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How America's Gun Culture Compares to the Rest of the World

2022-05-24T23:29:17.053Z


America's relationship with gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is an outlier in the world. (CNN) -- Atlanta. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. Saint Bernardine. Brooklyn. buffalo. Uvalde. America's pervasive gun violence has left few places unscathed over the decades. Still, many Americans consider their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, sacrosanct. But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: the right to life. America's relationship w


(CNN) --

Atlanta.

Orlando.

Las Vegas.

Newtown.

Parkland.

Saint Bernardine.

Brooklyn.

buffalo.

Uvalde.

America's pervasive gun violence has left few places unscathed over the decades.

Still, many Americans consider their right to bear arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, sacrosanct.

But critics of the Second Amendment say that right threatens another: the right to life.

America's relationship with gun ownership is unique, and its gun culture is an outlier in the world.

  • How many mass shootings have there been in the United States in 2022?

As the number of gun-related deaths continues to rise each day, here's a look at America's gun culture compared to the rest of the world.

There are 120 firearms for every 100 Americans, according to the Swiss Small Arms Survey (SAS).

No other nation has more civilian weapons than people.

The Malvinas Islands, a British territory in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean known as the Falklands, claimed by Argentina and the subject of a war in 1982, are home to the world's second largest arsenal of civilian weapons per capita.

Yet with an estimated 62 guns per 100 people, its gun ownership rate is nearly half that of the United States.

Yemen, a country mired in a seven-year conflict, has the third-highest gun ownership rate, with 53 guns per 100 people.

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  • ANALYSIS |

    Support for gun control just hit its lowest point in nearly a decade

Although the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is difficult to estimate due to factors such as unregistered weapons, illegal trade, and global conflict, SAS researchers estimate that Americans own 393 million of the 857 million guns. available civilians, which is about 46% of the world's civilian arsenal.

About 44% of American adults live in a household with a gun, and about a third personally own one, according to an October 2020 Gallup poll.

Some nations have high gun ownership due to illegal stockpiles from past conflicts or lax ownership restrictions, but the US is one of only three countries in the world where gun carrying (or possession) is a constitutional right, according to Zachary Elkins, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and director of the Comparative Constitutions Project.

However, the possession rate in the other two countries, Guatemala and Mexico, is almost a tenth that of the United States.

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America has a sad history of mass shootings.

In this gallery we tell you which were the deadliest.

The order is by number of deaths →

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Oct. 1, 2017 - Las Vegas shooting - A 64-year-old man opened fire at a country concert on the Strip, leaving 58 dead and nearly 700 injured (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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June 12, 2016 - 49 people were killed at Orlando's Pulse bar when 29-year-old Omar Saddiqui Mateen opened fire at the nightclub.

More than 50 were injured.

(Credit: WKMG/CNN)

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April 16, 2007 – Virginia Tech massacre: 32 people are killed in the attack on a 23-year-old student who killed himself after opening fire on the university campus.

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December 14, 2012 - Sandy Hook School Massacre: Adam Lanza, 20, shoots and kills dozens of children, killing at least 20 between six and seven years old, six adults, then takes his own life.

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On November 5, 2017, a man walks into a small Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and shoots 25 people and an unborn baby dead.

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Oct. 16, 1991 – Luby's Cafe Massacre in Killeen, Texas: A 35-year-old man crashed his truck through the door of a Luby's Cafe in Killeen, Texas.

23 people were killed and the attacker committed suicide.

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On August 3, 2019, twenty people were killed when a man walked into a Walmart in El Paso and opened fire.

22 people died.

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On February 14, 2018, a former student opens fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, opens fire.

There were 17 deaths.

(Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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November 5, 2017 - At least 26 people were killed in a shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

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August 3, 2019 - In El Paso, Texas, 22 people were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart store.

Authorities say they found an anti-immigrant document espousing white nationalist and racist views, which they believe was written by suspect Patrick Crusius, 21.

It is investigated as internal terrorism.

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July 18, 1984 – San Ysidro, California McDonald's Massacre: A 41-year-old man killed 21 people at a local restaurant.

Police killed the attacker an hour after the shooting began.

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February 14, 2018 - Nikolas Cruz, 19, attacked students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing at least 17 adults and children.

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August 1, 1966 - Massacre at the University of Texas at Austin: 16 people were killed and at least 30 wounded when a former military man opened fire from a tower at the university.

The police shot him down.

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May 24, 2022 - At least 14 children and a teacher are killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

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December 2, 2015 - San Bernardino Massacre: A married couple opened fire at a meeting of employees at a center in San Bernardino killing 14 people.

