In a mass shooting that took place at a Cleveland, Texas home on Friday night, five people were shot and murdered, including an 8-year-old. The shooting started after neighbors urged the gunman to cease blasting his assault rifle in his front yard because their baby was trying to sleep.

The incident in Cleveland is America’s 174th mass shooting — an incident during which four or more people are shot, as defined by the Gun Violence Archive — since the beginning of 2023.

No other high-income nation has experienced such a high gun death toll. There are 120 gun-related deaths in America every day, including homicides and suicides, amounting to an average of 43,375 every year. The US gun suicide rate is roughly 12 times greater than that of comparable high-income nations, and its gun homicide rate might be up to 26 times higher.

Opponents of gun regulation frequently portray the prevalence of gun violence in the US as a sign of a larger mental health issue. However, extremists and people with mental health issues are a problem in every nation. What makes the US special is its broad view of civilian gun ownership, which has been ingrained in politics, society, and the law since the country's establishment, as well as a national political system that has so far been unable to alter this standard.

It’s hard to estimate the number of privately owned guns in America since there is no countrywide database where people register whether they own guns, and there is a thriving black market for them in the absence of strong federal gun trafficking laws.

That culture of gun ownership in the US has made it all the more difficult to explore serious policy solutions to gun violence after mass shootings. In high-income countries lacking that culture, mass shootings have historically galvanized public support behind gun control measures that would seem extreme by US standards.