The U.S. Gun Violence Problem Is Uniquely Severe

The U.S. gun violence problem is on a whole different level than almost everyplace else in the world. Over the last five years, the U.S. has averaged one school shooting per day that school is in session. 

Bad conservative opinions from U.S. Supreme Court are some of the reasons that this is the case. 

Between January 2009 and May 2018, the United States endured 288 school shootings, while the second-place country, Mexico, had only eight. Since then, school shootings have occurred much more frequently in America. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in 2022 at an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in Uvalde, Texas. In 2023, there were 346 school shootings across our country, almost one a day. All in all, between 2018 and 2023 there were over 1200 school shootings in the United States. 

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The gun nightmare in America transcends school shootings. Wyoming, along with a few other western states, have high rates of suicide by guns. According to an officer at a medical center in Wyoming, "one of the challenging aspects of working in the Rocky Mountain region is just the availability and accessibility of firearms. Some days it feels overwhelming because you think, 'if we didn't have firearms to worry about, what would suicide look like here?'" She has a strong point, given that suicide by firearms is 97% lethal and Wyoming is near the top of suicide rates on a per capita basis. 

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Statistics of course can be manipulated and numbers often tell only a partial story, but not in the case of guns in the United States because all the statistics are so out of proportion with the rest of the world.

Only four countries--Mexico, Haiti, Guatemala and the United States--have made owning a gun a constitutional right. There are 120 guns per 100 people in the United States. Yes, we have more guns than people. The country with the second highest gun ownership rate is Yemen, with 52 guns per 100 people. America has more than twice as many guns per person as the next most armed country. Gun ownership in Canada, a country that is very similar to the U.S. in many respects, is only 35 guns per 100 people, and many military style weapons that are legal here are illegal there. America has only 5% percent of the world's population but approximately 40% of civilian-owned guns.

Not surprisingly, the absurdly huge number of guns in our country has led to violence and deaths. Other than Brazil, the United States has far more gun-caused fatalities than any other country. In 2021, over 48,000 Americans died from guns, with many more injured. 

Although most of those deaths were related to suicides, murders, and accidents, when a mass shooting occurs at a school or in a community, the emotional and psychological toll effects far more people than just those who are actually killed or injured. . . . There can be no debate that there is a terrible gun crisis in America. 

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But tragically, the Supreme Court of the United States has weaponized the Second Amendment and misinterpreted its text to make gun ownership a super-constitutional right. The justices have prohibited the states and the federal government from asserting public policy justifications in Second Amendment litigation, requiring them to instead find historical analogues from 1791 or maybe 1868 as a prerequisite to judicial validation of gun reform laws. But, as I've documented before, there is no textual or historical justification for the Court's elevation of personal gun rights to such high levels through a history-only test that is itself inconsistent with the Constitution's original meaning. . . . Recently, a federal judge struck down a federal law prohibiting guns in post offices. As I wrote here, that opinion is beyond any and all reason and is a direct consequence of the Court's demand that judges look only to history when evaluating the constitutionality of legislation restricting or prohibiting the use of guns. . . . the Court's wildly inappropriate judicial aggression towards legislative solutions to gun violence is almost certainly responsible for making the crisis worse. Given the Second Amendment's specific textual reference to militias, as well as the presence of 400,000,000 guns in America, along with all the other contributing factors leading to death and destruction by guns, this judicial interference is constitutional insanity and a form of national suicide. . . . .

From Dorf on Law.