesse Jackson commented about the Charleston, South Carolina shooting, where a white supremacist killed nine African-Americans in a church in July. "What is striking to me is that each incident is worse than the last one," the anti-gun campaigner said. "You combine weapons with the vitriol of hate and fear, that's a toxic combination."

He slammed the waving of the confederate flag in the U.S., saying: "Can you imagine a state in Germany having the right to fly a Nazi flag? It's ridiculously unreasonable."

Reverend Jackson was recently awarded an honorary degree by the University of Edinburgh. He received the Doctor Honoris Causa degree for years of advocating for civil rights in the United States.