We have reached roughly the halfway point of 2022 and are coming off a tragic, deadly July 4 in the U.S. In the wake of the Highland Park shooting that left six dead and many more injured, it’s a sad fact that gun violence is no outlier in America.
A tally from the Gun Violence Archive found that there have been 309 mass shootings on U.S. soil since the year began, averaging out to around 11 per week. The study describes a “mass shooting” as any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed. You can see the full breakdown here.
It’s a uniquely American phenomenon, without any real comparison in other developed nations. Over 70 percent of all mass shootings in developed nations took place in the U.S., while over half of the world’s 36 developed nations have had no mass shootings in 22 years. In the U.S., gun violence claims about 3.9 lives per 100,000 citizens. That is by far the most of any developed nation, with our closest competition being Cyprus, where 0.6 people per 100,000 people die by gun violence.
