Here We Go Again: How US Gun Murder Rates Top the World

Newly-released statistics on global gun violence unrelated to military conflict has again made it completely obvious that the US should be fearlessly and urgently looking for a solution to its gun violence problem.

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation chart showing US gun death rates in 2016 as compared to countries with similar economic demographics.

© Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The issue came into sharp focus again in Washington following the worst shooting massacre in US history, as 59 people were killed and over 500 wounded last weekend in Las Vegas at the hands of white millionaire male adult with a lot of high-powered weaponry.

The deadly massacre reignited the ongoing and contentious smoldering gun control debate, prompting lawmakers to rethink their position on firearm ownership, and call for stricter gun laws in the country.

Advocates for tougher gun control can, sadly, now bolster their calls for new laws by using the tragic new statistics, which are based on an enormous database maintained by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks how many die in every country each year and the cause.

The numbers show that in 2016, there were 3.85 US deaths per 100,000 people due to gun violence, the 31st highest rate in the world, 32 times higher than Germany, which had 0.12 deaths per 100,000, and 55 times higher than the UK, which had 0.07 deaths per 100,000.

Most of the world's developed countries — identified by socioeconomic success indicators including per capita income and average education level — showed low rates of gun violence: 0.07 per 100,000 in Iceland, 0.14 per 100,000 in Denmark.

Prosperous Asian states boasted the absolute lowest rates of gun violence: only 0.05 deaths in South Korea, 0.04 in Japan and 0.03 in Singapore.

But for the US, gun violence continues to be an endemic and deadly problem, even compared to extremely poor nations such as Bangladesh and Laos.

"It is a little surprising that a country like ours should have this level of gun violence," said Ali Mokdad, a professor of global health and epidemiology at the IHME, cited by NPR.

"If you compare us to other well-off countries, we really stand out."

And not in a good way, either.