First, the total-gun-death numbers are not population-adjusted and therefore useless without additional context. The same article does have the population-adjusted numbers and the USA is, predictably, not in the top ten.
Second, once the numbers are adjusted for population, there are some very strange results. For example, apparently Iraq actually has slightly fewer gun deaths per capita than the USA. Nigeria, the country where Boko Haram is based, has four times fewer gun deaths per capita than the USA?! Clearly the gun-death numbers correspond more to how well records are kept in a country than they do to the actual numbers of gun deaths.
Oh, and those gun death numbers include suicides, not just murders. Most gun deaths in the USA are suicides. A suicide is technically a gun death, but not usually the sort that people have in mind when discussing a school shooting.
everything you said is true. i just wanted to add something to the suicide point: owning a gun has been tied with an increased risk of suicide. source
here’s a quote from the link that i think gives a good summary of the problem:
“Suicide attempts are often impulsive acts, driven by transient life crises,” the authors write. “Most attempts are not fatal, and most people who attempt suicide do not go on to die in a future suicide. Whether a suicide attempt is fatal depends heavily on the lethality of the method used — and firearms are extremely lethal. These facts focus attention on firearm access as a risk factor for suicide especially in the United States, which has a higher prevalence of civilian-owned firearms than any other country and one of the highest rates of suicide by firearm.”
That said, where there’s a will, there is indeed a way. Japan for example has abysmal suicide rates, they have a huge shame culture and it’s culturally (more) accepted with the seppuku and the suicide forests and all, and they also have virtually 0 gun ownership. Suicide is still very easy without a gun, and a gun is not even the most effective method statistically (though I hesitate to say what is because it’s literally accessible to most of the world’s population within a 10-20min walk at all times. Don’t do it, seek help, keep fighting.)
Those numbers aren’t right.
First, the total-gun-death numbers are not population-adjusted and therefore useless without additional context. The same article does have the population-adjusted numbers and the USA is, predictably, not in the top ten.
Second, once the numbers are adjusted for population, there are some very strange results. For example, apparently Iraq actually has slightly fewer gun deaths per capita than the USA. Nigeria, the country where Boko Haram is based, has four times fewer gun deaths per capita than the USA?! Clearly the gun-death numbers correspond more to how well records are kept in a country than they do to the actual numbers of gun deaths.
Oh, and those gun death numbers include suicides, not just murders. Most gun deaths in the USA are suicides. A suicide is technically a gun death, but not usually the sort that people have in mind when discussing a school shooting.
everything you said is true. i just wanted to add something to the suicide point: owning a gun has been tied with an increased risk of suicide. source
here’s a quote from the link that i think gives a good summary of the problem:
That said, where there’s a will, there is indeed a way. Japan for example has abysmal suicide rates, they have a huge shame culture and it’s culturally (more) accepted with the seppuku and the suicide forests and all, and they also have virtually 0 gun ownership. Suicide is still very easy without a gun, and a gun is not even the most effective method statistically (though I hesitate to say what is because it’s literally accessible to most of the world’s population within a 10-20min walk at all times. Don’t do it, seek help, keep fighting.)
And again the old and stupid claim from the gun nuts: suicides by firearms are no firearm related deaths…