We are Number 8 in the world for murders by firearms (per capita)!

[KansasVoter]

These countries are ahead of us....

1. South Africa
2. Colombia
3. Thailand
4. Zimbabwe
5. Mexico
6. Belarus
7. Costa Rica

Canada is 20
The UK is 32

source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita

[xchrom]

1. we're in the Top Ten! yay! nt

[rfranklin]

2. USA! USA!....

Can we improve on that and shoot for number one?

[KansasVoter]

3. LOL....unrecs.......from the gun nuts no doubt. Why unrec the truth??

[Pancho Sanza]

5. May I inquire, what are 'gun nuts'?

Are they used to attach the grips to the stock?

[Motown_Johnny]

6. gun nuts are those who refuse to accept the truth about the dangers these weapons present

and also present falsehoods about the need for these dangerous weapons

[Pancho Sanza]

7. Ah! I see...those would be the folks who know nothing about them.

Gotcha, thanks.

[KansasVoter]

8. And don't feel tougher when we have them!

[Xicano]

22. So then would that make you a prohibition nut who refuses to accept the truth

that prohibition only creates black markets?

Also notice most, if not all, of the countries on that list above the United States have more stringent guns laws than we do. Oops! that doesn't fit your argument does it.

The problem isn't with guns, your phobia of them is misdirected. The problem is: Poverty, our culture and its cult of the self, the image our foreign policy projects legitimizing violence or the threat of violence to have things our way, a myriad of violent video games, glamorizing of violence i.e. rambo, john wayne, chuck norris, charles bronson, arnold schwarzenegger, jean-claude van damme, jason bourne, etc, etc.

Now, answer me this if you would. If you had it your way and guns were completely prohibited except law enforcement/military. How are you going to prevent the inevitable black market? Fair question.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NJQK2BscIg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Z_2oU9B2o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvdNSnxc64

[spin]

11. It's a term used to describe a person who enjoys owning firearms.

People who don't understand why anyone would want to own firearms often use it as an insult.

I own firearms and enjoy target shooting as a hobby. I started target shooting with handguns 40 years ago and found the sport to be challenging and rewarding. I personally have never tried hunting although I have no problems with shooting wild game for food. I also have a concealed weapons permit and carry a .38 snub nosed revolver.

Therefore I fall in the category of people that some liberal people with closed minds love to insult. I personally take no offense at such insults as I have the ability to laugh at myself and to never take myself or life too seriously. I have often called myself a gun enthusiast which I consider the more politically correct version.

[Pancho Sanza]

4. Wonder about current information, those numbers are 11 years old

according to the "source" link.

[KansasVoter]

9. LOL...ok Einstien, find newer stats!

[Pancho Sanza]

15. Einstein doesn't follow the "i before e" rule.

I don't have any interest in newer stats (or older ones either), just thought I'd mention the ones in the op were pretty ancient (another "i before e" oddity, eh? What a weird society. :-)

[KansasVoter]

17. So my stats are fine! Whiner!

[spin]

20. In 2009, the murder rate was the lowest since the mid-1060s ...

So your data is seriously dated as it happened near the peak of the murder rate.

What's Behind America's Falling Crime Rate
Monday, Feb. 22, 2010

Health care, climate change, terrorism — is it even possible to solve big problems? The mood in Washington is not very hopeful these days. But take a look at what has happened to one of the biggest, toughest problems facing the country 20 years ago: violent crime. For years, Americans ranked crime at or near the top of their list of urgent issues. Every politician, from alderman to President, was expected to have a crime-fighting agenda, yet many experts despaired of solutions. By 1991, the murder rate in the U.S. reached a near record 9.8 per 100,000 people. Meanwhile, criminologists began to theorize that a looming generation of so-called superpredators would soon make things even worse.

