Is Mississippi more dangerous than Guatemala? North Dakota than Haiti?

If you’re the Commonwealth Fund and you’ve sliced and diced gun violence numbers reported here and abroad, you might come to those conclusions. The group, which actually tasks itself as “a foundation dedicated to affordable, quality health care for everyone,” came up with these numbers by combining “an aggregate of physical violence by firearm, self-harm by firearm, and unintentional firearm injuries” from our nation’s CDC data as well as that reported internationally by Global Burden of Disease. The latter describes itself as “the largest and most comprehensive effort to quantify health loss across places and over time, so health systems can be improved and disparities eliminated.”

Yet while a Washington Post story sensationally detailing this study quotes its co-author, Evan Gumas, as saying, “I don’t think they would expect us to compare to many of the countries that we do compare to like the Dominican Republic, Belize, or Haiti,” they fail to note that even our worst states don’t hold a candle to El Salvador or Venezuela — although this data predates the gang crackdown by Salvadorian reformer Nayib Bukele, meaning Venezuela is now far and away the leader.

And gang violence is a significant part of our gun problem. As our Mark Alexander has regularly pointed out, “In a country and culture that ignores the rising generation of sociopathic murderers — mostly thugs in violent urban centers who are saturated with cultural violence and indoctrinated with mass-media glorification of violence — it is fortunate that the incidence of mass murder is not 10 times higher. Arguably, the only thing keeping that number from being higher is that 125 million Americans are legal and responsible gun owners.”

That, as well, is part of the rub. While we have no idea about the accuracy of statistics from third-world nations, it’s also noteworthy that our statistics include the nearly 60% of firearm deaths which result from suicide. While other nations surely have some gun-related suicides, we don’t have those numbers to compare apples and oranges.

We’ve been around the block often enough to know gun control propaganda when we see it, so let’s talk about what’s really going on here. For example, seldom is it mentioned how many gun deaths are prevented by the presence of a “good guy” with a gun, someone who oftentimes minimizes or negates the number of gun-related deaths. Nor do we take a serious look at a culture that glorifies violence and teaches that the way to avenge someone’s disrespect is to take him down.

For example, there was a recent arrest of two young men, ages 18 and 15, for the shooting and murder of a 26-year-old man. Unfortunately, this is getting to be just another day in this small town, which is regularly in the local news for homicides. As one social media observer said regarding the arrest, “What a lot of you fail to understand is this is all these kids know. This is what they are exposed to every day, violence … [and] how they are taught to handle disrespect. The violence they grow up seeing in their minds is normal and acceptable. Nobody else but the teachers at school and support staff are the only ones telling them that this is not okay.” And that’s assuming they go to school.

While there are those who will tell you the guns are the issue, the difference between America and these supposedly less violent nations isn’t the access to guns. If someone with the mind to murder can’t get a gun, they’ll make do with a knife, a length of rope, or some blunt object. While Democrats are pining to regulate and tax us all out of our guns, all that taking away our weapons will do is leave the American people defenseless.

When the only ones with guns are the bad guys, it’s no mystery why gun violence is so prevalent in places like Venezuela. And, come to think of it, Chicago.