The Florence County, South Carolina, shooting offers a reminder that America’s gun problem hurts police officers too. On Wednesday, a man shot seven police officers, killing one, as they attempted to serve a warrant to someone else at a home in Florence. The shooter could see the officers from “several hundred yards, so he had an advantage,” the local sheriff told reporters. The suspect surrendered after a negotiator talked him down, according to local officials. It is rare for police officers to be shot or killed in a mass shooting, and on-duty police deaths have generally trended down for the past few decades. But police officers in America may be uniquely susceptible to shootings, relative to other developed nations, due to the US’s abundance of guns. The idea is simple: Police officers have to serve warrants and arrest people in every country in the world. That’s part of their job. But in America, they may be more likely to run into a person who is armed and could open fire — so these kinds of deadly incidents may happen more often. There’s data to back this up. For one, America does have more guns than other countries. According to the Small Arms Survey, the US had 120.5 guns per 100 people in 2017 — more guns than people. Second-place Yemen had 52.8 guns per 100 residents, while developed nations comparable to America fell lower still: Canada had 34.7 per 100 people, Germany had 19.6 per 100 people, and Australia had 14.5 per 100 people. Other data suggests that where there are more guns, there are more on-duty police deaths. A 2015 study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, concluded that every 10 percent increase in firearm ownership at the state level correlated with 10 additional officers killed in homicides over the 15-year study period. “Police officers in the United States, in reality, need to be conscious of and are trained to be conscious of the fact that literally every single person they come in contact with may be carrying a concealed firearm,” David Kennedy, a criminologist at John Jay College, previously told me. “That’s true for a 911 call. It’s true for a barking dog call. It’s true for a domestic violence incident. It’s true for a traffic stop. It’s true for everything.” More guns, more gun deaths This is reflective of America’s broader gun problem. Compared to other developed nations, America simply has many more gun deaths than its similar peers. That’s in large part because the country’s abundance of guns makes it so easy to carry out gun violence. A study recently published in JAMA found that the US rate of gun deaths, which includes homicides and suicides, was 10.6 per 100,000 people in 2016. That dwarfed comparable developed nations: Switzerland’s rate was 2.8, Canada’s was 2.1, Australia’s was 1, Germany’s was 0.9, the United Kingdom’s was 0.3, and Japan’s was 0.2. Researchers have linked America’s higher rate of gun deaths to its abundance of guns. This is true not just for on-duty police deaths, but also homicides, suicides, and domestic violence. For example, a 2013 study, also published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that, after controlling for multiple variables, each percentage point increase in gun ownership correlated with a roughly 0.9 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate. As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley’s Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in the 1990s found, it’s not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, based on data from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime: Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns. “A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.” This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry at an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone. Other factors play a role in gun violence. Poverty, alcohol consumption, and urbanization, for example, also contribute. But when researchers control for these other variables, they find that America’s number of guns play a big role in the number of gun deaths. In fact, researchers have found that stricter gun policies can save lives. A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence — a strong indicator that restricting access to firearms can save lives. The review suggested that no one policy seems to have a big effect by itself, but a collection of gun restrictions can produce a significant effect over time. Similarly, a recent review of US studies by the RAND Corporation found some evidence that stricter gun laws, like background checks, reduce gun deaths and injuries, while permissive gun laws, like concealed carry, increase gun deaths and injuries. But America has fairly weak gun laws, compared to other developed nations. That’s enabled a huge supply of guns in the US. The abundance of guns in America is something that police in the US have to constantly be on the watch for. In day-to-day work that is often inherently confrontational, it’s a lot easier in the US for those confrontations to turn deadly. Kennedy of John Jay College called it “a very, very powerful dynamic” in America. For his policing research, Kennedy has traveled all around the developed world, from the US to Canada to Europe to Japan. “In none of these other settings do police officers feel this way or do the police have these sorts of conversations and concerns,” he said. That’s not to say that people in other countries are always unarmed. In some places, like Glasgow, Scotland, there have been big problems historically with knife crime. But the reality is weapons other than firearms are simply much less likely to carry a deadly threat. More guns may also lead to more shootings by police It goes the other way too: The abundance of guns is important not just due to the threat it poses to police, but because it also may make police more guarded and even aggressive, increasing their chances of using — sometimes wrongly — deadly force. “It’s an obvious, common-sense observation,” Tracey Meares, a policing expert at Yale Law School, previously told me. “In situations where police officers say, ‘I was in fear for my life,’ and later substantiate that with, ‘I thought the person had a gun,’ the reasonableness of someone’s assumption that somebody could possibly have a gun is naturally related to the prevalence of guns in the environment.” To verify this, earlier this year John Roman, a senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago, and I combed through police killing data and gun ownership data to see if there was a connection. Our results were suggestive: They indicated that weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership do, at the very least, correlate with more killings by police officers (including shootings and other incidents of lethal force). For the analysis, Roman went through the police killing data from the Police Violence Report, verifying it with other reports and the Washington Post’s database, to get an idea of how many police killings there were in 2017. We then compared police killing rates for each state with the state’s population (based on Census data), a composite score for state’s gun control laws (based on a National Rifle Association database), and gun ownership rates (based on a 2013 national survey).