U.S. Guns Kill More People

Here’s what you already knew: America tops the developed world when it comes to gun deaths. What you didn’t know is by how much. A new study from the CDC puts it at 14.24 per 100,000 people, or nearly half the 88,000 firearm deaths reported in the 36 richest nations in 1994 -- easily beating out competition from Brazil, Mexico, Estonia, Argentina and even Northern Ireland. “I was surprised by the magnitude of the difference,” said researcher Dr. Etienne Krug. “I was not surprised to find the United States on top.”

Those are the figures. Here’s the spin. The NRA says that any report looking at the effect of “guns and guns only” is “worthless as a study of violence.” The medical community calls it an epidemic. “If the United States had eight times the rate of disease than other rich nations, the people would be up in arms,” said Dr. Rebecca Peters of Johns Hopkins University. “This would be a public health emergency.” Whether the guns or the people pulling the trigger are responsible, one thing is clear: We’ve got a whole lot of killing going on.