From some thoughts by Rob Morse:

When we look at the rate of murder per 100,000 people, the US ranks 89th in a list of 230 countries. If we compare countries in Europe with each state in the US, then Norway, Washington DC, and Belgium lead the list with the greatest number of people killed in mass murder per million population. Florida, Germany and Italy are among the safest. When we look at the rate of mass murder events and the number of people killed by mass murder per 100,000 population, then the US ranks 66th and 56th out of the 101 countries reporting a mass murder between 1998 and 2017. Even when we look at the rare events where more than 15 people were killed, then the US is far safer than Africa, Australia, and Israel. We are safer than France and Mexico where honest citizens are disarmed.

As others have pointed out, when you take into account the murder rates in just a few major cities, the numbers change even more. Less than a dozen urban areas account for much of the nearly 20,000 people (out of 330 million) killed in 2021 and the murder rate of 6.9 people per 100,000 population. Chicago alone saw almost 800 deaths in 2021 and passed 630 murdered at the beginning of December 2022. Other cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Houston, Memphis also have large numbers of dead, although because of their size, the murder rate is often very low. Without those urban areas, the Fifty States are revealed as far more peaceful than most of the world.

Not that you can tell that from the media!

(One murder in a city of 10,000 is a murder rate of 10 per 100,000. 100 murders in a city of a million is a murder rate of just 1 per 100,000. Is this a reason that the media and government normally report the murder rate and not the actual numbers city-by-city?)

Is this despite our massive gunowner numbers? (Estimated between 85 and 100 million, or 1/4 to 1/3 of American residents.) Or it is because of those huge numbers of people who own – and many of whom carry, weapons for personal defense?

In social media, we see a constant drumbeat of attacks on gunowners, gun-users, and weapons themselves. We also see this stream of vileness flowing out of the White House and Congress.

Most of what they spew is lies. And the rest is twisting of data and facts. We must remember that and constantly push back against it. We do it with facts and clear statements. And a good touch of the same sort of emotionalism they themselves use so well.

Owning, carrying, and having guns ready for self-defense is FOR the children. It is FOR the poor, those weak physically, those unable to escape the destruction of their communities. And doing is is FOR the good of the communities, so that our towns and villages, and even cities, do not turn into Chicago or the other cesspools that contaminate our fair land.