The gun debate in those countries is less politicized, Elkins said.

Unlike the United States, the constitutions of Guatemala and Mexico make regulation easier, and lawmakers feel more comfortable restricting guns, especially because of concerns about organized crime, he said.

In Mexico, there is only one gun store in the entire country, and it is controlled by the army.

In the United States, firearms manufacturing is on the rise, as more Americans buy guns.

In 2018, gun manufacturers produced 9 million firearms in the country, more than double the number made in 2008, according to the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). in English).

Most recently, January 2021 marked the largest annual increase since 2013 in federal background check requests needed to buy a gun, an increase of nearly 60% from January 2020.

And in March 2021, the FBI reported nearly 4.7 million background checks, the most of any month since the agency began keeping records more than 20 years ago.

Two million of those checks were for new gun purchases, making it the second-highest month on record for firearm sales, according to the National Shooting Sports Federation, the firearms industry trade group. fire that compares FBI background check figures with actual sales data to determine your sales figures.

Nearly a third of U.S. adults believe there would be less crime if more people had guns, according to an April 2021 Pew survey. Yet multiple studies show that where people have easy access to firearms, firearm-related deaths tend to be more frequent, including from suicide, homicide, and unintentional injury.

It is therefore not surprising that the United States has more deaths from gun violence than any other developed country per capita.

The rate in the United States is eight times that of Canada, which has the seventh highest gun ownership rate in the world;

22 times higher than that of the European Union and 23 times higher than that of Australia, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of 2019.

The firearm-related homicide rate in Washington, the highest of any state or district in the United States, approaches the levels of Brazil, which ranks sixth in the world for firearm-related homicides, according to IHME figures.

Globally, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean suffer the highest rates of homicides with firearms, with El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia and Honduras in the lead.

Drug cartel activities and the presence of firearms from former conflicts are contributing factors, according to the 2018 Global Mortality From Firearms, 1990-2016 study.

But gun-related violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is also exacerbated by guns that come from the United States.

Some 200,000 firearms from the United States cross the Mexican border each year, according to a February 2021 US government accountability report, citing the Mexican government.

  • Mexico sued US manufacturers over the thousands of guns smuggled across the border each year.

    You can win?

In 2019, about 68% of firearms seized by forces in Mexico and sent to ATF for identification were traced to the United States.

And about half of the weapons the ATF reviewed after being seized in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama were officially manufactured or imported into the United States.

Although personal safety tops the list of reasons American gun owners say they own a firearm, 63% of firearm-related deaths in the United States are self-inflicted.

More than 23,000 Americans died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 2019. That number represents 44% of gun suicides globally and far outpaces the suicide totals of any other country in the world.

With six gun suicides per 100,000 people, the US suicide rate is, on average, seven times higher than other developed nations.

Globally, the US rate is second only to Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory with relatively high gun ownership (22 guns per 100 people).

Multiple studies have reported an association between gun ownership and gun-related suicides.

  • ANALYSIS |

    The Rittenhouse case is the latest symbol of a country divided by guns, crime, protests and racism

One such study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, found that men who owned guns were nearly eight times more likely to die from self-inflicted gunshot wounds than men who didn't own a gun.

Women who owned guns were 35 times more likely to die by gun suicide compared to those who did not, according to the 2020 study, which surveyed 26 million California residents over a period of more than 11 years. years.

Regular mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon.

The United States is the only developed country in which mass shootings have occurred every year for the past 20 years, according to Jason R. Silva, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University.

To compare the different countries, Silva uses a conservative definition of a mass shooting: an event that leaves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter, and that excludes criminal activities for profit, family homicides and state-sponsored violence. .

Using this approach, 68 people were killed and 91 injured in eight public shootings in the United States over the course of 2019 alone.

A broader definition of mass shootings reveals an even higher number.

The Gun Violence Archive, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that CNN relies on to report on mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident that leaves at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter. , and does not differentiate victims based on the circumstances in which they were shot.

The Gun Violence Archive counted 693 mass shootings in 2021. And this year there have been 212 incidents.

  • The deadliest mass shootings in recent US history

State policies on weapons also seem to play a role.

A 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal found that US states with more permissive gun laws and greater gun ownership had higher rates of mass shootings.

The administration of President Joe Biden has renewed calls for gun reform after mass shootings in Colorado, South Carolina and Texas.

In March, the House of Representatives passed a law that would require private and unlicensed sellers, as well as all licensed sellers, to conduct federal background checks before all gun sales, and to ensure buyers are vetted. thoroughly before making the sale.

