@ Tyran: The point is poorly made and does not stand up to scrutiny. Gun laws in *all* parts of America are too loose, and the variations between the various kinds of lax gun control that exist in different parts of America are clearly of limited effectiveness.

It's as if I was complaining about levels of obesity, and I said:

- In Chicago, policies are in place to ensure children eat no more than 4,000 calories a day.
- In Atlanta, policies are in place to ensure children eat no more than 9,000 calories a day.
- In Baton Rouge, policies are in place to ensure children eat no more than 8,000 calories a day.
- In Texas, there are no controls at all.

AND YET STILL THERE ARE FAT CHILDREN IN CHICAGO!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!! CONTROLLING DIET CLEARLY DOES NOT PREVENT OBESITY!!!

Let's see if this reads better:

Country Rampage Shootings Population Shootings Per Million

Finland 2 5,421, 827 0.369
Israel 2 7, 941,900 0.252
Switzerland 2 8, 000,000 0.250
Norway 1 5, 033, 675 0.199
Slovakia 1 5, 445, 325 0.184
United States 38 314, 941, 000 0.121
Hungary 1 9, 942, 000 0.101
Greece 1 10, 787, 690 0.093
Belgium 1 11, 041, 266 0.091
Netherlands 1 16, 751, 323 0.060
Canada 2 35, 010, 000 0.057
Germany 3 81, 799, 600 0.037
Spain 1 47,190, 493 0.021
Italy 1 60, 813,326 0.016
United Kingdom1 62, 262, 000 0.016
France 1 65, 350, 000 0.015
Mexico 1 113, 910, 608 0.009
Japan 1 126, 659, 683 0.008

no, sorry, 2 fails in a raw, I should have tested white spaces first

@Jamiet: it really isn't the same at all. Very strict gun laws are not something that would ever be passed in America, because there are a very large number of responsible gun owners, gun organizations, Constitutional organizations, and many more that would be against it.

@Jamiet99uk: no the point is there are proportionally MORE fat kids in Chicago than there are in Texas. Even though Chicago strictly controls calorie consumption and Texas lets you eat till your sick.

@Chaqa I'm sure that almost every american would be against "very strict" diet laws, so I still don't see the difference

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-51444

And @Tyran seems you didn't even get the point... the "Even though Chicago strictly controls calorie consumption" is what just does not apply

@princip: well sure. Why should the government be allowed to tell people what they can or can't eat?

@ Chaqa: Yes, I understand, America is full of a very large number of gun-loving nutcases who value their love of guns over the welfare of society. You don't need to tell me that.

@Jamiet99uk

They are definitely on par with European Countries. I believe they are tighter than the laws in France, which has a significantly lower shooting rate.

If you need a rundown of the laws, I'll give it to you:
No automatic weapons
Handguns have a strict bullet limit
No gun stores in Chicago (That's right, if you want a gun, you need to travel outside of the city limits)
Ardulous background check for buying a gun (In Illinois) the process takes at least 80 days
72 hour wait period after you fill out the paperwork to buy the gun can you pick it up.
Arduous background checks for registering your gun after you buy it in Chicago, which require arduous backgroud check, taking 2 weeks to process and 5 days to be issued.
Banned assault weapons (guns with 15 rounds of capacity or over)
Banned most semiautomatics gun
All guns in household with people under the age of 21 must have trigger locks and be stored in a safe.

^(according to Jamiet, I really don't know the strictness of those laws)

@Jamiet99uk: Do the two bolt action rifles from 1943 I own make me a gun loving nutcase?

So after at least 103 days of excessive background checks, you can finally own a gun in Chicago and you're forced to keep it in a safe. If you want to conceal carry... LMAO!

@Jamiet: I own guns. My family own guns. My friends own guns. None of us has ever used them to commit a crime. I don't know anyone who has ever used a gun to commit a crime. The majority of gun owners in America are responsible and not the problem. There will always be guns available in the US, regardless of how strict the gun laws are, because of the vast amount of guns, the open-ish border with Mexico, and the widespread black market that criminals already utilize.

We don't "value [our] love of guns over the welfare of society". The two issues aren't related all that much. You, an outsider, think you know so much about the situation... but you really don't. You see these headlines on the internet because they're the only things that make the news overseas, or one of the few. No one ever runs a news story saying "millions of American gun owners didn't commit mass murder today."

Also, gun laws can vary state to state, which may be of some concern, but that is the nature of our country.

@ Chaqa: Why do you need to own guns? Why do your family need to own guns? Why do your friends need guns?

Must there be a need to own anything, Jamiet? Why do I NEED to own a copy of Diplomacy? Why do I NEED to own a card. Why do I NEED to own an iPhone?

consumism?, well, I better share the whole post http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2015/07/De-Obfuscating-the-Statistics-of-Mass-Shootings.html
it reinforces the fact that you can so frequently make statistics fit the arguments you want

@ Chaqa: So you admit that you don't need to own any guns?

It's irrelevant whether I need to. Why would you a world where everything you own has to be justified?

Close gun show loopholes.

@ Chaqa. It's entirely relevant that you feel you have every right to own a large cache of deadly weapons which you yourself can provide no reasonable justification for owning. It's relevant because it supports my point that America is full of gun nuts who get a hard-on over owning deadly killing machines that they have no particular need for.

I have several justifications, Jamiet. I choose not to provide them because it isn't relevant to the discussion. I don't NEED to justify myself in my ownership. It's a guaranteed right in the US, and it's a part of our culture.

Why do you need to have tea in your house? It's a deadly drinking machine.

@Jamiet99uk: make sure turn over that large cache of deadly pointy sharp knives of mass destruction you keep in your kitchen. And better hand over the butter knives and forks premptively. It's for the good of your fellow man.

In other news, more people were beaten to death with blunt objects than were killed with assault rifles in 2014 in the US.

I'd like to see how many of these murders were related to gang violence. Not that gang violence is acceptable, but it does skew the statistics.

Also, @OP, if you are going by FBI definitions, a mass shooting is 3 or more people killed. Once again, is this taking into account gang violence? Again, gang violence is NOT OK, but it is a different beast that needs to be talked about and combated in a different way.

The OP is way off base. This is the third mass shooting in the US in 2015, and while one is one too many, three is a far cry from 45. My guess is he got the "45" number from what is also a bogus figure floating around out there claiming "45 school shootings in 2015". That figure is also very dubious as it includes cases like "individual commits suicide at 2 AM in a school parking lot" and "wife murders her professor husband in his office" as "school shootings" as well as a bunch of cases with no fatalities but where a gun was discharged on school grounds somewhere (regardless of whether school was in session at the time).

Most of the mass killings take place in 'Gun Free" zones. If everyone carried a gun and was trained to use it, there would be very few mass shootings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVCHE7ayPE
Laws work really well to prevent drugs, rape and theft, eh?
Laws don't apply to the lawless.