Barrel of deaths | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21709516-why-americans-love-guns-barrel-deaths?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2F
ONE of the peculiar things about America is the extraordinary frequency with which people who live there are shot to death. There are well over 30,000 gun deaths in America each year, roughly two-thirds of them suicides and one-third murders. This firearm homicide rate, 3.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014, is more than five times that of any other developed country. Yet America’s political system steadfastly rejects every attempt to do anything about it. Massacres in schools have become regular occurrences, yet Congress has consistently voted down even weak gun-control measures. The Supreme Court decided in 2008 that the constitution’s Second Amendment, which begins with a clause about militias, gives individuals the right to own guns. Many Americans have come to embrace a novel political ideology, concocted by pro-gun lobbying groups, which holds that firearms are the cornerstone of political liberty and that restricting them would cause more crime.