Tag: Las Vegas

1,516 mass shootings in 1,735 days: America’s gun crisis – in one chart

The attack at a country music festival in Las Vegas that left at least 58 people dead is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history – but there were six other mass shootings in America this past week alone.

No other developed nation comes close to the rate of gun violence in America. Americans own an estimated 265m guns, more than one gun for every adult.

Data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive reveals a shocking human toll: there is a mass shooting – defined as four or more people shot in one incident, not including the shooter – every nine out of 10 days on average. 

Click here to read more.

(CNN)It’s beyond debate that the shootings outside the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas late Sunday night will go into the history books as the largest mass shooting in modern US history, with at least 59 dead and more than 500 wounded.

What’s also indisputable is that this shooting — like the Pulse nightclub shooting before it and Newtown before that and Columbine before that — will land in a political culture that is deeply divided on the proper role for guns in society and the need for — or lack of a need for — stricter gun control measures in the country. 

When a gun is used to commit an act of mass violence, two schools of thought immediately assert themselves — both of which seek to explain the genesis of these incidents: 1) We need more gun control laws to stop this cycle of violence 2) Bad people will do bad things no matter what the gun laws are.

That’s reflective of a massive culture disconnect between those who grew up with guns and view them as an extension of their fundamental freedoms and those who did not and view guns far more skeptically.

Here are eight charts that tell the story of our divided culture on guns — and the violent acts carried out with them. These numbers were primarily drawn from extensive historical data collected by Gallup and Pew Research Center on cultural attitudes toward guns and gun violence.