GUNS | U.S. Gun Homicides Off the Charts

In 2014 I referenced comparative gun homicide rates among different countries and U.S. states, noting that U.S. gun ownership was highest in the world, but that Switzerland had a high gun ownership and low homicide rate for a reason.  An interesting related chart was just published in The New York Times prepared by Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz.

The level of U.S. gunshot homicides,8,124 in 2014, according to the FBI, makes the United States an outlier among advanced countries. The homicides include losses from mass shootings as well as more common single-victim killings.

Gun homicides/day vs. GDP per capita

Homicide numbers are adjusted for population

$40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

G.D.P. per capita

United States

Luxembourg

Norway

Ireland

Austria

Germany

Australia

Canada

Iceland

Finland

Spain

Slovenia

Portugal

Lithuania

Greece

Sources: Gun homicide numbers from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss nonprofit affiliated with the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and are the average 2007-2012 gun homicide death rates in those countries.  U.S. death rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over those years.  The overall rate of gun deaths is substantially higher than gun homicides, because suicides make up a majority of gun deaths in the United States and are also higher than in other developed countries. Per capita income from World Bank. Chart from Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz, "Compare These Gun Death Rates: The U.S Is In a Different World," Upshot, The New York Times, June 13, 2016.