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America’s unique gun violence problem, explained in 16 maps and charts

In the developed world, these levels of gun violence are a uniquely American problem. Here’s why.

By German [e-mail]@vox.com Updated Aug 5, 2019, 9:53am EDT

The state of gun violence in the US, explained in 18 charts

https://youtu.be/bX4qUsgHa4Y

After mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend, Americans are confronting the country’s unique relationship with guns.

America is certainly an exceptional country when it comes to firearms. It’s one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But the relationship is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most homicidal — in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms.

These maps and charts show what that violence looks like compared with the rest of the world, why it happens, and why it’s such a tough problem to fix.

1) America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany



This chart, compiled using United Nations data collected by Simon Rogers for the Guardian, shows that America far and away leads other developed countries when it comes to gun-related homicides. Why? Extensive reviews of the research, compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health’s Injury Control Research Center, suggest the answer is pretty simple: The US is an outlier on gun violence because it has way more guns than other developed nations.

2) America has more guns than people


Another way of looking at that: Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they own roughly 45 percent of all the world’s privately held firearms.

3) There have been more than 2,000 mass shootings since Sandy Hook



In December 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children, six adults, and himself. Since then, there have been more than 2,000 mass shootings.

The number comes from the Gun Violence Archive, which hosts a database that has tracked mass shootings since 2013. But since some shootings go unreported, the database is likely missing some, as well as the details of some of the events.

The tracker uses a fairly broad definition of “mass shooting”: It includes not just shootings in which four or more people were murdered, but shootings in which four or more people were shot at all (excluding the shooter).

Even under this broad definition, it’s worth noting that mass shootings make up less than 2 percent portion of America’s firearm deaths, which totaled nearly 40,000 in 2017 alone.

4) On average, there is around one mass shooting for each day in America



Whenever a mass shooting occurs, supporters of gun rights often argue that it’s inappropriate to bring up political debates about gun control in the aftermath of a tragedy.

But if this argument is followed to its logical end, then it will just about never be the right time to discuss gun control, as Christopher Ingraham pointed out at the Washington Post. ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/26/were-now-averaging-more-than-one-mass-shooting-per-day-in-2015/?noredirect=on ... Under the broader definition of mass shootings, America has around one mass shooting a day. So if lawmakers are forced to wait for a time when there isn’t a mass shooting to talk gun control, they could find themselves waiting for a very long time.

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5) States with more guns have more gun deaths
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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts