On the US gun culture ...

The recent tragic mass killings in the US have been unfathomable.  It seems beyond belief that a gunman could turn a gun on little children and shoot not just once but multiple times.  The killings have ignited a debate on whether the US needs tighter gun laws.

The chart below shows the gun deaths per 100,000 people for countries with per capita GDP of $30K+.  It shows just how much of an outlier the US is for gun deaths. 

The US has some extraordinarily lax gun laws.  This post at the Wonkblog examines just how permissive US gun laws are.  They also have a post with some facts on guns which show that:

• Mass shootings are not all that rare in the US with at least 61 mass murders since 1982;
• In most cases, the gunmen in the shooting obtained the guns legally;
• 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the US;
• High gun ownership does not always translate into higher gun violence;
• Of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, 5 of them occurred since 2007;
• America is an unusually violent country. But we’re not as violent as we used to be.
• Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall.
• More guns tend to mean more homicide.
• States with stricter gun control laws have fewer deaths from gun-related violence.
• Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular.  In a separate post, the Wonkblog points out that the lack of popularity can be explained mostly by NRA membership, i.e. gun owners who are not NRA members tend to support stricter gun laws.

What caught my attention are the studies the Wonkblog cites to suggests that there is correlation between high gun ownership and homicide rates which seems interesting to say the least.  

Mother Jones has a fascinating article analyzing mass shootings in the US since 1982.  The most interesting chart they've posted is the following, which does suggest that some types of weapons are significantly more likely to be implicated in a mass shooting. 



None of these conclusively prove that gun control reduces gun violence but it does suggest that the US is a an outlier and that semiautomatic hand guns and assault weapons are the preferred weapons in mass killings.