There were more homicides in New Zealand today than in all of 2017
New Zealand is reeling after a horrifying mass shooting that resulted in more murders in one day than the country recently experienced in a single year.
At least 49 people are dead after an attack was carried out on two mosques in Christchurch on Friday, per CNN. There were only 48 homicides in New Zealand in the entirety of 2017, AFP reporter Dave Clark points out. Of these homicides, 35 were murders.
Very few of the homicides that do occur in New Zealand involve the use of a firearm; for example, there were only eight in 2015 compared to 13,000 in the U.S. that same year, per Vox. This is despite the fact that New Zealand's civilian gun ownership has risen 62 percent since 2005, Bloomberg reports, with the country having about 1.5 million gun owners. Friday's attack was New Zealand's first mass shooting in more than 20 years, The Atlantic reports.
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BuzzFeed News' Matthew Champion also points to one other harrowing figure: the 2013 census reported that there were 46,000 Muslims living in New Zealand, and so this attack means that "New Zealand has lost 1 in 1,000 people from its entire Muslim community."
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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.
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