Letter to the Editor — June 23

Published 12:00 am Thursday, June 23, 2022

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How gun deaths compare to the rest of the world

How do deaths from guns per 100,000 residents in Canada, Germany, Great Britain and Japan compare with deaths from guns in the United States?

The U.S. has eight times as many deaths from guns per 100,000 residents than Canada, 50 times as many as Germany, 100 times as many as Great Britain, and 250 times as many as Japan.

What do Canada, Germany, Great Britain and Japan have in common concerning gun control? They all have stricter gun laws than the U.S. The U.S. has more deaths from guns by far than any other highly developed nation in the world. The U.S. has 4% of the population of the world and nearly one half of the guns. There are 393 million guns in the U.S.

Regarding mental illness as the reason for differences in gun deaths in the U.S., do people in the U.S. have 50 times more mental illness than people in Germany? A hundred times more than people in Great Britain or 250 times more than people in Japan?

When compared with the nations above, people in the U.S. do have greater availability of guns.

I thank Fareed Zakaria for contributing greatly to this this letter with information from his program on May 29, 2022, on CNN.

— Avery G. Church