There’s a narrative we’ve grown comfortable with in America — a story we tell ourselves about safety, freedom, and the world beyond our borders.

We see images of distant conflicts on our screens, shake our heads at the violence “over there,” and feel a quiet reassurance that, whatever our problems, at least we’re not living in a war zone.

But what if the numbers told a different story? What if the data revealed something so jarring, so contrary to our assumptions, that it forced us to reconsider everything we thought we knew about safety and security?

In 2024, the statistics paint a picture that’s difficult to reconcile with our national self-image: gun deaths per capita in the United States were nearly 900 percent higher than in Afghanistan — a country we’ve long associated with war, insurgency, and instability.