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USA: Guns



I was reading Canada's Maclean's magazine this morning, with a lead article on the Arizona shooting.  Some of the numbers are amazing (and shocking).  

With all the political rhetoric leading up to, and culminating in, the Giffords shooting, one thing is clear:  If the Palin targeting campaign did not have any impact on the shooting, it easily could have.  And therefore, something needs to change.  However, I suspect that the "dialog" resulting from this will result in even more divisive politics, instead of any positive change :-/
  • 1.30 million US citizens have been killed by firearms in the last 40 years, or over 32K per year.
  • 0.58 million US troops have been killed in action since 1776, or about 2.5K per year
  • 283M guns are currently in civilian hands
  • The annual death rate from firearms is about 10 per 100,000
  • The annual death rate from motor vehicle accidents is about 15 per 100,000
Here is some data for other "democratic" countries:
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 Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated): 
  Homicide Suicide Other (inc Accident)
       
USA (2001)       3.98  5.92 0.36
Italy (1997)  0.81 1.1 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50  5.8    0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 2.0 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35 4.45 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 3.4 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15 0.2 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 0.2 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 0.04 0        


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The map below is from: http://wisqars.cdc.gov:8080/cdcMapFramework/mapModuleInterface.jsp
(Choose "firearms" only to get this view).



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