China and the US were both born from armed conflict. They're now polar opposites on gun control
Editor's note: A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
(CNN) — Last week, a 47-year-old man stormed into a law firm in China's Wuhan city and shot dead a lawyer who he had "some disputes with," according to Chinese state media. He then stuffed his gun, just under 20 inches (50 centimeters) long, into a tennis racket bag and left.
The fatal shooting shocked many in China, which has some of the world's strictest gun control laws -- so much so, that some people thought initial reports were about yet another American shooting.
"When my friend told me about the shooting, I thought it was the United States," one person wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. Another user wrote, "Using a gun to kill people in China? Am I watching an American movie?"
That disbelief widely reflects how rare gun crime is in China -- in contrast to it being a daily reality in the US.
The two countries stand on opposite ends of the spectrum of gun control, with the right to bear arms legally protected and vehemently defended in one, and a near-total ban on civilian firearm ownership in the other.
The difference is stark when it comes to public safety. Despite being the world's most populous country, with 1.4 billion residents, China only records a few dozen gun crimes a year. And more broadly, violent crime has continued falling, reaching its lowest level in 20 years in 2020, according to state-run news outlet Xinhua.
Meanwhile, the US reports hundreds of mass shootings with four or more victims every year, with more than 475 such incidents recorded so far in 2021 -- not to mention many more gun deaths like suicides. Though there have been growing calls for gun control across the country, violent crime in general is on the rise -- major cities saw a 33% increase in homicides last year, in a crime surge that has continued this year.
China frequently draws this comparison, using America's crime rate to accuse the country of hypocrisy and ineffective governance, while downplaying its own rare incidents. For instance, the police statement on the Wuhan shooting avoided any mention of the gun, only saying the attacker had "wounded" an employee.State-run media outlets, meanwhile, have published dozens of articles about shootings in the US in the past few months alone. In 2019, nationalist tabloid Global Times touted China's effective gun control as "a lesson for (the) US." More recently, a Xinhua editorial in June called the US a "double-dealer" for criticizing other countries on human rights grounds while failing to tackle its own "raging gun crimes."The two countries' opposite approaches are especially striking given both nations were born from armed insurrection -- the US winning its independence in the Revolutionary War in 1783, and the Chinese Communist Party establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949 after a lengthy rebellion against the Nationalist government. Read More
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