How Much Does The U.S. Stand Out?

Of the world’s 25 wealthiest nations... America had the worst firearm homicide rate in 2021. That is just a fact.

Joe Loudon • COMBAT Communications Administrator

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

The United States really does “stand out”—in ways good and bad.

Based on gross domestic product (GDP), the U.S. economy has been the world’s largest for more than 130 consecutive years, dating all the way back to the 1890s. "On a whole range of measures American dominance remains striking," The Economist, a British publication, declared last year. "And relative to its rich-world peers its lead is increasing."

» America’s Economic Outperformance Is A Marvel To Behold
The Economist · April 13, 2023

The United Nations (UN) ranked the gun violence rates of more than 200 countries in 2021, and the U.S. had the 27th highest firearm homicide rate—4.3 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s a small fraction of the rates seen in some Central and South American countries (e.g. El Salvador 40.9 and Venezuela 40.3) . But, "relative to its rich-world peers," America had an appallingly high death rate arising from people shooting other people.

» UN Office On Drugs & Crime
The UN collects data about "intentional homicides," excluding deaths from armed conflicts such as civil or international wars.

To put the U.S. rate from 2021 in perspective, consider that many other wealthy nations had rates so low that rounding them to the nearest tenth would leave you at zero. To avoid 0.0—or even, in a few instances, 0.00—COMBAT looked at rates rounded to the nearest thousandth (three digits to the right of the decimal point).

Of the world’s 25 wealthiest nations, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) standard for measuring "wealth," America had the worst firearm homicide rate in 2021. That is just a fact.

And it wasn’t even close.

The 4.312 U.S. rate was more than twice as high as Saudi Arabia’s… 7½ times higher than Canada’s… 18 times higher than France’s… 30 times higher than Australia’s… 332 times higher than the United Kingdom’s… 863 times higher than Japan’s…

And the contrast between the U.S. and other wealthy countries might be even worse.

The UN and University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation (IHME) rate for the U.S.—4.312—is significantly lower than the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) figure that put America’s 2021 firearm homicide rate at 6.3 per 100,000. The CDC calculated the rate based on the 20,958 firearm homicides in the U.S. that year and the national population being an estimated 333 million people. (To conduct these international comparisons, COMBAT will be using the lower 4.312 rate since the rates for other countries were extracted from UN and IHME sources, with 2021 being the last year they had complete data for most countries.)

Citing the IHME, which tracks causes of death in every country, NPR pointed out in a 2023 report that a 4.312 firearm homicide rate had the United States contrasting sharply not only with other wealthy nations but also those not nearly as well off: "The U.S. gun violence death rate is also higher than in nearly all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including many that are among the world's poorest."

» How The U.S. Gun Violence Death Rate Compares With The Rest Of The World
National Public Radio · October 31, 2023

In collecting figures about "intentional homicides," the UN and IHME excludes deaths from armed conflicts. That leaves the United States with a rate comparable to Afghanistan's and Iraq's.

Jump To...

» The Trillion-Dollar Club
The U.S. continues to have the world's largest economy—with GDP topping $25.7 trillion in 2022—but also a firearm homicide rate far higher than most other wealthy countries.

» Dollars & Cents—And Firearms
Only countries with populations of less than 10 million have a higher GDP per capita than the United States. None of the 25 wealthiest nations, using this per capita criteria, has a firearm homicide nearly as high as America's.

» World's Highest Firearm Homicide Rates
The U.S. firearm homicide rate in 2021 was the 27th highest in world, just below Iraq's 26th highest. Only one other "wealthy" nation, with a population of more than 15 million, had a rate among the 100 highest.

JUST THE FACTS

→ Such dynamic rate differences—America's 4.312 being 332 times higher than the United Kingdom’s 0.013 and 863 times higher than Japan’s 0.005—can be difficult to grasp. To perhaps better appreciate the level of gun violence in the United States compared to these two other wealthy nations, consider these other stark statistics:

The CDC recorded 20,958 firearm homicides in the U.S. in 2021—a rate of 57 every day.
Such deaths are extremely rare in Japan. The country's National Police Agency recorded one gun violence fatality in Japan in all of 2021. Less than a dozen “intentional homicides” using a firearm were committed in Japan over the four proceeding years (2017-20), according to the UN.
Meanwhile, the UK police investigated 57 "killings by shootings" April 1, 2021, through March 31, 2023. That would be the same number of firearm homicides over two years that the U.S. averaged per day in 2021.

» UK Office for National Statistics

→ There's no disputing America's global standing economically. The country's win streak continued in 2022 as GDP in the U.S. topped $25.7 trillion—an economic output nearly 1½ times greater than China’s $17.9 trillion. Even more impressively, the U.S. exceeded, by more a trillion dollars, the combined GDP of the eight nations listed third through 10^th on the World Bank’s 2022 rankings.

→ Another example of U.S. economic prowess: California ($3.23 trillion), Texas ($2.64 trillion) and New York State ($2.23 trillion) each had a GDP in 2022 that would have been, if they were independent nations, high enough to crack the World Bank’s top 10.

