It’s been a year since Newtown. Since then, guns have killed another 194 children ages 12 and under. You won’t find a stat like that in other countries. This isn’t, to me, an argument against guns per se. As a people, we’ve chosen to have a nation with lots of guns and easy access to guns. It’s just a trade-off in the name of freedom–more guns inevitably bring more gun deaths, and we’re apparently okay with that because we cherish guns so much. Similarly, there are trade-offs for having other freedoms–of religion, speech, travel, etc. Freedom is not free and painless.

In a recent study of 27 developed nations, the US had by far the highest number of guns per capita–88 guns for every 100 people. Switzerland was next, with just 45 guns per 100 people. We have 10.2 gun deaths for every 100,000 people, the Swiss have 3.8 such deaths (half the number of guns, roughly half the number of gun deaths). The numbers were pretty consistent through the list of countries–the lower the number of guns, the lower the rate of gun deaths. The only anomaly was South Africa, with a gun-death rate almost equal to the US.