It’s 19 weeks into the year and there have already been 198 mass shootings. (That’s about 10 a week.) Mass shootings have sadly become a common recurrence in the United States.
This weekend, ten people were killed in a racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York at a Tops Friendly Markets store.
In Chicago, 5 are dead and 29 injured by gunfire.
In California, one person was killed and four others were critically wounded in the afternoon shooting at a church in the city of Laguna Woods.
Two people were killed and three hurt in a Houston flea market shooting, after an altercation.
There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS). No other nation has more civilian guns than people. US is one of only three countries in the world where bearing (or keeping) arms is a constitutional right. Yet the ownership rate in the other two — Guatemala and Mexico — is almost a tenth of the United States.
In 2019, the number of US deaths from gun violence was about 4 per 100,000 people. No surprise then that’s 18 times the average rate in other developed countries. Multiple studies show access to guns contributes to higher firearm-related homicide rates.
