Yet so many Americans wonder why other counties see the USA as ignorant
No, the real ignorance is the people who don't talk about the ACTUAL statistics behind firearm usage rates in the United States... such as the fact that the average person in the US is, at an absolute minimum, 97.4 times (
times, not percent) more likely to have their life SAVED by a firearm than TAKEN by someone with a firearm, or that there aren't nearly as many "mass shootings" as are commonly claimed in our media (heard of the "mass shooting a day" claims in the American news? How about instead we try going by real, government-verified statistics, which record only around thirty a year, and most of those barely meet the requirements to be considered a mass shooting...), or that you're more likely to be beaten to death with a hammer or someone's bare fists than you are to be shot with a "big bad rifle".
Not everyone here in the US is as ignorant as a lot of people think. Some of us are actually well-informed about what's going on around us. If anything, saying "twelve wounded and six dead in a mass stabbing wouldn't be big news by USA standards" is ignorant. That would be massive news all over the country, because things like that are rare, despite the stereotypes you've undoubtedly heard. Here's another one for you: in the US, the average person is about 2 to 2.5 times as likely to be killed by someone else with a CIGARETTE (second-hand smoking) than they are to be killed by someone else with a gun. But you don't hear very many people talking about how we need to ban evil, scary cigarettes to save lives... And remind me, how many countries are THOSE legal in?
I'm going to leave it here, because trust me, this is NOT something we want this to turn into a debate over. I've got seven years of experience studying statistics and laws about firearms here in the US, so I know what I'm talking about. I went to college for it, after all. It's more complicated than the extremists on either side are willing to admit. As with so many other things, the answer is a balance in the middle. But no one wants to talk about that, so all you get most of the time is a bunch of idiots screaming about things they don't understand. And there's nothing worse than the deaths of innocent people being used as a political platform for someone to stand on. That's just disrespectful. And the fact that the poor guy who did it had such serious mental issues makes it even more sad.