Currently, Americans own (in millions) 310 private firearms (not counting illegal, unregistered ownership) for a population of 325.7, while Russians own 12.75 for 119.9 people, Australians 3.15 for 24.13, and Brits 2.37 for 65.64. Americans own 48% of all civilian-owned guns in the world (Congressional Research Service, 2012). Counterintuitively, the U.S. does not have the highest murder rate in the world; this rate has started to rise slightly since 2014, but it is nearly the same as it was back in 1960, at 5 out of 100,000 people, having seen a peak of 10 in 1980. By contrast, Honduras has the highest rate at 91.6 homicides. United Kingdom is also high on this scale, with 2,034 violent crimes out of 100,000 people (Telegraph). On the other hand, all gun-related deaths (homicides, suicides etc.) in America are higher than dozens of other high-income countries (as opposed to the low-income countries that lead with the most murders as well as gun crimes). 64% of homicides in America in 2016 were carried out with a gun, as opposed to only 4.5% in England and Wales (FBI).
One curious number that might explain why America’s homicide numbers are suspiciously low for the number of guns owned is that Americans are 80X more likely to claim self-defense after a shooting than that it was an accident, a homicide or a suicide. If one multiplies the above American murder rate of 5 by 80X = 400; this rate if 4X higher than the country with the reported highest murder rate in the world, Honduras (with only 91.6). Are the police officers and courts in Honduras 80X less likely to accept a self-defense claim?
Murders by firearms (as opposed to other types of weapons) are at an all-time high of nearly 75% in contrast with closer to 50% in 1960. Meanwhile, all categories of violent and property crime (murder, rape, robbery, assault, theft) have dropped by 40-64% between 1991 and 2016. One of the most drastic negative shifts in the U.S. from 1960 to the present is that narcotics arrests have climbed from a few thousand to 1.57 million in 2016 (FBI). How can property and violent crime be dropping while the narcotic arrests are skyrocketing? One possibility is that the most vulnerable, poorest and most drug-impacted Americans who might have continued all sorts of criminal acts have been imprisoned.
The numbers that are most relevant to the March for Our Lives is that the U.S. has been the sight of 31% of all global mass shooters from 1966 to 2012, with Russia a distant third (Lankford, University of Alabama). Mass shootings make up a very small percentage of all gun-related deaths: in 2014, 14 people died in mass shootings, whereas 33,595 people died from various other gun-related causes such as homicide of fewer than three people or suicide (CDC/Mother Jones). The number and intensity of the protesters participating in this recent March is in part due to the fact that shootings are becoming deadlier over time (as access to extreme weapons becomes easier). The 2017 Las Vegas shooting saw 58 killed, and the 2016 Orlando shooting saw 49 deaths; these top the list of the deadliest US shootings since 1991 (FBI). These dramatic violent events alert the public to the problem, but laws that might ban semi-automatic or otherwise high-powered weapons might not make much of a dent in the statistics at large as more than half of US murders are carried out with handguns, with rifles and shotguns making up relatively tiny percentages (FBI). Unless somebody is intent on a mass shooting, murdering with an enormous, cumbersome weapon is impractical. Alternatively, a ban on trading and sales of handguns can save the vast majority of those who die from gun violence in America.
Another proposal that has been tested in the polls is if teachers should carry guns with them to school, a notion that is supported by around 70% of Republicans, and under 30% of Democrats (Pew Research Center). Trump and others haven taken this further, suggesting that teachers should be required to carry guns. Guns were allowed on the campuses of University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where I last taught. I did not see a weapon in the year I was there, but the idea that my students might have concealed weapons on them added to my stress. There is a lot of harassment and threats that teachers face and carrying a weapon for defense is likely to escalate some of these tense situations.
One possible explanation for the discrepancy between American gun violence and gun ownership statistics is that 3% of Americans own half of the guns, at rates of 8-140 guns per owner (“The Stock and Flow of US Firearms”: Harvard/ Northeastern University). While purchasing a few fancy guns for a display might be reasonable, anybody who owns 140 guns is likely to be reporting them as lost or stolen and reselling them. One way to measure this theory is through statistics on AFT investigations into gun trafficking pathways; they’ve found that 1,078 or 41.3% of the cases they investigated involved “firearms diverted by straw purchaser or straw purchasing ring,” 27.1% of firearms came from “unregulated private sellers,” 14% from “prohibited persons lying and buying firearms,” 13% “stolen from residence or vehicle,” and there were many other less likely possibilities. Several of these options involve legal gun owners diverting their purchases: private sellers can sell their legal gun to potential murders; somebody can also sell their gun and then report it as stolen; a permitted owner can also sell guns without paperwork at gun shows; or they can be sold to pawnbrokers, through wanted ads, in gun magazines, or openly on the internet, or on the dark web (“Interpreting the Empirical Evidence on Illegal Gun Market Dynamics”: Journal of Urban Health).