America is truly an exceptional nation.

It's not because of our education system, our economy or our scientific establishment.

No, America is really only exceptional when it comes to the number of guns, the frequency of gun murders, and the shockingly high number of annual gun deaths.

Other countries don't have the problems that the United States does. Other industrialized countries don't have tens of thousands of gun deaths per year, or regular mass shootings, or a population as armed as it is violent.

Other countries don't have America's gun problem.

Here, we take a look at the data that shows why America is so unlike the rest of the world when it comes to the popularity and the abuse of guns. We'll look at the role that policy-makers play in the gun control debate, and we'll look at what can be done.

It isn't pretty, but it's important. Hundreds of thousands of American lives hang in the balance.