The Myth That American Gun Violence Is More Than...........

Ilinois Review reports on a speech John Lott recently gave :

President Obama is wrong when he claims the U.S. is the only country in the world encountering mass, pubic gun attacks, Lott said. During the first seven years of the Obama administration, there were 25 mass shooting in Europe, the same number as occurred here in the U.S. In looking at shootings involving K-12 schools, three out of four of the worst attacks happened in Europe. In France, which has one-fifth our population, four public mass shootings occurred with 532 casualties.

This rather amazing statement was made by Lott: “The murder rate in the rest of the world is 20 percent higher than in the U.S.” The Solomon Islands, where guns were banned in 1988, is a good example, Lott said. The media had reported not a single act of gun violence in the Solomon Islands from 2001 to 2005. But Lott uncovered the truth by checking the Solomon Islands police records. In fact, the islands, which has a population of 500,000, there were three large-scale public shootings. Why no public accounts of the mass shootings? The Solomon Islands depend of tourism for operating revenue, and reporting the truth would hurt business.

In Africa gun violence is 380 percent higher than in the United States, Lott added. Israel has a rate 2000 percent higher; and Australia’s gun violence tops America’s by 320 percent.

Imagine that.