The “our culture is causing mass shootings” argument is compelling and can sound reasonable on a visceral level. But it’s based on emotion, not reality.

According to global marketing firm Newzoo, the five countries that spend the most money on video games are: China, the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Using data from 2016, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington found that the rate of violent gun deaths per 100,000 people in those countries is: 0.06 for China, 3.85 for the United States, 0.04 for Japan, 0.12 for Germany and 0.07 for the United Kingdom.

Violent video games are available everywhere, but America’s gun violence rate is staggeringly higher than those other top video-game-purchasing countries.

How about the importance of religion in our society? A Pew Research Center study found that a little more than half of Americans say religion is very important in their lives. Does that indicate moral decay that would turn boys into monsters?

Look at the other countries referenced above. In China, only 3 percent say religion is very important. Japan is only 11 percent. The United Kingdom and Germany are both at 21 percent. In Canada, only 27 percent of people think religion is very important in their lives.

Our level of religiosity is high compared with those countries, but our gun violence problem is off the charts.

Abortion? According to data from a study released this year by the Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 49 in the United States was 13. The rate was the same in the United Kingdom. Sweden had a higher abortion rate at 18 per 1,000 women, but there were only 41 people shot to death there last year.

Violent movies? Those are shown in other countries that have minor to nonexistent gun violence problems.

Ritalin? That’s also not unique to America. Iceland, which is virtually gun-violence-free, saw its use of the drug commonly used to treat ADHD jump more than 230 percent between 2004 and 2014. Furthermore, there hasn’t been any indication the Santa Fe shooter was taking Ritalin, and a 2000 report on school shootings conducted in part by the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center and the Department of Education found: “Few of the attackers had been diagnosed with any mental disorder prior to the incident. Additionally, fewer than one-third of attackers had histories of drug or alcohol abuse.”

These cultural factors can all be concerning in their own right, but they aren’t to blame for America’s gun violence epidemic. If they were, other countries would have the same problems.

There’s only one significant factor that separates America from places like England and Japan and Germany and Sweden: We have an illogical number of easily accessible guns.