Prayer of the Gun

Trey Smith

Gun deaths, of course, are significantly more common in the most religious states of the nation. And gun deaths are very low in the relatively non-religiously-observant states of northern Europe. In the UK, the homicide by firearm rate is approximately one in a million. Ditto in France. That must be nice. More people are killed by guns in the US every day than in an entire year in Japan – by a factor of about 12.

Every nation in the world has people who are sadistic and violent or sick and violent. And yet, the kinds of regular mass rampages that have now happened several times this year alone in the United States seem to be a specifically American phenomenon.
~ from The Conservative Philosophy of Tragedy: Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People by Jill Filipovic ~

I have written about this interesting observation before. Why is that a more secular Europe and a predominantly non-Christian Japan don't have this problem with guns and violence? If a lack of school prayer is a major cause of guns deaths in the US, then why are gun deaths not an epidemic in those regions?

And let's be honest here. This is not solely a Christian problem. Violent death rates also are high in predominantly Jewish and Muslim nations too. Hindus aren't immune either. It just seems to me that, where religion is held in high esteem, violence more readily grips that society.

That seems rather odd, doesn't it?