Some gun control stats

by andreipop on 12/17/2012, 8:23 PM with 2 comments

A lot of people are posting about gun control given the recent events in the US. I thought some stats would be interesting. When considering whether gun control is the right approach to curb these atrocities we would benefit from examining these numbers (and others) to help aid (or disprove) our arguments.

A 2007 survey has the US gun ownership rates at 88.8 per 100 residents. They rank #1 in the world, with Serbia ranking #2 (58.2 guns). Canada has 30.8 guns / 100 residents.

The US also ranks quite high in firearm-related death rates. On average 9 per 100,000 citizens per year, 3 of which are homicides. Canada is about half of that at 4.8 (of which only 0.76 are homicides). FYI, the highest in this category is El Salvador with 50 and a few other central american countries (jamaica, honduras, guatemala) not far behind.

In terms of school shootings, the statistics are quite well documented. The US actually has its own "school shootings" wikipedia page if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States - European, Canadian, etc are referenced here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting

5 of the top 10 deadliest school massacres were in the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres

  • by b0o on 12/17/2012, 8:48 PM

    Same survey (maybe?) shows that U.S. gun owners on average own 4.4(ish) guns per owner. A quick search of the number of guns in the whole world gives me a wiki.answers.com reply of some 12 billion guns in the whole world (excluding .50 cal and above weapons) and wikipedia says the population of the world is around 7 billion. There are also surveys that show how gun ownership is at pre-1970s levels (at around 70ish/100 residents)

  • by jessaustin on 12/17/2012, 9:07 PM

    All deaths in the 1927 Kehoe Massacre were attributed to dynamite. Charles Whitman would have killed more in 1966 if he weren't hampered by return fire from armed civilians as well as police. I'm sure we're seeing some sample bias toward more recent events here as well.

    Firearm possession in elementary and secondary schools by anyone other than LEOs is prohibited by federal law.

    It's also true that violent crime in the USA has been falling for decades.