→ But among the 18 nations with trillion-dollar economies in 2022, the United States had the third highest firearm homicide rate—based on those 2021 UN and IMHE figures. Compared to Mexico’s 22.620 firearm homicides per 100,000 and Brazil’s 17.610, America’s 4.312 rate wasn't nearly that bad.

→ The International Monetary Fund (IMF), however, does not classify either Mexico or Brazil as truly “wealthy” nations. Approximately 35 to 40% of Mexicans and almost a third of Brazilians live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

→ How do Jackson County's and the state of Missouri's firearm homicide rates compare in this global setting?

In 2021 alone, Jackson County had a higher firearm homicide rate—23.3—than Mexico (22.6).
Missouri's 9.9 rate that year was 762 times higher than the UK's and 1,980 times higher than Japan's.
Consider the rate of firearm homicides in 2021 in terms of the time interval between these deadly crimes: America averaged one every 25 minutes, Missouri one every 14 hours, Jackson County one every other day, and the UK one every 13 days. And, again, over the entire year—365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes—Japan suffered one.

JUST THE FACTS

→ The International Monetary Fund (IMF) measures "wealth" on a per capita basis (GDP ÷ population). Although Brazil had the world's 11th highest GDP ($1.9 trillion) and Mexico the 14th ($1.5 trillion) in 2022, their per capita GDP had each listed much further down the IMF "wealth" list: Brazil 77th at $10,997 per person and Mexico 61st at $15,414.

→ Applying the IMF standard, the United States was the world's seventh richest country with a per capita GPD of $83,320. All the nation's ranked higher than the U.S. had populations under 10 million people—and in the cases of No. 1 Luxembourg and No. 6 Ireland under a million. Luxembourg has a lot of wealth ($131,577 per capita GDP) but is home to about 63,000 fewer people than live in Jackson County. Combined Jackson County and neighboring Lafayette County cover more ground in Missouri (1,012 square miles) than tiny Luxembourg—tucked between Belgium, France and Germany—does in Europe (998 square miles). America's $25.7 trillion GDP in 2022 was 315 times larger than Luxembourg's $81.5 billion.

→ The "Wealthiest Nations" & Firearm Homicide Rates chart lists the 25 wealthiest countries—based only on the size of their per capita GDP, according to the IMF—and compares their 2021 firearm homicide rates. The United States, again, stands out. The country's 4.312 deaths per 100,000 from firearm homicides far exceeded all these other "well-off" nations and by a wide margin. The next highest rate—Israel's 0.702—was one-sixth as high.

→ To find a nation with a higher firearm homicide rate than the United States you'd have to expand this list to include the 28th wealthiest nation in 2022: The Bahamas at $35,860 per capita GDP. The year before, The Bahamas had the third highest firearm homicide rate (23.1) among all countries—rich or poor. The Bahamas consists of more than 700 Caribbean islands, only about 30 of which are inhabited by a total population of less than half-a-million people.

→ This chart (↓) lists only those wealthy nations with per capita GDP's of at least $30,000 and populations that exceed 15 million.

JUST THE FACTS

→ The United States’ 4.3 firearm homicide rate was the 27^th highest in the world in 2021—only one spot below Iraq’s 5.3. This made the U.S. an outlier among the largest "wealthy" countries listed above: America, alone in this exclusive group, had a rate among the world's 50 highest. (Three of the five lowest rates in the world were among large "wealthy" countries—the United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan. Only Singapore, a smaller yet even "wealthier" nation, had a lower rate than Japan.)

→ The 15 nations with the highest firearm homicide rates in the world shared these characteristics:

All 15 were from the western hemisphere, and each, except Mexico, was either a Caribbean, Central American or South American country.
Only four had a high enough GDP per capita to be ranked among the world's top 75 "wealthy" countries. Haiti was the poorest of these poor countries, with a GDP per capita of only $2,043 for a "wealth ranking" of 145th.
Excluding The Bahamas, none of the 15 would be classified as a “wealthy” nation based on the IMF per capita standard. The Bahamas and three other nations on this list of 15 had populations of less than half-a-million—and, in the case of St. Kitts and Nevis, less than 50,000. The United States Census Bureau estimated Jackson County’s population in 2022 to be 716,531.

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Missouri Firearm Death Rates Among Nation's Highest

Missouri had among the 10 highest rates in the U.S. in these three categories (2018-22): firearm homicides, firearm suicides and all firearm fatalities. New York state had three times the population of our state but nearly 2,100 fewer firearm homicides. > MORE
No 'Wealthy' Nation Has A Higher Firearm Homicide Rate Than U.S.

Of the world’s 25 "wealthiest" nations, America had the worst firearm homicide rate in 2021. And it wasn’t even close. The U.S. averaged 57 firearm homicides a day in 2021, the exact same number the United Kingdom would experience over a two-year period. > MORE
'Culturally Unfathomable' Shooting Shocks World

An assassin, using a homemade gun, murdered Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. In a nation where people "take peace for granted" and the firearm homicide rate is near world-low 0.005 per 100,000 such a crime is "culturally unfathomable." > MORE