Statistics are what the originater wants them to be... People often reflect on selective statistics to validate their own agenda. That is simply not accurate nor fair for either side of the "gun issue" to do becuse it completly negates the real issues at hand; social issues.

I've allways said, and I still feel that the day a firearm of any kind knowlingly and willfully commits a murder on its own, with out a human behind it.. then and only then I'll give up my guns. Firearms are nothing, just chunks of steel with no life of their own... it takes a human to kill. Thus it is the current value of human life that's the issue not presence or absence of firearms.

I am a holder of a CCW, a couple in fact.. (I can legally carry a firearm in 30 states). If we are going to play the statistics game, I'll reflect on the statistics that show a corresponding effect on violent crime when more civilians are trained, licensed and allowed to carry a handgung:
Florida started the CCW craze in 1987, at that time Floridians were about 36 percent more likely to be murdered than other Americans. After the libral CCW law was enacted the Florida murder rate was equal to or slightly less than the national rate.

In California, counties that issue concealed-carry permits liberally had lower violent-crime rates than counties with restrictive policies; restrictive counties had lower rates than counties with prohibitive policies.
A comprehensive study by University of Chicago law professor John Lott and graduate student David Mustard examining crime data for 3,054 counties found that while concealed-carry reform had little effect in rural counties, in urban counties it was followed by a substantial reduction in homicide and other violent crimes such as robbery. At the same time, there was a statistically significant rise in non-confrontational property crimes, such as larceny and car theft. Apparently many criminals concluded that the risks of encountering a victim who could fight back had become too high.

Most of this data came from recent (2003) reports and the effects are still showing a decline in violent crime where civilians are trained and licensed to carry. The fact that violent crime has dropped in areas where CCW laws were lax has urged all 50 states to re-think their own laws and today only 4 states still have a "Right Denied" policy.

Compairing the US murder rate to other countries is not even an effective retort. Prior to having any gun controls, England already had a homicide rate much lower than the United States. The Swiss with 7 million people have hundreds of thousands of fully-automatic rifles in their homes and the Israelis, until recently, have had easy access to guns. Both countries have low homicide rates. Likewise this doesn't mean more guns less crime.

The U.S. has a higher non-gun murder rate than many European country's total murder rates. On the other hand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Mexico have non-gun murder rates in excess of our total murder rate.

Alas, guns are NOT the issue... They are an easy scape goat and a popular "band wagon" to ride. It's too easy to negate the real social issues such as pverty Vs wealth distribution and just blame the gun. How do you hold an inanimate object responsable when you cant claim "the gun made me do it" as a defense?