More broadly, guns in America take almost 9,000 lives per year. There were 37 mass shootings (defined as four or more dead) and over 200 school and campus shootings in the 15 years leading up to my trip to Aurora the 2005–’12 period alone saw over 400 shootings of three or more victims each. What did surprise me was how disturbingly commonplace incidents like last summer’s Aurora shooting actually are. It also seemed obvious that guns play a starring role in the national carnage: over two-thirds of all homicides in America are committed with firearms, which is unsurprising given the speed and ease with which a gun can be used to end a life. murder rate is two times that of Canada, three times that of the U.K., four times that of Australia, five times that of Spain, and 10 times that of Iceland and Japan. It immediately became clear to me that Americans are killing each other, and we’re doing it quickly. When all was said and done - the shooter arrested, my two wounded friends discharged from the hospital, 12 fellow moviegoers pronounced dead by the coroner - I returned home and tried to understand what had happened to me, and its greater context. I was initiated into America’s gun culture the hard way: face-down in a darkened movie theater in Aurora, Colo., covered in a friend’s blood.