In response to the shooting at the church in Charleston, South Carolina, President Obama compared gun homicides in the US to other developed countries.
President Obama @POTUS Here are the stats: Per population, we kill each other with guns at a rate 297x more than Japan, 49x more than France, 33x more than Israel. 4:49 AM – 21 Jun 2015
But those numbers don’t actually tell the whole story.
For the same period of time, here is some additional relevant data, supplied by the World Health Organization, and compiled by The Guardian in 2012:
The US has 9146 homicides by guns.
(2.97 homicides per 100K people)
PA & Gaza had 105 homicides by guns.
(2.95 homicides per 100K people)
England & Wales had 41 homicides by guns.
(.07 homicides per 100K people)
France had 35 homicides by guns.
(.06 homicides per 100K people)
Japan had 11 homicides by guns.
(.01 homicides per 100K people)
Israel had 6 homicides by guns.
(.09 homicides per 100K people)
In terms of firearms owned per 100,000 people:
United States: 88.8
PA & Gaza: 3.4
England & Wales 6.2
France: 31.2
Japan: 0.6
Israel: 7.3
Israel has very restrictive gun laws, and it is actually very difficult to get a gun license. Though unlike the US, one doesn’t need to conceal they have a weapon.
