The May 13 - May 19 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek reports on recently released statistics showing that gun violence is down in the United States. The studies cited show that guns are now used to commit crimes only 467,300 per year, a drop of 69%. As for gun homicides, the number cited is now down to 11,101 per year, a decrease of either 39% or 49%, depending on who provides the stats. And, of some comfort, I'm sure, 90% of all gun crimes are not commited with shotguns or rifles.
Bring on the guns?
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Wikipedia can produce some interesting numbers as well. At the location that I hope I've successfully been able to provide a link to, it is reported that the 2011 figure for the number of us in the U.S. murdered by guns every year, as measured in terms of "per 100,000 of population", the number is "3.6". And then there is a listing of other countries measured the same way.
So I just did a back of the envelope type thing and added up some numbers for other countries until I hit a "per 100,000 of population" that starts to come into our neighborhood. Doing it that way, I lump together Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands,New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Not each of them shoot each other with less abandon than we do. All of them put together use whatever guns possessed by all of them put together, to create a smaller annual river of blood, collectively, than we do.
Interestingly, even doing things that way, there is still almost enough room to squeeze in the .52 annual rate of Switzerland. And what's kind of funny about that is that Switzerland has not only the highest rate of gun murders of all countries other than the U.S. listed here, it also has, by one report, the third highest per capita rate of gun ownership on the planet. Um, not too far behind No. 2 Yemen, but only just barely more than half of our number. And, of course, we take the cake. http://en.wikipedia.org/...
So, sticking with this chain of thought, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand share similarities of historical "settlement" with us. English speaking migration, the dregs of old world society cast off for a fresh start, encountered difficulties/hostilities, etc. The per capita rate of gun ownership of these countries (guns per 100 population) cumulatively reaches about 75% of our level and their rate of killing each other is closer to about 25% of ours. Based on that, maybe we are truly defective. On the other hand, even though they all permit some private firearms access, they also all regulate far higher levels of gun safety than we do.
Finally, and everyone is welcome to take this for what it's worth, an extremely common experience society to society is that persons like to use guns to kill themselves far more than they choose to shoot others. Folks all around the planet seem to go out of their way to suck a barrel when desired. Or, I don't know, maybe there's something about gun ownership that makes people crazy enough to want to shoot something, even if that turns out to be themselves. One thing, however, that I think we can all agree upon is that a bullet to the head sure as hell is effective.
Oh, and maybe this one also. A person would have to be truly idiotic to argue that if we all just, willy nilly, go out there and buy up every firearm in sight everything will be better. When we have one gun per person, or is it two, or is it three, all of the killing will finally stop!
P.S. A quote from the Robert Kirby column in the Salt Lake Tribune today (Kirby is a bit left for Utah, clearly right of center for the rest of the country, and an ex-police officer): "There are 135 names of police officers killed in the line of duty listed on the Utah Law Enforcement memorial. Of those, 11 are officers who were killed by the accidental discharge of firearms, including their own."