DESPITE the fact we live in the one of the safest states in one of the safest countries in the world, we are continually told by firearm prohibitionists we are all in mortal danger if we don’t “keep gun laws strong”.

Murders in Australia are rare no matter how they are done. Without fail, whenever they need a boogie man to generate traction, they refer to gun violence in America. They will happily hijack the recent horrific Orlando shooting to generate emotional leverage.

We have all heard Barack Obama say he is sick of these events happening every few months and we have heard commentators claim there are 372 mass shootings every year. So which one is true?

The answer is in how websites like Mass Shooting Tracker and Gun Violence Archive present data. A mass shooting is defined by them as an event were one perpetrator kills or/and wounds more than four victims. If you read the “Insanely common” Editorial (Mercury, June 4) and average the events with deaths, you with come up with less than two deaths per event.

These websites do not record stabbings, beatings or other methods of violence. They will list the atrocity in Orlando, but you won’t find the Happy Land dance club massacre in 1990 (87 dead) or the Bath Consolidated school massacre (45) or Oklahoma bombing (168). Most of America’s worst massacres would not be included since none involved firearms.

The only time the media showed restraint in reporting a massacre was after the Bath School disaster. Newspapers promptly stopped reporting on it after three days. How many massacres would happen if the perpetrators didn’t have a platform to vent their spleens if the media didn’t milk these events 24/7? The link between media reporting and its effect has been examined in detail by cultural behaviourist Loren Coleman in his book The Copycat Effect. Media and pop culture create the mayhem in tomorrow’s headlines.

Is the US the murder capital of the world? The short answer is no. The UN keeps track of crime trends and America comes in at 111th. In terms of gun murders, it is 28th. Most of these other countries have restrictive gun laws or have banned private ownership of firearms.

The FBI has collected crime data since 1933 and the crime trends run contrary to what you would think, given media coverage. Despite Americans amassing over 150 million new firearms in Obama’s tenure as President, gun crime as well as violent crime across all categories has been declining for the past 22 years according to the National Crime Victimisation Survey. From 1960 to 1970 the violent crime rate increased 126 per cent. From 1970 to 1980, it increased 64 per cent. It peaked in 1993.

From 1993 to 2013, Australia’s gun murder rate fell by 45 per cent. During the same time period, the US gun murder rate fell by 53 per cent. Other countries without Australia’s draconian gun laws such as New Zealand and Canada experienced similar falls. Researchers John Lott and Gary Mauser put this fall in America’s victimisation rate down to the increasing use of carry and conceal firearms by citizens. They cite modelling showing defensive use of firearms saves more people than are killed by them. All the high profile mass gun murders in the media, except one, happened in gun-free zones.

I am not advocating the same for Australia since we don’t have the socio-economic failures of the US. Violence in any society cannot be disassociated from poverty.

In America, out of a population of 330 million, 50 million citizens are living below the poverty line, 20 million in extreme poverty.

Add to that brutal industrial laws, gang membership — 80 per cent of gun murders involve gangs, this for the most part as a result of high levels of fatherlessness. The highest rates are among African-Americans at 72 per cent, Hispanics 53 per cent, Whites 29 per cent and Asians 17 per cent. These ratios are reflected in the prison population, which is the highest in the Western world.

John Howard wrongly diagnosed the “American disease”. It is rooted in disadvantage, greed, family breakdown and inequality, not in the hearts of the 100 million-plus US gun owners.

Carlo Di Falco is a cartridge collector, competitive shooter, hunter, member of the Arms Collectors Guild Tasmania and a member of the Shooters and Fishers Party.