Last weekend, with its several, each-awful-in-their-own-way mass shootings, felt like the big finale to our snakebitten year, 2025. It was, however, informative to see mass shootings play out in parallel, in two different countries. In Australia the government swiftly moved to further tighten gun laws. Meanwhile I was particularly heartbroken by Katelyn Jetelina’s article, “Mass shootings continue to outnumber days in the U.S.” in the great newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist. If you live in the U.S., how does this make you feel?
Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia. Since the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, strict firearm regulations (a buyback program and tight licensing) have kept mass shootings to zero or one per year on average in Australia. By contrast, the U.S. experiences roughly 400–650 mass shootings annually, with more than 46,000 deaths from gun violence each year. As the graph below shows, it’s not even close.
I know, I know, gun deaths in the U.S. are overwhelmingly suicides, overwhelmingly from handguns. But the answer has to be restricting handguns and high-capacity assault rifles, and, and, and… We must tackle all gun violence. Plus, let me just say, the psychic damage of facing 400-650 mass shootings per year, many of them at schools, cannot be overstated.
Cue the recurring The Onion headline, “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
