If you can't confront the reality that, despite the fake self-serving claims of firearm permissiveness in the Old West, visitors left their weapons with a law officer upon entering town, they'd receive a token, like a coat check, which they'd exchange for their guns when leaving town, then you can't.
Gunsters who slaughter innocent people - regardless of their ideological pretexts - are mentally-ill.
All nations have their mentally ill, and there is no reason to believe that the United States - nor even the red states where far more firearm fatalities occur - have more mentally-ill than anywhere else.
What distinguishes the United State, and especially red states, are permissive firearm laws that aid and abet access to firearms by the mentally ill.
Here are the states with the highest rates of gun death per 100,000:
- Alaska (23.0)
- Alabama (21.4)
- Louisiana (21.2)
- Mississippi (19.
- Oklahoma (19.6
- Montana (9.0
- Missouri (18.8
- New Mexico (18.2
- Arkansas (17.7
- South Carolina (17.7)
The five states with the lowest gun death rates, in deaths per 100,000, are:
- Massachusetts (3.4)
- New York (3.9)
- New Jersey (4.1)
- Hawaii (4.4)
- Rhode Island (4.6).
Countries with the Highest Total Gun Deaths (all causes) in 2019
- Brazil — 49,436
- United States — 37,038
- Venezuela — 28,515
- Mexico — 22,116
- India — 14,710
- Colombia — 13,169
- Philippines — 9,267
- Guatemala — 5,980
In contrast to the U.S. and Latin America, gun deaths are extremely rare in countries like Japan, the
United Kingdom,
Norway, and
Australia. These countries have implemented incentives or passed legislation to decrease the number of firearms in circulation. For example, in July 2021, Australia implemented a
permanent gun amnesty program, in which unregistered firearms could be anonymously surrendered at police stations.
Japan boasts a population of more than 127 million people, yet finished 2019 with a gun death rate of only .02 per 100,000 people. One major factor in this success is that Japan has some of the strictest
gun control laws in the world.