and not in a good way. I have borrowed the title of this column in tomorrow's New York Times by Charles M. Blow.
It is relatively short on Blow's words, but perhaps all you need to know is his opening paragraph:
Sometimes I think the best argument is raw data. This is one of those times.
Most of the column is taken up by a chart of data - on guns and deaths in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD. You should look at the chart. But BLow provides us with the only information we really need from the chart:
Among the O.E.C.D. countries that the World Bank groups as “high income,” America has the highest gun homicide rate, the highest number of guns per capita and the highest rate of deaths due to assault. In fact, America has more homicides by gun than all of the other high-income O.E.C.D. countries combined.
It’s just shameful.
Reread that one fact:
America has more homicides by gun than all of the other high-income O.E.C.D. countries combined
That is truly shameful. If this is American Exceptionalism, at what price?