In a UN study of murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants, the world average was 7.6%. The USA averaged 4.2% with many countries in Africa etc. averaging much worse. But if you compare the USA to Europe and Japan and China, we don't look good. The murder average for the United Kingdom is 1.2%. Japan is 0.3%. Ireland is 1.2% and Germany is 0.8%. The role played by gun ownership is not entirely clear. Canada, as Michael Moore pointed out in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, has gun ownership similar to the USA but a far lower murder rate. Cultural differences must account for that. I suspect that we are, as a people, more paranoid and violent than Canadians. The American argument that easy access to semi-automatic weapons lowers the murder rate, however, is contradicted by the statistics cited above.
The 2nd Amendment has proved remarkably useful in the overthrow of tyrants or has it?
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