Here we see gun homicides (red bar) and homicides by all other means (black bar) per 100,000 people (use scale on left). The red and black bars together show the total homicide rate. “Homicide” here is defined as ”unlawful death purposefully inflicted on a person by another person.” So that does not include justifiable self-defense or justifiable killing by a police officer.
The U.S. rate of gun homicides was 10 times the average rate of peer countries. And looking at total homicides, people in other advanced countries do not appear to be swinging nearly enough hammers or wielding enough knives to rival our total homicide rate either. The only countries that exceed our rate of homicides and gun homicides are less developed, drug cartel infested countries like Columbia and Mexico. Surely, we do not want to set our bar that low!
We also have by far the highest rate of civilian gun ownership (see yellow bars and use scale on right). Some countries like Switzerland do have high gun ownership rates without an accompanying spike in homicide rates. But the Swiss also require universal background checks, licensing and training and have been moving away from widespread guns in households and instead storing guns in depots. See more about Switzerland here: http://www.dailykos.com/...