Citation

Wintemute GJ. New Engl. J. Med. 2013; 368(19): 1847.

Comment On:

N Engl J Med 2013;368(5):397-9.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Massachusetts Medical Society)

DOI

10.1056/NEJMc1302453

PMID

23656660

Abstract

The author replies: The United States is not unique in experiencing mass murders committed with firearms. Such tragedies occurred in Norway in 2011 (69 persons killed and more than 100 wounded on the island of Utøya), in Australia in 1996 (35 killed and 23 wounded at Port Arthur, Tasmania), in the United Kingdom in 1996 (17 killed and 13 wounded at Dunblane, Scotland), and in Canada in 1989 (14 killed and 14 wounded in Montreal), to name just a few. Nor is the United States a uniquely violent society. The prevalence of assault in the United States is among the lowest (third, ranked from low to high) in the 36-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — lower than all but Canada of the nations mentioned above. The United States is unique, among industrialized nations, in its rate of firearm-related death as the correspondents and my Perspective article suggest, prevention efforts in the United States should focus not on the next mass murder, the exact circumstances of which cannot be predicted, but on firearm violence in general.

1 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Safety — OECD Better Life Index (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety).

2 Alpers P, Wilson M. Guns in Australia: facts, figures and firearm law. Sydney: Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 2013 (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/total_number_of_gun_deaths).

Language: en