Look Who it Was Random video

These Unbelievable Statistics on Gun Violence will make you angry

1,882 views · Published 22 October 2015 · 4:29 · Indexed 25 September 2026

Channel: ScIQ · 2015 · Science & Technology

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Part of me thinks ‘gun control' is not a science issue. BUT  science is a way we choose to understand the world - So when people make claims like ‘We don’t have a gun problem, we have a culture problem’, we can actually use the scientific method to test that. 

So here's the key stats on guns in the US:
+ The US has WAY more guns per person than any other nation: for every 3 people, there’s 2 guns. 
+ The US also has way more gun murders than any other nation. 

Now this doesn’t prove causality – just because there’s more guns, that doesn’t prove that the guns are the cause of the murders. 
It could be something else, like culture, or mental health issues, also contributing. 

But here’s the thing. There is no data to suggest the US has a monopoly on mental health issues. There’s no data to suggest that the state of US mental health is significantly worse than any  other country. So we can eliminate those reasons. They’re not backed by data. So whenever anyone is like ‘it’s a mental health problem’ , tell them to STFU. 

In one year 27% of adults in the US will experience what the WHO calls a mental health disorder. Mood disorders like biopolar and depression, 10% chance of experiencing in any 12 month period.  The average American has a roughly 50/50 chance of having a mental health disorder. 

These stats are the highest in the world – but they’re not a whole bunch higher than the rest of the world. Countries like Ukraine, and New Zealand, and France, are around 20% chance in one year. 
So basically most countries have mental health issues on a broad scale, but only in the US does everyone have access to a gun. 

Now here’s the thing – the conclusions that we can draw from the data. 

The US has mental health issues, but not significantly worse than other countries. Mental health can’t by itself explain this massive gap.  

But what about the argument that "guns keep us safe"?
We can test that too!
In 2012, there were 1.2 million violent crimes, and from that, 259 justifiable homicides - where guns were used to defend against crime. 
There were also 20,666 suicides with guns, and 548 fatal unintentional shootings. 
Statistics show you're far more likely to accidentally kill someone else or yourself, than use a gun to defend yourself. 

Final note – in this country as in most countries we acknowledge that cars are dangerous objects and that you should probably know how to drive one safely before we let you on the road. Yet we don’t do that for guns. 

Science can’t solve this problem, but it can point to the source of this problem. And research would suggest, the problem is that there are far too many guns in the hands of far to many people, many of whom are untrained, and many of whom are suffering or will suffer a serious mental health issue.  Cutting down the number and accessibility of guns is the only serious viable way of preventing murders and mass shootings in the USA, and any claims to the contrary are showing a willful and dangerous ignorance of the data at hand. 

SOURCES
Gun violence and gun homicides by country:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

World firearms Vs ownership Data
https://docs.google.com/a/jaydelovell.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdExSbktqRWpLMjNUMkFGVk5VODRyTnc#gid=0

Firearm Suicide Data (CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm

WHO Mental Health profiles by country
http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/atlas/profiles/en/

This video is presented by Jayde Lovell, produced and edited by Laura Wolf, at Youtube Space NYC.

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