CAPSTONE research paper

Of all the types of gun violence, public mass shootings often get the most attention in the media. It makes sense: mass shootings are large scale, indiscriminate tragedies. They also disproportionately affect America. Since there is no legal consensus on how mass shootings should be defined, they will henceforth be defined here as shootings with four or more fatalities. Between the years 2000 and 2014, the US experienced 133 mass shootings, more than any other country. For comparison, the runner up was Germany with six. When adjusted for population, the difference is less staggering, but still, the only countries that come close have much smaller populations, such as Finland and Norway, and are thus affected by outlier events more. In addition to having a large media presence which fosters widespread fear, mass shootings are often perpetrated using large, powerful guns that are easy to point a finger at as a major cause of gun violence. They, coupled with Australia’s successful assault weapon ban, are a major reason many Americans call for a similar assault weapon ban here. However, simply restricting assault weapons would realistically do little to limit gun violence, as, in America, assault weapons and mass shootings make up a very small percent of the total annual gun deaths.

 

In 2013, America experienced an average of 92 gun fatalities daily. Of those, about 1.5 are mass shootings and relatively few are perpetrated using assault rifles. Comparatively, about 30 of the daily American gun deaths are homicides and about 80% are perpetrated using a pistol. America’s homicide rate is higher than in any other country. According to the World Health Organization, even adjusting for population, it is over three times higher than in Canada, the country with the second highest homicide rate. In fact, America’s gun homicide rate alone is over double the total homicide rate in Canada. This statistic is not simply the result of a higher crime rate in America. In fact, the same World Health Organization article ranks America sixth in both the burglary rate and assault rate. America is not more crime-ridden than other developed countries, it is simply more heavily armed. Unfortunately, even homicides only account for about a third of gun fatalities in America. In fact, while it is still a massive problem that needs to be addressed, the homicide rate has been on a slow downward trend since the 1990s. Suicide rates, on the other hand, have been steadily rising.

 

Of the average of 92 daily gun deaths in America, about 1.5 are accidents, another 1.5 are due to police action, one is from an unknown cause, and 30 are homicides, 1.5 of which are mass shootings. However, all of these factors only make up about a third of all gun deaths in America. The single greatest cause of gun death in America is suicide. Suicide makes up about 58 of those 92 deaths, making it responsible for almost two-thirds of all gun fatalities in America. Many people have dismissed the idea that gun regulations could have much of an impact on the suicide rate, which is why this statistic is not often talked about in the media. A common rationale for this idea is that if guns are taken away, suicidal people will find other ways to commit suicide. This logic is flawed in several ways. Firstly, many suicides are the result of a short-term crisis that worsens a person’s condition temporarily. If someone in a crisis has easy access to a gun, it is more likely they will take their own life. Secondly, even if a suicidal person does find another way to attempt suicide, their chance of success is much lower without a gun. Poisoning and cutting, the second and third most popular methods of suicide attempts, both have success rates around 6% to 7%. Suicide with a gun is fatal 96.5% of the time. This is significant because 93% of people who attempt suicide and fail never attempt it again. This is backed up by a 2013 Journal Article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, which demonstrates a direct correlation between the rate of household gun ownership and the suicide rate between states in America. It seems undeniable that guns are a massive contributor to the high and rising suicide rate in America, and thus, that suicide is an essential component to take into account when considering gun reform.

 

It is not difficult to deduce the cause of all this violence: America simply has an incredibly large number of guns. America owns more guns per capita than Switzerland, which requires citizens to own guns as part of the militia. It has more guns than the runner-up in both developed and Third-World Countries, Yemen, a country in the midst of a civil war. There are 8.9 guns for every 10 people in America, and more guns than adults nationwide. Although Americans make up just about 5% of the world population, they own almost 50% of the world’s privately owned firearms. A 2015 study showed a clear correlation between gun ownership per capita and homicide rate, and as mentioned previously, there is an equally strong correlation between gun ownership and suicide rate even within the United States. It is factually inaccurate to say that having fewer guns does not lead to fewer gun deaths. If America had the gun ownership and gun death rate of any other developed country, tens of thousands of Americans would be saved each year. While the overall homicide rate may be slowly declining, it is not enough to offset the rising suicide rate, nor is it enough to justify inaction when it comes to gun policy reform.