I'm the first to agree with the 'lies, damn lies, and statistics' quote of Benjamin Disraeli.
Shootings and gun-related deaths are very much concentrated in the major urban areas; there less in the 'heartland' of rural America on a per capita basis. Yes, much of the urban violence may be criminal-on-criminal, but that's hard to define. I'd rather they go at it with knives and/or harsh language....
I lived in Mel for a year, and awhile back a comparable US city with roughly similar economic vitality and population. Maybe the US news reports more and the Oz news agencies choose not to report them, but shootings and a death occured almost daily in the US city, often mentioned in passing by the anchorpersons. A shooting related death in Mel seemed a fairly uncommon event and cause for a cut to a talking head reporting from the scene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ted_death_rate
This is secondary to the issue of 'rights' to carry weapons. We are of two different cultures in this discussion, clearly. We all agree that we love the sky, though, and let's keep that grounded in our minds; we are brothers!(sorry, sisters too...sexist pig comment, that was, eh? sorry...)
I spent some time searching for statistically valid evidence that increasing gun ownership within the citizenry decreased the crime rate or murder rate. I cannot find the reference the prior poster made about Texas. Can someone find it for me?
Trained police officers in crisis situations rarely hit their targets more than 30% of the time. Usually less, actually. My wife was a cop for two years. They practiced daily. She could shoot the eyes out of a man target at 40 meters with her Lady Browning. (I can still dust her on video games, tho, being less concerned about wounding the odd virtual civilian!) And a gun carrying (sure, trained, practiced, fine-whatever) civilian is going to do better in such a crisis situation?
CHeers
SCott