Gun Culture & Life & Crime In USA:

Are you too both shocked and perplexed by the ghastly mass killings that are committed by crazed nutters using guns, trucks etc and their often happening in USA? The 'Land of Opportunity' - "The Land Of The Free".

Some possible factors:

USA POPULATION 2016 = 323.1 Million.

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013 – about 0.91% of adults (1 in 110) in the U.S. resident population. Additionally, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 (1 in 51) were on probation or on parole.

That's nearly one percent of the American people are in prison - Plus there are close to two percent on parole or probation.
(Approximately 20% of state prisoners and 21% of local jail prisoners have “a recent history” of a mental health condition.)

The US National Adult Literacy Survey undertaken in 1992 revealed that the literacy competence of about 40 million adults was limited to the lowest level, Level 1 which meant they could only understand the simplest written instructions.
The US Institute of Education Sciences has conducted large scale assessments of adult proficiency in 1992 and 2003 showed that 21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials", and were unable to "integrate easily identifiable pieces of information." Further, this study showed that 41% to 44% of U.S. adults in the lowest level on the literacy scale (literacy rate of 35 or below) were living in poverty.

"Blind Development"

The official US Poverty Rate is 13.5 percent, based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 estimates. That year, an estimated 43.1 million Americans lived in poverty according to the official measure. According to supplemental poverty measure, the poverty rate was 14.3 percent. 

"Never give a sucker an even break" ?

• Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year.
• Approximately 1 in 25 adults in the U.S.—9.8 million, or 4.0%—experiences a serious mental illness in a given year that substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities.

Homelessness in America: A 2000 study estimated the number of such people to be between 2.3 million and 3.5 million. (According to Amnesty International USA, vacant houses outnumber homeless people by five times).

- Certainly there are a lot of guns in America - perhaps more than one for each occupant ...

Look, I'm not just picking-on America - as so many other 'Western' nations have similar poor social standards - and of course then there are those hugely disadvantaged "third world nations".. but the media focus tends to be on the USA. 

- We've come a long way over the years - Progress.

- With those numbers of desperate mentally ill, homeless, poorly educated, poverty stricken,drug addicted lost souls hopelessly wandering about - I'd be very concerned about my personal safety there.

Marty K.