The United States has had 146 mass shootings (four or more people dead), between 1966 and 2017 .... So is it because American society is unusually violent? Perhaps its citizens lack proper mental care under a failed mental health care system that the poor can't access?
In fact, only one theory is supported by the evidence ....
That is that the only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its massive number of guns in comparison to any other country. US citizens account for around 42 per cent of the world’s guns and yet only 4.4 percent of the global population.
According to research conducted by the University of Alabama, between 1966 and 2012, 31 per cent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were US males. Even after being adjusted for population sizes, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people. Unsurprisingly Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.
Other research has shown that a country’s rate of gun ownership correlates with the odds that it would experience a mass shooting. This still being true when the US is removed from the figures or even adjusted for normal homicide rates.
When I looked at mental health care spending, I found reports stating that the rates of spending in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita, and the diagnosis rate of severe mental disorders, are all pretty much in line with those of other wealthy countries, so that's not the factor I thought it might be. In point of fact a 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths, including mass shootings, could be attributed to mental health issues.
It seems as though, although only a minority of US homicides seen, grow out of criminal encounters like robbery and rape, and most US homicides grow out of arguments and other social encounters between acquaintances than robbery or rape, the ready presence of firearms, makes tense situations far more likely to turn deadly.
Although the USA's gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, a rate which exceeded the average among developed countries (Canada and Britain, had rates of 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively), the US rate also corresponds with differences in gun ownership levels. So the US is no more criminal than other developed countries, but US crime is very much more lethal. E.g. A New Yorker is apparently just as likely to be robbed or subject to a burglary, as a Londoner, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.
In most counties, a citizen has to show the right to own a gun. The United States along with Mexico and Guatemala, are the only 3 countries that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.
Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United States. Its gun homicide rate in 2004 was 7.7 per million people — unusually high, in keeping with the relationship between gun ownership and murders, but still a fraction of the rate in the United States.
In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America’s population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths. In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012. Most used knives; none used a gun.
Yet another study showed that between 2000 and 2014, the United States death rate by mass shooting was 1.5 per one million people. The comparative rates for other developed countries was 1.7 in Switzerland, and 3.4 in Finland, suggesting that American mass shootings were not actually so common. But the same study found that the United States had 133 mass shootings. Finland had only two (which killed 18 people), and Switzerland had one, which killed 14. In short, isolated incidents outside of the USA.
So while mass shootings can happen anywhere, they are only a matter of routine in the United States. One US commentator has pointed out that the 'Sandy Hook school killing' (the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students), marked the end of the US gun control debate because "once the US decided killing children was something its society could live with, the debate was over.”
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| Just 90 Mass Shootings From 1966 to 2012 - But 56 Since Then. |
In fact, only one theory is supported by the evidence ....
That is that the only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its massive number of guns in comparison to any other country. US citizens account for around 42 per cent of the world’s guns and yet only 4.4 percent of the global population.
 |
| Yemen Is Worse Than The US .... Just. |
According to research conducted by the University of Alabama, between 1966 and 2012, 31 per cent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were US males. Even after being adjusted for population sizes, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people. Unsurprisingly Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.
Other research has shown that a country’s rate of gun ownership correlates with the odds that it would experience a mass shooting. This still being true when the US is removed from the figures or even adjusted for normal homicide rates.
When I looked at mental health care spending, I found reports stating that the rates of spending in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita, and the diagnosis rate of severe mental disorders, are all pretty much in line with those of other wealthy countries, so that's not the factor I thought it might be. In point of fact a 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths, including mass shootings, could be attributed to mental health issues.
It seems as though, although only a minority of US homicides seen, grow out of criminal encounters like robbery and rape, and most US homicides grow out of arguments and other social encounters between acquaintances than robbery or rape, the ready presence of firearms, makes tense situations far more likely to turn deadly.
Although the USA's gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, a rate which exceeded the average among developed countries (Canada and Britain, had rates of 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively), the US rate also corresponds with differences in gun ownership levels. So the US is no more criminal than other developed countries, but US crime is very much more lethal. E.g. A New Yorker is apparently just as likely to be robbed or subject to a burglary, as a Londoner, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.
In most counties, a citizen has to show the right to own a gun. The United States along with Mexico and Guatemala, are the only 3 countries that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.
Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United States. Its gun homicide rate in 2004 was 7.7 per million people — unusually high, in keeping with the relationship between gun ownership and murders, but still a fraction of the rate in the United States.
In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America’s population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths. In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012. Most used knives; none used a gun.
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| Homicide Rates By Firearm 2012. |
Yet another study showed that between 2000 and 2014, the United States death rate by mass shooting was 1.5 per one million people. The comparative rates for other developed countries was 1.7 in Switzerland, and 3.4 in Finland, suggesting that American mass shootings were not actually so common. But the same study found that the United States had 133 mass shootings. Finland had only two (which killed 18 people), and Switzerland had one, which killed 14. In short, isolated incidents outside of the USA.
So while mass shootings can happen anywhere, they are only a matter of routine in the United States. One US commentator has pointed out that the 'Sandy Hook school killing' (the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students), marked the end of the US gun control debate because "once the US decided killing children was something its society could live with, the debate was over.”
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