Originally Posted by Elli

Don't the stats speak for themselves on this already? Americans have the right and ability to arm themselves daily. America has one of the highest murder and violent crime rates of any first world nation. Compare that to countries where guns are restricted to military, police forces, hunters, and other security-oriented professions. I don't think this is an experiment that is still waiting for the results to come in.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
Crime rates per 100,000 people in the US in 2010:
Violent crime rate 403.6
Homicide rate 4.8
Property crime rate 2,941

According to http://www.unodc.org/documents/south...stice_2010.pdf
The homicide rate per 100,000 in the last reporting period was approximately (page 13-19):
United States: 7 311 million
Canada: 2 = 34 million
U.K: 2 63 million
Serbia: 4 7 million
Estonia:7 1.3 million
"Available data from 61 countries indicate that the percentage of homicides committed by firearm varies from 10 percent in countries in East and Southeast Europe to around 75 percent in Central America and the Caribbean."