Monday, October 5, 2015

The Truth About Mass Shootings



We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings, every few months.
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.  It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency.

HORSE PUCKY

Adjusted for population the statement above is patently false.  

The frequency of mass public shootings per million people is .247 in Switzerland, .196 in Norway, .183 in Finland, and .178 in Belgium.  By comparison the rate in the US is .088, in the Netherlands it is .059 and in France it is .047.

It should also be noted that the countries that top the US in frequency of mass shootings also have far more restrictive gun laws then we do.


Murder rates are determined by basic socio-cultural and economic factors rather than the availability of weaponry.  Norway has Western Europe's highest household gun ownership rate (32%), but also its lowest murder rate.  Sweden lies in the middle at 15% ownership and the Netherlands  has the lowest rate of Western European gun ownership rate (1.9%) but a murder rate exceeding both Norway and Sweden.



Here's an interesting statistic to chew on:

Concealed carry permit holders as a group, commit crime (12.5/100,000) at a rate ten times lower than police officers (124/100,000) do. 

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