The United States has an AVERAGE murder rate and rampage killings are JUST ONE PERCENT of U.S. murders

There are some eye-opening statistics that bear repeating in my recent article about President Obama cynically using the Oct. 1 mass-shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon to promote gun control.

Say them over and over and over again. And then again a few more times for good measure.

Contrary to gun-grabbing hysterics, the United States of America does NOT have a high murder rate.

The U.S. has merely an "average" murder rate among the nations of the world.

According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the global average murder rate (PDF file) is 6.2 per 100,000 human beings. The UN agency defines intentional homicide as "unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person."

The U.S. (excluding Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands which are reported on individually) is near the middle of 228 "countries" profiled.

With 4.7 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the United States ties at 110th place with Latvia and Niger.

Number one is Honduras with a murder rate of 90.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. At the very bottom of the list are Liechtenstein and Monaco which reported zero murders in the time period studied. (Note: The UK Daily Mail offers a user-friendly interactive map breaking down homicide rates around the world.)

Moreover, Obama's rants about mass-shootings are garbage, unworthy of the supposed leader of the free world (if that phrase still carries any meaning).

The hubbub about such mass-casualty events is nonsense, according to (PDF file) UNODC:

No other type of homicide generates such public fear or stupefaction at its meaninglessness as that involving multiple victims. Due to its often shocking and sensational nature, particularly of so-called “rampage killings”, mass murder also captures the attention of the public, the media and policymakers the world over, which no doubt colours perceptions of the prevalence and patterns of such events. [...]

Mass homicides may have a high profile, but they are actually low-frequency events, accounting, for example, for less than 1 per cent of all homicide cases in the United States and less than 3 per cent in Finland and Sweden.

But Obama and the Left rarely let the facts get in the way of their narrative.