alt Hacker NewsI'm in the US. At least half of the people I know own shortwave radios, although most don't think of them as "shortwave radios". They're more often called "world radios" or some other such synonym. I could run out to a consumer electronics store right now and buy one.
The younger people I know tend to own such a radio in the form of the Baofeng UV-5R or the like.
A Baofeng UV-5R cannot receive shortwave, it's in the VHF/UHF range for receive/transmit and can receive commercial FM broadcast.