The bills are now stuck in the Senate, where, despite efforts by some Democrats to rally bipartisan support, there has been no sign that they have the votes needed to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.

Political blockades have paralyzed these efforts in the United States for decades.

And that partisan division is also reflected in the population, since 80% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats think that the laws on guns in the country are more or less correct or should be less strict, according to the Pew survey. of April.

Meanwhile, mass shootings continue to drive demand for more guns, experts say, and gun control activists argue the time for reform is long overdue.

Researchers at the Whitney R. Harris Institute for World Law at Washington University in Saint Louis made this argument to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2018, saying that the "failure" of the US government to prevent and reduce violence related to weapons through "reasonable and effective domestic measures has limited the ability of Americans to enjoy many fundamental freedoms and guarantees protected by international human rights law," including the right to life and bodily integrity.

UN bodies have also highlighted these concerns, pointing to US "stand your ground" or self-defense laws, which allow gun owners in at least 25 states to use deadly force in any situation they believe. who are facing an imminent threat of harm, without first making any effort to de-escalate the situation or withdraw.

A 2019 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that the law may encourage people to respond to situations with deadly force, rather than use it as a last resort.

In a 2020 essay published by the Center for American Progress, a Washington liberal think tank, gun control advocate Rukmani Bhatia said the US gun lobby has taken over a rights-based narrative" to justify, dangerously, the right to bear, carry and use firearms".

"Stand your ground" legislation, he said, "warps people's understanding of their rights to safety and, in the worst case, empowers them to take someone else's right to life."

Meanwhile, countries that have introduced laws to reduce gun-related deaths have made significant changes.

  • What Australia and Britain did after the shootings (and what the US didn't do)

A decade of gun violence, culminating in the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, prompted the Australian government to take action.

Less than two weeks after Australia's worst mass shooting, the federal government launched a new program banning rifles and shotguns and unifying licenses and registrations for gun owners across the country.

In the following 10 years, firearm deaths in Australia fell by more than 50%.

A 2010 study found that the government's buyback program in 1997, which was part of the overall reform, led to an average drop of 74% in gun suicide rates over the next five years.

Other countries are also showing promising results after changing their gun laws.

In South Africa, firearm-related deaths almost halved over a 10-year period following the entry into force of new gun legislation, the Firearms Control Act 2000, in July 2004 The new laws made it much more difficult to obtain a firearm.

In New Zealand, gun laws were quickly changed after the Christchurch mosque shooting in 2019. Just 24 hours after the attack, which killed 51 people, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced changes to the law.

New Zealand's parliament voted almost unanimously to change the country's gun laws less than a month later, banning all military-style semi-automatic weapons.

  • Christchurch massacre puts New Zealand's lax gun control laws in the spotlight

The UK tightened its gun laws and banned most private handgun ownership after a 1996 mass shooting, a move that saw gun deaths drop by nearly a quarter in a decade.

In August 2021, a licensed firearms holder killed five people in Plymouth, England, marking the worst mass shooting since 2010.

Following the incident, police said they had returned the shooter's gun license just months after it was revoked due to assault allegations.

The UK government then asked the police to review its licensing practices and said it would come up with new guidance to improve background procedures, including checking social media.

Many countries around the world have been able to deal with gun violence.

Yet despite the thousands of lives lost in the United States, only about half of American adults favor tougher gun laws, according to the recent Pew poll, and political reform remains stalled.

The deadly cycle of violence seems destined to continue.

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How CNN made this report:

For gun ownership rates, CNN relied on the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a project of the University Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

The project estimates civilian gun stocks through a combination of gun sales and registration figures, public surveys, expert estimates, and cross-country comparisons.

The rate of gun ownership per 100 people is not the same as the proportion of people who own guns, as some may own multiple guns and others none.

For gun death totals and rates, CNN used the Global Burden of Disease database compiled by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

Firearm-related deaths include physical violence (homicide), self-harm (suicide), and unintentional injuries.

Although rates are preferable for cross-country comparisons, for suicides we illustrate totals to highlight the difference between the US and other countries.

In comparing US statistics with those of other developed countries, we use a UN definition found in the United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects report, which is intended to "reflect the basic economic conditions of the countries" and does not strictly conform to the UN Statistics Division classification known as M49.

To calculate numbers for mass shootings, including incidents, fatalities and injuries in the United States, CNN typically relies on data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).

In order to make international comparisons for this report, we also use data compiled by Jason R. Silva, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at William Paterson University.

Silva's definition is stricter than that of CNN and the GVA because it excludes incidents related to criminal activity for profit, family homicide and state-sponsored violence.

-- Henrik Pettersson contributed to this report.

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-05-24

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