Mass Shootings: A Unique American Problem?

There was a mass shooting in my hometown of Cincinnati last week. Four were killed (including the shooter) and two more were seriously wounded.

Every time there is a mass shooting somewhere in the United States it is almost immediately followed by a politician or pundit on cable news stating that this does not happen in other countries. They claim the "gun culture" in America is responsible for these shootings that do not happen anywhere else in the world.

It was no different in the aftermath of the Cincinnati shooting. Mayor John Cranley of Cincinnati ( a Democrat) said this,

President of the United States Barack Obama said the same thing after several of the shootings during his tenure in office.

"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.” –Obama, statement on the shooting in Charleston, S.C., June 18, 2015

“We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” –Obama, statement on shootings at Umpqua Community College, Roseburg, Ore., Oct. 1, 2015

“But we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency. It doesn’t happen in other advanced countries. It’s not even close. And as I’ve said before, somehow we’ve become numb to it and we start thinking that this is normal.” –President Obama, announcing his new executive orders on guns, January 7, 2016

What are the facts? Is it really true that this doesn't happen in other countries?

The Crime Prevention Research Center tracks the frequency and deaths from mass shootings worldwide.

The news we see in the United States rarely captures everything that is going on in the rest of the world. The CPRC tracks these mass shootings for the entire world using the FBI definition that at least four people were killed in the shooting (the Cincinnati shooting would meet this definition).

The reality is that there are actually fewer mass shootings in the United States than most other places in the world.

For example, look at France.

France suffered more casualties (murders and injuries) from mass public shootings in 2015 alone than the US has suffered during Obama’s entire presidency (532 in France vs. 527 in France).

Note that these numbers don’t adjust for the fact that the US has 5 times the population of France. The per capita rate of casualties in France is thus 8.19 per million and for the US it is 1.65 — France’s per capita rate of casualties is thus 4.97 times higher than the rate in the US.

The 2015 numbers for France are clearly skewed due to the coordinated ISIS November, 2015 terrorist attack at the Bataclan Theatre and the Charlie Hedbo attack in January of that year.

However, even if you look at the frequency of mass shootings per million of population, countries such as France, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Belgium suffer more mass shootings than the USA does. This is despite all of these countries having stricter gun laws than the United States.

This is the data from the years 2009-2015 that Mayor Cranley and President Obama should have consulted before the statements they made about the United States of America.

Source: Crime Prevention Research Center

Source: Crime Prevention Research Center

In fact, CPRC research recently reported that since 1970 all but two of the 25 worst mass shootings in the world, and 60 of the top 68, occurred outside of the United States.

CPRC also found that just 1.43% of the global mass shootings, and 2.11% of the murders, from 1966 to 2012 were in the United States (1966-2012). The United States has 4.6% of the world's population.

Make no mistake. There is nothing that is more repugnant than mass murder. It doesn't matter how it is perpetrated. The very nature of the act demonstrates a wanton disregard for human life.

Mayor Cranley is correct in one regard. It is not normal.

Unfortunately, it is not just an American problem. I results from an abnormal human condition. Humans that have serious mental problems. If you look at the facts, it is not defined by national borders and does not disappear despite the best efforts to legislate it away.

We need to stop politicizing and start looking at dealing with the human problem that underlies these monstrous acts.