We forget who said yesterday — maybe a senator or congressman — that the availability of guns is what makes the United States an outlier in mass shootings, not mental health. Every country has its share of sickos, but in the United States, it’s easier for those sickos to get their hands on an assault rifle because there are just so many of them available.
Andrew Follett of the Club for Growth posted a lengthy thread Wednesday on “two major lies” the media is telling us about mass shootings and gun control. The idea, of course, is that Europe, for example, has strong gun control laws and therefore fewer if any mass shootings. People are tweeting all sorts of graphs about the numbers of mass shootings in different countries, but add them up, and the United States isn’t quite the shooting gallery that the media and Democrats make it out to be.
A thread on how the media is telling you two major lies about mass shootings and gun control
1: Other countries with vastly stricter gun laws than the US have higher rates of mass shootings.
2: US jurisdictions w/ gun laws have exponentially higher rates of gun violence#2A
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Although events in the U.S. tend to get the lion's share of media exposure, mass shootings are clearly a worldwide issue.
The US makes up about 1.15% of the world's mass shootings while having almost 5% of the world's population. pic.twitter.com/ZveoRG8InU
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Out of 97 countries with data, the US is 64th in frequency of mass shootings and 65th in murder rate.
And rates of mass shootings elsewhere are rising faster pic.twitter.com/SRrC1YYFod
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
4 times as many per capita died in mass shootings in FRANCE as in the US. 21 times in Norway.
In addition to those fairly nice nations, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland have higher mass shooting death rates. pic.twitter.com/pfFck8vW6m
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
All of those are pretty nice countries which MUCH stricter gun control laws than the US…and all have higher per capita deaths from mass shootings than the US.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
According to this 2018 study (surveying data over an 18 year period), the US is 64th in the world in terms of mass shooting rates per capita (which sounds far worse than it is…because all the countries in gray below didn't report data.) https://t.co/VHcQAgkl3n
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
If anything our policy structure is actually pretty good at preventing this by global standards…especially relative to fairly nice countries of the type we want to compare America to.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
2: The highest gun-ownership state with the loosest gun laws in the nation is Wyoming, where 59.7% of households have a gun (really!)
Wyoming gun laws are arguably the LEAST restrictive in the United States.https://t.co/bCTb9o0CX8
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Wyoming does NOT HAVE a gun homicide problem, with a rate of only 1.4 per 100,000–actually lower than right across the border in more gun-controlled Canada– and only about a third of that of the nation as a whole.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
The highest murder rate of any jurisdiction in the US is Washington, DC, which has a murder rate of 21.8 per 100,000… more than twenty times that of most European countries!
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
But DC also has the most restrictive gun laws in the country… and the lowest rates of legal gun ownership, with numbers less than in many European states!https://t.co/sVyAIuGzlq
[Gulp]
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
I'd say that data suggests that the factors making DC have such high gun violence rates are part of the story of why America as a whole is so deadly, but these cannot include high gun ownership or a lack of gun regulation…by definition.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
If stricter gun laws reduced gun violence rates, you'd expect jurisdictions with those laws to have lower rates of gun violence.
Instead, we find quite the opposite.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Now, maybe you think "of course those jurisdictions have higher gun violence rates, that's why they enacted the laws."
I doubt that…but the data is CLEAR that those laws haven't reduced the rates.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
The factors making DC so deadly are part of the story of why America as a whole is so deadly, but these cannot include high gun ownership.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
And blaming this on Republicans' (which Libs made trend ALL of yesterday is…stupid.
Washington DC hasn't had a Republican mayor since literally 1933…and hasn't had a single Republican on its city council since 2008. https://t.co/4SAXpcG0MB.https://t.co/HKQCQH0pgm pic.twitter.com/W3XcQEOSim
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
The same thing is true of ALL the cities with REALLY BAD gun homicide rates.
In 2019:
St Louis, 64.54 murders per 100k, last GOP Mayor left in 1949
Its the 9th most violent city in the world. pic.twitter.com/LIJhKVsyI7
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
The murder rate in Baltimore is 58.27 per 100,000.
Its the 11th most violent city in the world…and has VERY strict gun laws. pic.twitter.com/nqOHI8sRnM
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
This goes and and on down the list…check it for yourself.
I stopped looking for a Republican mayor after a while because it was all Dems forever. https://t.co/JvoEiSouti
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Yet…as I noted yesterday…
Libs PRIMARY RESPONSE is to blame the GOP for this…when they are LITERALLY THE ONES IN CHARGE of the cities choking under gun violence. https://t.co/I9r1cu82ig
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Yep. Republicans are the problem, and yet who runs Washington, D.C., New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, etc.? Of course, liberals have found a workaround; they claim that all of the illegal guns in, say, Chicago, are brought in from neighboring states with less strict gun control laws. Even if that’s true, the gun control laws on the books aren’t doing much to stop it.
What an amazing thread, thank you for posting!!!
— David Camarillo (@DJ_Camarillo) May 25, 2022
Best thread I've read in a very LONG time. Thank you.
— Daniel Yugami Hites (@Dealing4Aces) May 25, 2022
Stop with all the facts!! They go against the narrative! Great roll up. Kudos
— Shaun Smith (@Limitsduckcalls) May 25, 2022
Too soon for this tweet. I'm just crying for 4th graders today.
— Dane Witbeck (@DaneWitbeck) May 25, 2022
I actually intentionally waited to do this till today to give a bit of distance.
I understand your point though.
— Andrew Follett (@AndrewCFollett) May 25, 2022
Plus it’s the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, who was shot by police — have some respect.
Related:
Former gun rights proponent S.E. Cupp is begging 'all my law-abiding gun owner friends' to 'put down your politics and be a part of the solution' https://t.co/8PhlxdVdK8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 25, 2022
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