With another shooting of an unarmed man by police in the news, it's easy to wonder if every country has this problem. The answer? Apparently not.
The United States has roughly 100 times more police shootings than other developed countries — even those with lots of gun ownership. Compared to Germany, Japan, and Britain, our stats look like this:
Between 2010 and 2014, American police in one small city — Albuquerque, N.M. — shot and killed seven times more people than were killed by police in all of England and Wales in the same time period, The Economist reports. (There are about half a million people in Albuquerque and about 50 million in England and Wales.)
Even Canada, perhaps our closest physical and cultural relative, averages about 12 police-related shooting deaths per year. And, it's not for lack of guns: While it doesn't measure up to America’s impressive love for firearms, Canada still has about 31 guns for every 100 residents, according to U.N. stats. The U.S. boasts nearly 90 guns per 100 people.
It's not a problem with an easy solution, but those numbers — 458 and zero — paint a pretty shameful picture.