There are now nearly 300 million guns in the United States. Forty-seven percent of all murders in the U.S. are committed with handguns. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. ranks number one in the world in guns/per capita with 88 guns/100 people–far exceeding the second country on the list, Yemen, at 54/100.
Eighty percent of all gun deaths in the 23 wealthiest countries in the world occur in America and 87 percent of all kids killed by guns are American kids. This is over 42 times greater than the rate for all the other nations combined. When viewed from any other civilized society on earth, gun violence in American life seems to be a symptom of collective psychosis.
Drill down a little further in the statistics and you find that 46 percent of American men own guns compared to 23 percent of women. Men commit 91 percent of domestic murders, and 88 percent of these murders involve guns. Thirty percent of urban households have at least one firearm. Despite much lower crime rates, this figure increases to 42 percent in the suburbs and 60 percent in the countryside.
So why are Americans––and men in particular––so prone to gun violence?
One could argue that it’s a result of the sheer number of handguns available and the easy access to them. Others might argue, particularly after what occurred in Florida between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, that the proliferation of “Permit to Carry” and “Stand Your Ground” laws have contributed to increasing gun violence.
Those in favor of permits claim that carrying a gun actually lowers the crime rate––though there have been no studies that I’m aware of correlating “Permit to Carry” legislation” with lower homicide and crime rates. In fact, states with more liberal gun policies such as those in the Deep South, have much higher homicide and crime rates that states with tougher laws regarding guns––though again, correlation is difficult to prove.
In June of 2003, prior to the “Permit to Carry” legislation in Minnesota, 73 people in the state were granted permission to carry. By June of 2013, that number had exploded to 147, 957. In the suburban county where I live, 7354 permits to carry have been issued. So why is it that so many men feel the need to carry a handgun in public, particularly in a place where gun violence occurs about as often as a 90-degree day in January? “Because they can” is too simplistic an answer. Something is driving this apparent need.
What about other countries with high gun ownership rates, such as Switzerland and Finland, which rank number three and four in number of guns per capita, and in Canada, France and Norway, which also have high gun ownership rankings? Homicide rates and gun violence rates are much lower in these countries than in the U.S.
Something about the American male psyche appears to be much different than the psyches of men in other western societies that have high gun ownership rates.
The first step is to admit we have a problem. The second is to begin talking about it. Restricting handgun access is certainly worth discussing. But until we start talking seriously about the male psyche in our society, we’re going to continue to experience high levels of gun violence.