Sorry, Despite Gun-Control Advocates' Claims, U.S. Isn't The Worst Country For Mass Shootings

 
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  • 2/20/2018

Gun Deaths: It's become commonplace to hear after a U.S. shooting tragedy that, when it comes to guns, America is just more violent than other countries, especially those in Europe, where many countries have stiff gun-control laws. It's a progressive shibboleth, but even some conservatives agree. The only problem is, it's not true.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Yes, America does have a lot of gun violence. But more than other countries, especially in Europe?

To listen to America's politicians, you'd think that was the case.


 

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President Obama talked about it a lot, including in June of 2015, after a gunman shot nine people in a Charleston, North Carolina church: "Let's be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Obama said. 

Days later, Sen. Harry Reid echoed his comments. "The United States is the only advanced country where this kind of mass violence occurs," he said.

More recently, the tragic, preventable slaying of 17 students by accused gunman Nikolas Cruz elicited similar sentiments from Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking in the Senate just  last Thursday: "This happens nowhere else other than the United States of America."

Powerful remarks, and no doubt heartfelt. But a study of global mass-shooting incidents from 2009 to 2015 by the Crime Prevention Research Center, headed by economist John Lott, shows the U.S. doesn't lead the world in mass shootings. In fact, it doesn't even make the top 10, when measured by death rate per million population from mass public shootings.

So who's tops? Surprisingly, Norway is, with an outlier mass shooting death rate of 1.888 per million (high no doubt because of the rifle assault by political extremist Anders Brevik that claimed 77 lives in 2011). No. 2 is Serbia, at just 0.381, followed by France at 0.347, Macedonia at 0.337, and Albania at 0.206. Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, and Czech Republic all follow. Then comes the U.S., at No. 11, with a death rate of 0.089.

That's not all. There were also 27% more casualties from 2009 to 2015 per mass shooting incident in the European Union than in the U.S.

"There were 16 cases where at least 15 people were killed," the study said. "Out of those cases, four were in the United States, two in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom."

"But the U.S. has a population four times greater than Germany's and five times the U.K.'s, so on a per-capita basis the U.S. ranks low in comparison — actually, those two countries would have had a frequency of attacks 1.96 (Germany) and 2.46 (UK) times higher."

Yes, the U.S. rate is still high, and nothing to be proud of. But it's not the highest in the developed world. Not by a long shot.

Yet, some today propose banning rifles, in particular AR-15s, because they've been used in a number of mass killings. It's important to note however that, according to FBI crime data cited this week by the Daily Caller, deaths by knives in the U.S. outnumber deaths by rifles by five to 1: In 2016, 1,604 people were killed by knives and other cutting instruments, while 374 were killed by rifles.

So is it not fair to ask: If we're banning rifles, why not knives, too?

The point is, guns aren't the problem; deranged killers that grow up in broken families often without positive male role models in their lives are the problem. So are political and religious extremists, in particular Islamists. If these people didn't have guns, they would find some other means to do the job.

Bombs are illegal in both the U.S. and Europe. Yet Europe loses far more people to bombings than the U.S. Doesn't that make them more violent?

In the most recent mass killing here in the U.S., what's upsetting is that Nikolas Cruz, as is usually the case, showed all the signs of a potential killer. He had been expelled from school. He made repeated violent threats. Deputies had made no fewer than 39 visits to his home. He left comments on a web video saying "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." After being notified about the disturbing message, the FBI looked into it, but did nothing.

In this, Cruz is typical. As columnist SE Cupp notes, "the stunning commonality in all these mass shootings ... is that the men who perpetrate them are sick — Las Vegas, Pulse nightclub, Newtown, Columbine, Charleston, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora — on and on, these killers were mentally ill and in almost every case, someone knew it."

Sweeping gun control laws may sound good, but they won't keep handguns and rifles out of the hands of criminals. They will make it even harder for honest Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights, however.

Rather than politicizing the deaths of 17 people, Democrats and others should instead be pushing for better school security, and for our law enforcement agencies to respond more aggressively to clear threats. Those who are severely mentally ill or psychotic or potentially violent need help. And those that kill for political or religious reasons often show clear signs of being violent. No amount of gun control can stop that.