Nowhere in the western world are there as many guns per inhabitant as in the USA, nowhere else so many gun victims. In the first week of this month alone, 24 people were shot dead – facts and figures about an irritating phenomenon.
July is just six days old and in this one In just under a week, 24 people have already been shot dead in the USA been. The seven people from Highland Park near Chicago who were killed indiscriminately by a 21-year-old on National Day have already been followed by four more victims. A total of 23 shootings counts for this month. Number of injured: 130 people.
405,491 people have been shot dead since 2014
Since 2014, the website has meticulously listed every shootout in the United States. Even those without victims. 405,491 died from rifles and pistols during this period.
Not listed are those who died at the hands of the police. Like on July 3, when 25-year-old Jayland Walker died in a hail of bullets after being checked. The doctors counted more than 60 gunshot wounds. Exactly how many shots were fired at the fleeing man has yet to be determined. So far there is talk of 90.
90 shots. A man, a black man, who probably had a gun, but no more than he did when he tried to get away from the police on foot. In the whole of 2019, all police officers in Germany fired exactly 62 shots. 15 of them were fatal.
- If you extrapolate the police use of firearms in Germany to the population of the USA (i.e. 80 million to 330 million), the number would quadruple. Say: Then the police would have shot 248 times. Around 1,000 people die in the US every year at the hands of the police.
One reason for the frequent use of the service weapon in the USA is the high proportion of rifles and pistols in the country. Statistically, there is a gun for almost every American—although 60 percent don’t own any. The estimated 260 million registered weapons are distributed among around 130 million US citizens. During their operations, security forces must therefore always expect to meet someone who is armed.
Only recently the highest US court had that anyway already very liberal weapons law expanded again: The Supreme Court overturned a New York state law that requires you to have valid reason to obtain a license to carry a handgun concealed outside the home. The regulation dates back to 1914. In Germany, at almost the same time, a gun ban was debated for the first time. One reason was the many fatal accidents caused by shootings among younger men. However, a corresponding law was not passed until 1928.
- About a fifth of all Americans killed by guns are teenagers and teenagers.
Only a good guy with a gun can defeat a bad guy with a gun – that’s one of the favorite sayings of gun advocates. However, this logic rarely works. However, the state of Iowa is such a case: “Our weapons make us polite. You never know what someone is wearing under their jacket,” quotes a barman from the corner.
the By the way, western society with the fewest victims of firearms is Japan. According to the last currently available figures from 2014, just six people were shot there – out of a population of 125 million. There it is Possession of weapons is in fact completely forbidden.
Just as many traffic deaths as gun victims
At 36,000, the number of traffic fatalities is roughly the same as for gun deaths. Converted to 100,000 inhabitants, that is more than twice as many as in Germany. 2500 people lost their lives here.
Sources: DPA, AFP, , “FAZ”, Gunpolicy, , , Gunviolencearchive, , , “”,
Source: Stern
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