Candles honoring the 20 deceased victims of the El Paso mass shooting sit in St Pius X Church following a vigil. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
International research has found that U.S. mass shootings cannot be explained by a violent culture, racial divisions or mental health, the N.Y. Times' Max Fisher and Josh Keller write in "The Interpreter" column.
It's simply the "astronomical number of guns."
- "The United States has 270 million guns and had 90 mass shooters from 1966 to 2012."
- "No other country has more than 46 million guns or 18 mass shooters" — the U.S. is way worse than the Philippines, Russia, China or India.
- Americans alone own 40% of all guns in the world, more than all civilians combined in 25 other countries.
Countries with the highest gun ownership rate, per a survey by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva:
- United States: 120.5 per 100 people
- Yemen: 52.8 per 100 people
- Montenegro: 39.1 per 100 people
- Serbia: 39.1 per 100 people
- Canada: 34.7 per 100 people
- Uruguay: 34.7 per 100 people
- Cyprus: 34.0 per 100 people
- Finland: 32.4 per 100 people
- Lebanon: 31.9 per 100 people
- Iceland: 31.7 per 100 people
Japan and Indonesia, meanwhile, have fewer than 1 firearm per 100.
A back-to-school Saturday in America ...
