Mass Shooting in California

A gunman shot to death 10 people and injured at least 10 others on Saturday at a ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, Calif., a city of about 60,000 people east of Los Angeles. He opened fire as many people in the city, which is predominantly Asian, were celebrating the eve of Lunar New Year.

Many of the victims were in their 50s and 60s, said Sheriff Robert Luna of Los Angeles County, though he did not identify them.

The gunman, whom the authorities identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, is believed to have then gone to a dance hall in the neighboring city of Alhambra. But he fled, according to the authorities. Officers later found him in a parked van after he reportedly shot himself to death.

The gunman used “a magazine-fed semiautomatic assault pistol” that is probably not legal in California, Luna said. His motives remain under investigation.

“Gun violence needs to stop,” Luna said. “There’s too much of it.”

This kind of mass shooting has become tragically common in the U.S.; what would be a rare horror in any other developed country is typical here. Yet the cause is no mystery. America has an enormous amount of guns, making it easier for someone to carry out a deadly shooting.

It is a point this newsletter has made before: All over the world, there are people who argue, fight over relationships, suffer from mental health issues or hold racist views. But in the U.S., those people can more easily obtain a gun and shoot someone.

The data bears out this explanation. The U.S. is a clear outlier for both civilian gun ownership and number of gun deaths among the world’s developed countries, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:

If anything, the chart, which uses data from 2017 and 2018, understates America’s problem. The U.S. rate of gun homicides has increased in recent years, according to the Small Arms Survey.

The data exposes a clear trend: Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. Studies have found this to be true at the state and national level, and for homicides, suicides, mass shootings and police shootings. Stricter regulations on firearms are linked to fewer gun deaths.

But efforts to reduce access to firearms have mostly stalled in the U.S., unable to overcome the Supreme Court’s interpretations of the Second Amendment, mixed public opinion and a closely divided federal government.

So America continues to suffer more mass shootings and gun deaths than its peers. Monterey Park, Calif., is simply the latest tragedy.

More on the shooting

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