Then, a breakthrough. Crime rates started falling. Apart from a few bumps and plateaus, they continued to drop through boom times and recessions, through peace and war, under Democrats and Republicans. Last year's murder rate may be the lowest since the mid-1960s, according to preliminary statistics released by the Department of Justice. The human dimension of this turnaround is extraordinary: had the rate remained unchanged, an additional 170,000 Americans would have been murdered in the years since 1992. That's more U.S. lives than were lost in combat in World War I, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq — combined. In a single year, 2008, lower crime rates meant 40,000 fewer rapes, 380,000 fewer robberies, half a million fewer aggravated assaults and 1.6 million fewer burglaries than we would have seen if rates had remained at peak levels. emphasis added
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963761,00.html

Preliminary Stats Show 2010 Crime Rates Lower

Published on Dec 20, 2010 - 6:17:16 AM



WASHINGTON, D.C. Dec. 20, 2010 - According to the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report released today, the nation experienced a 6.2 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes and a 2.8 percent decline in the number of property crimes from January to June 2010, when compared with data from the same time period in the prior year. The report is based on information from more than 12,000 law enforcement agencies that submitted three to six comparable months of data to the FBI during the first six months of both 2009 and 2010.
http://yubanet.com/usa/Preliminary-Stats-Show-2010-Crime-Rates-Lower.php

Here's a graph that shows the decline:

source: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/hmrt.cfm

[-..__...]

10. It's Madness I Tell You! Madness!!

[TBF]

12. We must strive to get to #1 USA USA USA!

:sarcasm:

[derby378]

13. #5, Mexico, has some of the toughest gun laws in the Americas

And they are still #5 on the list. Guess their laws aren't working out so well, are they?

[KansasVoter]

16. It is the gun culture here, not the guns. Nuts like people in this country!

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. You know where I work,

I see the down side of this gun ownership issue all the time. And it's just gotten worse.

There aren't many things harder than comforting a child who has lost a family member to gun violence.

[beevul]

18. And yet were number 1...

And yet were number 1 in gun ownership...




Country guns per 100 residents Year

United States 90 2007
Yemen 61 2007
Finland 56 2007
Switzerland 46 2007
Iraq 39 2007
Serbia 37.5 2007
France 32 2007
Canada 31.5 2007
Sweden 31.5 2007
Austria 31 2007

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Lists-of-countries-by-gun-ownership#_ref-Adjacic_2006_6

Why arent we number one in the world for murders by firearms (per capita)?

[Recursion]

19. Don't all 7 of the countries above us have more stringent gun control laws than we do? (nt)

[spin]

21. Mexico has more stringent gun laws than we do ...

Gun politics in Mexico have resulted in some of the strictest gun laws in the world. It is in many ways similar to the United Kingdom, except with much more severe prison terms for even the smallest gun law violations. On the other hand, possession of non-military-caliber small arms by citizens is largely a non-issue. Gun politics are thus not the major issue in Mexico that they are in the neighboring United States, since few Mexican citizens have any gun law difficulties.

***snip***

Generally, citizens are restricted by law to:

* pistolas (handguns) of .380 Auto or .38 Special revolvers or smaller in either case except the .357 Magnum, (357 SIG) or 9x19mm Parabellum
* escopetas (shotguns) of 12 gauge or smaller, with barrels longer than 25 inches, and
* rifles (rifles) bolt action and semi-auto.

Handguns in calibers bigger than those mentioned above are forbidden from private ownership.

Examples of firearms that are legal for citizens to own include .380 ACP pistols, .38 Special revolvers, 12 gauge shotguns (no short-barreled shotguns are allowed) and rifles in any caliber with exceptions such as .30 Carbine, 7mm and 7.62 mm Carbines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Mexico

Despite these strict gun laws, many Mexican politicians are killed by firearms.

Mayor-Elect Shot as Hits on Mexico Politicians Climb
Published October 09, 2010

The mayor-elect of a small town near Oaxaca state's Pacific coast has been shot to death, the latest in a string of political figures who have been slain in Mexico this year.

***snip***

Eleven sitting mayors have been killed so far this year in Mexico. Two of them were also in Oaxaca, but most of the killings have been in northern states plagued by drug gang violence.

Candidates and representatives-elect have also been assassinated. The most brazen was a deadly ambush of a gubernatorial candidate earlier this year in the border state of Tamaulipas, where two drug cartels are fighting a bloody battle for territory and transit routes to the United States.

Mexican drug cartels have increasingly targeted local elected officials as they fight the government and each other. They use isolated, lightly patrolled towns to hide and to stash kidnap victims, weapons and drugs and seek to co-opt or eliminate authorities to assert their control.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/10/09/mayor-elect-shot-hits-mexico-politicos-climb/#ixzz1AewAs22Y