美國槍支暴力有多嚴重 數據告訴你

The mass shooting in Orlando on Sunday was appalling in scale: 49 killed in a single attack. But it’s not unusual for dozens of Americans to be killed by guns in a single day.

週日的奧蘭多槍擊事件之慘痛是駭人聽聞的：一場襲擊便奪走了49人的生命。但數十名美國人在一天內被槍殺則並不罕見。

Gun homicides are a common cause of death in the United States, killing about as many people as car crashes (not counting van, truck, motorcycle or bus accidents). Some cases command our attention more than others, of course. Counting mass shootings that make headlines and the thousands of Americans murdered one or a few at a time, gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014, according to the F.B.I.

槍殺在美國是一個常見死因，致死人數與小汽車事故相當（不包括貨車、卡車、摩托車和公交車事故）。當然了，其中一些案件格外受到關注。聯邦調查局(FBI)的數據顯示，算上登上頭條的大規模槍擊事件，以及遇害者爲一名或幾名美國人的數千起襲擊，2014年共有8124人被槍殺。

This level of violence makes the United States an extreme outlier when measured against the experience of other advanced countries.

相較於其他發達國家的情況，這種暴力程度讓美國成了一個極不尋常的國度。

Around the world, those countries have substantially lower rates of deaths from gun homicide. In Germany, being murdered with a gun is as uncommon as being killed by a falling object in the United States. About two people out of every million are killed in a gun homicide. Gun homicides are just as rare in several other European countries, including the Netherlands and Austria. In the United States, two per million is roughly the death rate for hypothermia or plane crashes.

其他發達國家的涉槍命案數遠遠低於美國。在德國，涉槍謀殺致死的罕見程度，與美國的高空墜物致死不相上下。每100萬人裏，約有兩人會成爲涉槍殺人案的遇害者。在包括荷蘭、奧地利在內的其他幾個歐洲國家中，涉槍殺人案同樣罕見。在美國，百萬分之二差不多是低體溫症或者飛機失事的致死率。

In Poland and England, only about one out of every million people die in gun homicides each year — about as often as an American dies in an agricultural accident or falling from a ladder. In Japan, where gun homicides are even rarer, the likelihood of dying this way is about the same as an American’s chance of being killed by lightning — roughly one in 10 million.

在波蘭和英國，每100萬人中，每年約有一人死於涉槍殺人案——跟美國的務農事故或者摔下梯子的致死率差不多。在涉槍殺人案更爲罕見的日本，被人槍殺的概率跟在美國遭雷擊死亡是一樣的——約爲千萬分之一。

In the United States, the death rate from gun homicides is about 31 per million people — the equivalent of 27 people shot dead every day of the year. The homicides include losses from mass shootings, like Sunday’s Orlando attack, or the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting last December. And of course, they also include the country’s vastly more common single-victim killings.

在美國，涉槍殺人死亡率約爲百萬分之三十一——相當於每年的每一天都有27人被槍殺。這些殺人案包括了造成多人死亡的大規模槍擊事件，比如週日的奧蘭多槍擊案，以及去年12月的加州聖貝納迪諾槍擊案。當然也包括常見得多的一人死亡殺人案。

To give you a sense of how unusual America’s gun violence problem is, consider the daily death toll compared with other Western democracies. The chart below imagines that the populations of those countries were the same as the population of the United States.

對比美國與其他西方民主國家的每日死亡人數，可以體會到美國槍支暴力問題的異常性。下面的圖表假設各國的人口與美國相當。

International comparisons help highlight how exceptional the United States: In a nation where the right to bear arms is cherished by much of the population, gun homicides are a significant public health concern. For men 15 to 29, they are the third-leading cause of death, after accidents and suicides. In other high-income countries, gun homicides are unusual events. Last year’s Paris attacks killed 130 people, which is nearly as many as die from gun homicides in all of France in a typical year. But even if France had a mass shooting as deadly as the Paris attacks every month, its annual rate of gun homicide death would be lower than that in the United States.

國際層面的比較有助於突顯美國的情況是多麼不尋常：在一個很多人都極爲珍視持槍權的國度裏，涉槍殺人成了重大的公共健康問題。在15歲至29歲的男性中，涉槍殺人是第三大死因。在其他高收入國家中，涉槍殺人案難得一見。去年，巴黎恐襲導致130人喪生，這幾乎相當於普通年份裏全法國的涉槍殺人死亡人數。但即便法國每個月都發生一起致命程度與巴黎恐襲相當的大規模槍擊案，其每年的涉槍殺人死亡率還是會低於美國。

The accompanying table shows the mortality rates for gun homicides in a variety of countries, along with a correspondingly likely cause of death in the United States.

所附表格列明瞭不同國家的涉槍殺人死亡率，及其相當於在美國由哪種原因造成的死亡率。

Our gun homicide numbers come from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss nonprofit affiliated with the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and represent the average gun homicide death rates in those countries between 2007 and 2012. The United States death rates come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over those same years. There are more recent statistics on American gun deaths, like the F.B.I. number at the top of this article, but we chose these years to provide fair comparisons. We focused on the rates of gun homicides; the overall rate of gun deaths is substantially higher, because suicides make up a majority of gun deaths in the United States and are also higher than in other developed countries.

我們的涉槍殺人數據來自日內瓦高級國際關係及發展學院(Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)所屬的瑞士非盈利機構“小武器問題調查”(Small Arms Survey)，其中列明瞭2007至2009年間這些國家的涉槍他殺死亡率均值。美國同期的死亡率數據來自美國疾病控制與預防中心(Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention)。關於美國的涉槍死亡人數，有更多近期的統計數據，例如本文開頭來自FBI的數字，但爲了做出更爲公正的比較，我們選擇了上述時間段。我們所關注的是涉槍他殺死亡率；總體涉槍死亡率比這高得多——因爲在美國涉槍死亡大部分是自殺——而且也高於其他發達國家。

The table is not meant to make light of rare causes of death. Instead, we show them as a way to help think meaningfully about the differences among gun death rates.

這個表格並非輕視罕見的死亡原因。我們把它們列舉出來，是爲了幫助讀者認真思考不同國家涉槍死亡率之間的差異。

The rate of gun violence in the United States is not the highest in the world. In parts of Central America, Africa and the Middle East, the gun death rates are even higher — close to those from heart attacks and lung cancer in the United States. In neighboring Mexico, where a drug war rages, 122 people per million die in a gun homicide, a rate slightly higher than Americans’ death rate from pancreatic cancer. But the countries with those levels of gun violence are not like the United States in many other ways, including G.D.P., life expectancy and education. Among developed democracies, the United States is an outlier.

美國的槍支暴力發生率並不是全世界最高的。在中美洲、非洲和中東的部分地區，涉槍死亡率還要更高一些——接近美國的心臟病和肺癌死亡率。在毒品戰爭肆虐的鄰國墨西哥，每100萬人裏有122人死於涉槍殺人案——略高於美國的胰腺癌死亡率。但槍支暴力問題極爲嚴重的這些國家，在GDP、人均壽命、教育等其他方面與美國大相徑庭。在發達民主國家中，美國是一個異類。