Originally Posted by Validus

How related are the topics of "lawful gun ownership" and "violent crimes with guns"?

Unless we have proof that supports gun crimes are committed with firearms acquired lawfully - is there an actual connection or does it expose some "marketing" tactics in support of another agenda?

If gun related crime is committed with firearms stolen from those who lawfully acquired them, than the storage and prevention of theft needs to get addressed, not the ownership and rights to have them... or not?

I believe the real issue is homicide rates and then possibly accidental deaths - not gun ownership itself.

Looking at murder rates on Wikipedia, the US is listed as #112 with a rate of 4.7 and Canada has a rate of 1.6 and listed at #170. Switzerland with a gun ownership rate of 45.7 guns per 100 residents, marking it the country ranked #4 for gun ownership, is ranked #206 with a murder rate of 0.6. These numbers seem to indicate that more guns does not = more murders.

The real issue is society or rather societies - the "willingness" to kill another person.