<doc-sep>Emergency crews are responding to the scene of what is believed to be a mass shooting in South Carolina. Seven law enforcement officers have been shot in South Carolina and at least one of them has died, according to CBS affiliate WBTW. The Florence County Sheriff's Office now says three Florence County deputies and four Florence city police officers were wounded. The shooting happened in the area of Hoffmeyer Road near the Vintage Place neighborhood in Florence, S.C. Florence County Emergency Management initially described the situation as "an active shooter incident." Officials later said the active shooter situation was over and the suspect was in custody. The suspect surrendered after speaking with a negotiator, Kirby said. That suspect has been taken to a local hospital. Special agents from the ATF have arrived at the scene. People are being urged to stay away. ►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the 10News app now.<doc-sep>FLORENCE, S.C. (CBS News) — Seven law enforcement officers were shot Wednesday in Florence, South Carolina, and a suspect is in custody, according to a city spokesman. During an emotional press conference Wednesday night, officials said they were attempting to serve a search warrant when a suspect opened fire from within a residence. Three deputies were shot and city police responded to the scene where four additional officers were wounded, one fatally. A 2-hour standoff ensued as the suspect was barricaded inside with children. The suspect is in custody, but details weren’t immediately released on how the standoff ended. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster posted on Twitter that Wednesday’s incident is “simply devastating” and called out the “selfless acts of bravery from the men and women in law enforcement.” This is simply devastating news from Florence. The selfless acts of bravery from the men and women in law enforcement is real, just like the power of prayer is real. (1/2) — Gov. Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) October 3, 2018 The Florence County Emergency Management Department tweeted earlier that an “active shooting situation” was over and officials urged people to stay away from the area. ****Major Update**** The active shooting situation is over and the suspect is in custody. We are asking everyone to stay away from Vintage Place as there is still an active crime investigation in progress. pic.twitter.com/1OImJOjqXS — FCEMD (@FlorenceCoEMD) October 3, 2018 The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said special agents are assisting in the incident. Authorities said the shooting took place in Vintage Place, an upscale neighborhood in the western part of the city. Florence is about 70 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach and The Associated Press reports that it’s home to roughly 37,000 people, sitting at the convergence of Interstates 95 and 20. It’s the largest region known as the Pee Dee, an area recently affected by heavy flooding in the wake of Hurricane Florence. MORE NEWS: San Jose Shooting: UC Davis Gun Violence Expert Warns 'We Are Likely To Have A Rough Summer' This is a developing story. Check back for latest updates. © 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.<doc-sep>
As of Thursday, October 4, this article is no longer being updated. For continuing coverage on gun violence, check out Vox’s gun violence section. A shooter on Wednesday shot seven police officers in a residential neighborhood in Florence County, South Carolina, killing at least one, according to local officials. “This area is safe. The suspect is in custody,” Florence County Sheriff Kenney Boone told reporters at a press conference Wednesday night. Three Florence County sheriff’s deputies and three other Florence police officers who were shot were all receiving medical attention, according to Florence Police Chief Allen Heidler. Authorities said that the officer who died was from the Florence Police Department. President Donald Trump offered his “thoughts and prayers” to the Florence County Sheriff’s Office and the Florence Police Department on Wednesday night. “We are forever grateful for what our Law Enforcement Officers do 24/7/365,” Trump wrote on Twitter. The story is still developing. Here’s what we know, and don’t, so far. What we know Shortly before 5 pm local time, Florence County Emergency Management tweeted about “an active shooter incident in progress at this time,” telling the public to stay away from Vintage Place, a residential area, in Florence. The shooting ended by around 6 pm, although Florence County Emergency Management continued to advise the public to stay away from the area where the shooting occurred. Three Florence County sheriff’s deputies and four Florence police officers were shot. One of the officers died: Terrence Carraway, who had been with the Florence Police Department for more than 30 years, according to the New York Times. The rest are receiving medical attention. A suspect is in custody after reportedly surrendering to police, according to Florence County Chief Deputy Glenn Kirby. He was identified as 74-year-old Fred Hopkins, the Times reported, and “was not believed to be the subject of the warrant.” Hopkins is a disbarred lawyer with a record of minor charges against him, according to the Associated Press. The officers were reportedly serving a search warrant on a 27-year-old at the home in Vintage Place when Hopkins allegedly opened fire. “His view of fire was several hundred yards, so he had an advantage,” Sheriff Boone told reporters. When deputies arrived, Boone said, the “gunfire started.” The shooting began at around 4 pm. Special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) are on the scene to help with the investigation. There have been at least 274 other mass shootings in the US in 2018, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organization defines mass shootings as events in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot but not necessarily killed in a similar time and place. Florence County has a population of more than 138,000 people, according to the US Census Bureau. What we don’t know