Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review
That's the document the data came from, the page shows a couple of thousand fewer than the figure above for an earlier year. the number grows year on year with the population.
I read the document you posted, it does have a lot of inaccuracies, along with a lot of truths. It IS true that if you have a gun you are less likely to become the victim of successful crime, but you are also more likely to die in a criminal attempt. There are lots of reasons to allow gun carriage, and lots to deny it. I think that following my life here in the UK, I am a little fearful of moving to the USA with my fiance. My primary reason for this is that people are allowed to carry firearms, and I don't know when I will be able to defend myself. Here if somebody tried to mug me I would most definitely ensure that didn't happen. How do I know if the person has a gun or not when I am in the states?
According to this website,
US and UK murder – rate and weapon | Flesh is Grass , the USA has ~ a 5x greater murder rate. A huge part of me wonders if this is because of how vast the country is, or because of gun laws. I am a sensible guy, intelligent, so I am not one to think in a one dimensional manner. I understand the varying influences on a countries crime statistics. I don't know what it is like to own a gun, so I don't know the attachment you can have to it. I do know what these figures tell me, and I can only see a few variables.
I know that there are people here in the UK that own guns, both legally and illegally. There aren't many gun related deaths, in fact if there is one it makes national news. I like to think that by restricting gun ownership, that goes a long way to protecting me. My fate is effectively in my hands, unless someone pulls a gun on me then I'm screwed.