Gun Politics in The United States - Rate of Homicides By Firearm

Rate of Homicides By Firearm

Main article: Gun violence in the United States#Homicides See also: List of countries by intentional homicide rate

The United States contains nearly 50% of the world's firearms in the hands of its citizens and homicide rate by firearm is significantly higher in the US than in most other advanced countries where firearms are very tightly controlled. Violent crime rates are not as high as some developed countries but are still reasonably high. For example, Great Britain suffers from over 2,000 violent crimes per 100,000, Austria has over 1,600 violent crimes per 100,000 - the United States violent crime rate is 460 per 100,000 comparable to the violent crime rate of France with 500 per 100,000. Meanwhile, Australia, one of the countries with the tightest gun-control, has just 92 violent crimes per 100,000.

In 2009, according to the UNODC, 60% of homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm. There were 3.0 recorded intentional homicides committed with a firearm per 100,000 inhabitants; for comparison, the figure for the United Kingdom, with very restrictive firearm laws (handguns are totally prohibited, for example) was 0.07, about 40 times lower, and for Germany 0.2. However, as a corollary, violent crime is over four times higher in the UK than in the United States; 460 per 100,000 in the United States versus 2,000+ per 100,000 in the UK where most crimes are perpetrated using knives.