This day in history: On this day in 2007, the Jokela school shooting in Jokela, Tuusula, Finland, took place, resulting in the death of nine people.
It is often said that America has the worst rate of gun murder and gun crime of any of the civilized countries of the world. According to the New York Times’s editorial page, “the American murder rate is roughly 15 times that of other wealthy countries, which have much tougher laws controlling private ownership of guns.”
However, this is not true.
From Dana Loesch: "The combined murder and suicide rate in the United States is lower than in Belgium, Switzerland, France, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Russia. In many of those cases, our rate is far, far smaller than the rate in European countries. For example, our suicide rate is 43 percent of Finland’s, and our murder rate is 25 percent of Russia’s.
Other continents have even worse crime. The murder rate in the United States is lower than the murder rate in 'most of Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, all but one South American nation, and all of Central America and Mexico.' Additionally, among the world’s nations, there’s no correlation between fewer guns and less crime. To the contrary, among developed countries, the countries that have the fewest guns (like Turkey, Chile, and Estonia) often have the most crime. On the other hand, Switzerland, which has more guns per capita than all but two other countries in the world, has a far lower murder rate than countries that heavily restrict guns, like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. Even the Washington Post—in a rare moment of lucidity—has had to admit that 'countries with the most guns don’t necessarily have the most gun-related homicides.'"
"Although 192 countries report total homicides, only 116 of them report firearm homicides. Among countries that don't release firearm homicide data, their combined homicide rate is 11.1 per 100,000. This is far above both the US rate and the global average. If these high-homicide countries were to report their firearm homicide rates, they would almost surely outrank the US." Gun Control Myths by John R. Lott Jr.
See also: Media Bias About Guns
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