Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns.

Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns.

By Max Fisher and Josh Keller

Nov. 7, 2017 at the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html



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The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.

A Look at the Numbers

The top-line numbers suggest a correlation that, on further investigation, grows only clearer.

Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Adjusted for population, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people — a distinction Mr. Lankford urged to avoid outliers. Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.

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