A few gun facts.
[SIZE=-1]Source: Except for the figure on doctor's negligence, the above information is for 2000 and is taken from National Safety Council, Injury Facts: 2003 Edition, at 10, 19-20, 129. The number of yearly deaths attributed to doctor's negligence is based on the Harvard Medical Practice Study (1990) which is cited in Kleck, Point Blank, at 43.127
*The total firearms death figure above is a summary of the "Suicides," "Homicides" and "Accidents" subcategories. The Total excludes two categories: Legal Intervention and Undetermined.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]5. Violence by any other name is still violent[/SIZE] -- Many countries with strict gun control laws have violence rates that are equal to, or greater than, that of the United States. Consider the following rates:
High Gun Ownership Countries
Country - SwitzerlandSuicide - 21.4
Homicide - 2.7
Total - 24.1 *
Country - Denmark
Suicide - 22.3
Homicide - 4.9Total - 27.2 *
Country - U.S.
Suicide - 11.6
Homicide - 7.4
Total - 19.0 *
Low Gun Ownership Countries
Country - France
Suicide - 20.8
Homicide - 1.1
Total - 21.9 *
Country - ISRAEL
Suicide - 6.5
Homicide - 1.4Total - 7.9 *
Country - JAPAN
Suicide - 16.7
Homicide - 0.6Total - 17.3 * *
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* The figures listed in the table are the rates per 100,000 people.
** Suicide figures for Japan also include many homicides.
Source for table: U.S. figures for 1996 are taken from the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. and FBI Uniform Crime Reports. The rest of the table is taken from the UN 1996 Demographic Yearbook (1996, cited at http://www.haciendapub.com/stolinsky.html.
The United States has experienced far fewer TOTAL MURDERS than Europe over the last 70 years. In trying to claim that gun-free Europe is more peaceful than America, gun control advocates routinely ignore the overwhelming number of murders that have been committed in Europe.
* Over the last 70 years, Europe has averaged about 400,000 murders per year, when one includes the murders committed by governments against mostly unarmed people.169 That murder rate is about 16 times higher than the murder rate in the U.S.170
* Why hasn’t the United States experienced this kind of government oppression? Many reasons could be cited, but the Founding Fathers indicated that an armed populace was the best way of preventing official brutality. Consider the words of James Madison in Federalist 46:
Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger . . . a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands.171
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