Hillary Clinton Shares Deceptive Gun Violence Chart

Hillary Clinton sent a misleading gun violence chart to Twitter and included text suggesting that “It’s The Guns” are causing the crimes. Gun Policy published the chart. It compares the U.S. to its peers, a group that appears to include countries with high income.

Gun control advocates can avoid comparing the U.S. with other countries by limiting the use of this category. This allows them to skip the chance to compare the U.S. with its neighbor Mexico. Breitbart News reported on August 17th 2016 that Mexico has “restrictive” gun controls, including extensive background checks. However, the homicide rate there is more than five times the U.S.

It is also possible to see that gun violence in the world is per capita, rather than comparing it with “high-income” countries.

PolitiFact proved the wisdom of changing the argument to a per capita one after Beto O’Rourke stated that “no other country is even close to” the U.S. in gun violence deaths.

PolitiFact pointed out a study on gun violence deaths per capita. It found that the U.S. was ranked 20th in a list of firearm-related deaths in territories and countries. In other words, 19 other countries/territories ranked higher than the U.S.