WASHINGTON—Another U.S. mass shooting committed with powerful but legal guns. Another refusal by Congress to pass any new gun laws. Another international round of head-shaking.

Americans’ fixation with firearms is an easy target for world condemnation. Some of it, though, is based on myths, outdated information and flawed assumptions about the actual state of affairs. Here are seven key facts.

1)Gun crime is way down. High-profile mass shootings make America seem like a place where gun crime is spiralling out of control. In fact, gun crime is much less common there now than it was in the 1990s. Since 1993, the gun homicide rate has been cut in half, from 7 per 100,000 people to 3.6 per 100,000 people, and the rate of non-deadly gun crime has dropped even more steeply. In absolute terms, thousands fewer people per year are being victimized by gun crime. In 1993, 18,253 people were killed in gun homicides; in 2011, the number was 11,101.

2) Gun ownership is at an all-time low. Gun sales are at an all-time high. Every mass shooting produces a wave of news stories about Americans rushing out to buy guns. Fewer U.S. households possessed guns last year than at any time in the last 40 years: 32 per cent, according to the General Social Survey. At the same time, purchasesof gunsare hitting new highs. What’s the story? It appears that people who already owned a gun have been stocking up on more. Black Friday, the shopping extravaganza after Thanksgiving, may have seen the biggest-ever sales: the FBI conducted a record 185,345 background checks, or two per second.

3) There’s strong support for gun restrictions. Ask a group of Americans about gun control, using the phrase “gun control,” and about half will say they don’t like it. But ask them instead about specific gun control proposals and they’re highly supportive of many. In a Pew poll this summer, large majorities favoured mandatory background checks for people buying guns at gun shows (85 per cent), laws to prevent people with mental illnesses from buying guns (79 per cent), and a federal database to track gun sales (70 per cent). A smaller majority (57 per cent) backed a ban on assault-style weapons.

4) Some politicians are taking action. When Congress refuses to do anything about guns even in the wake of mass shootings, it is easy to believe the entire American political system is doing nothing. That’s not true: there has been considerable action at the state-government level. After the 2012 attack on a Colorado movie theatre, the state banned high-capacity magazines. Within two years of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, five states had expanded background checks. While the gun-rights side has had recent success weakening restrictions in conservative states, gun control advocates have had real, though sporadic, successes elsewhere.

5) America is still off the charts. Despite the improvements since the 1990s, the U.S. continues to have a far higher gun homicide rate than any other wealthy industrialized country. In 2010, the U.S. rate was 30 times the United Kingdom’s, 15 times Germany’s and six times Canada’s. The disparity is basically unchanged from 2003, when one study found the U.S. responsible for 80 per cent of all gun deaths in 23 rich nations.

6) The biggest gun problem is suicide. Suicides get far less attention than homicides, but they account for about 60 per cent of U.S. gun deaths — and rising. Suicides have become more frequent since 2006, even as other gun deaths have become less frequent.

7) Black people are the primary victims. Indiscriminate shooting sprees, such as the San Bernardino attack, raise fears among people of all races. But black people, and especially black men, are far more likely to be the victims of gun crime than anyone else. In 2010, for example, black people were seven times more likely than whites to be killed in a gun homicide. The gun homicide rate for whites was 1.9 per 100,000; the rate for black people was 14.6 per 100,000, a level that has no parallel in the wealthy industrialized world.