I’ve always thought the concept of mass shootings, such as those in schools, were “uniquely American” was a rather American-centric form of ignorance. These things happen all over the world, after all, and have for ages. Most Americans who like to think of themselves as worldly, though, tend not to be as well-versed on what happens elsewhere as they like to believe.
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But I had to acknowledge that it looked like we had a much bigger issue than most places.
However, with the shooting at a school in Graz, Austria, it seems there’s some discussion of how this is far from a distinctly American issue.
The recent surge in school shootings across Western Europe is prompting governments to implement stricter gun control and enhance social media monitoring. This escalating trend, once predominantly an American issue, has seen European nations grappling with its implications.
Austria and Sweden recently endured significant tragedies, leading to swift political actions echoing the call for tighter gun legislation. These moves aim to mimic the legislative efforts made in other parts of Europe, underscoring the urgency of addressing gun violence.
Of course, this often means gun control to many of those who see themselves as “grappling” with the issue, and I have no say in what happens in Europe, but we have a similar crowd here.
What this all tells me is that, quite simply, the claim that gun control will address these issues is false.
For example, while Austria’s gun laws are pretty liberal as the European Union goes, they’re still far more strict than would likely survive a legal challenge here in the United States, thanks to the Second Amendment. They haven’t really seemed to do much, now have they?
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“But they’re still rare over there compared to hear,” is a comment I expect to get.
However, let’s also understand that we’re dealing with differences in population, which Second Amendment attorney Kostas Moros noted earlier this week.
I don’t doubt Austria is a very safe country, the data proves it is. But this is such a stupid way to compare because they have 9 million people and we have 340 million.
If they had our population, their rate of mass shootings would mean they had 75 of them, not just 2. So yes,… pic.twitter.com/v1YZl56EHI
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) June 10, 2025
The post continues:
…still better than we did (again, Austria is very safe), but 109 vs. 75 is much less dramatic a difference than 109 vs. 2.
Austria is one of the few European countries with a modicum of respect for the right to keep arms. We’ll see if they let this aberrant atrocity erode that.
He’s absolutely correct, and he’s addressing a claim made by someone who understands why we use per capita rates when discussing such things. We do it because it’s the best tool we have for comparing things among different population sizes.
For example, between 1982 and 2024, my home state of Georgia, which has more than 11 million people, has had four public mass shootings, admittedly with a different definition since the one Moros is addressing is kind of stupid. And, well, the claim was kind of BS anyway.
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In fact, since 1982, there have been four public mass shootings with at least three or more people killed, which is the same metric used above to count for Georgia. Hmmmmmm.
So no, it’s not uniquely American, and it’s not an issue of gun control.
What we have is a problem where people want to hurt and kill others. They see these mass killers as martyrs. They think what they did is cool. Until and unless we can curb that sort of thinking, we’re not just going to see these continue to happen, we’re going to see an increase in the rate of them, and gun control laws won’t stop anything.
