Zack Beauchamp maps American exceptionalism when it comes to gun ownership:
Here’s a map of firearm ownership around the world, using 2012 data compiled by The Guardian. The United States has nearly twice as many guns per 100 people as the next closest, Yemen — 88.8 guns per 100 as opposed to 54.8 in Yemen. … How does this relate to homicide rates? Not simply. For instance, the United States has over 12 times as many guns per person as Honduras, but the 2012 US gun homicide rate per 100,000 people (2.97) is 1/22 of Honduras’ (68.43). That’s because, while guns make murder easier, wealthy industrialized countries generally have significantly lower rates of violent crime than comparatively impoverished ones. But when you compare the United States to nations like Britain and Japan, it becomes clear that firearm ownership contributes to America’s murder problem. The American homicide rate is about 20 times the average among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (excluding Mexico).
Also, although mass shootings are getting more media coverage, they actually aren’t on the rise:
It’s clear that there is no major upward trend. And slicing the data differently doesn’t make a difference — [James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University] said that since homicides are on the downswing in general, the overall shape of the graph wouldn’t change much if you changed the definition of a mass shooting to, say, three victims or more. There isn’t even any upswing in the number of school shooting victims, at least based on the Department of Education’s own official statistics (PDF).
Why, then, is there such a powerful feeling that things are getting worse? Media coverage plays a big role. It’s almost hard to believe today, but there was a time in the not too distant past when people in New York might not even hear about a school shooting that happened across the country.
Drum puts Fox’s statistics in context:
Since 1993, the rate of violent crime in America has plummeted by half. That’s the background to measure this against. In general, America has become a much safer, much less lethal place, and yet mass shootings have remained steady. Compared to the background rate of violent crime, mass shootings have doubled. Why?
And here’s an equally interesting question: between 1976 and 1993, violent crime increased by a significant amount, but mass shootings remained steady. Again, why? Raw numbers are a starting point, but they don’t tell the whole story
The Dish 