Time to jump on my soap box.
There is a homicide issue in this country but guns are not the cause, they are the tools. The numbers show that gun control laws don't change what criminals do with firearms.
An August 2013 CDC report looked at rates for gun homicides in the 50 most populous metropolitan areas. It found that for 2009-2010, the top gun murder rate areas were, in order: New Orleans, Memphis, Detroit, Birmingham, St. Louis, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Six of those cities are in states with poor scores for their gun laws, while the other four get a ā??Cā? or better. Chicago, which placed last in the top 10, had a ban on handguns at the time. Thereā??s no discernible pattern among those cities, nor clear or convincing evidence in these statistics that shows more gun laws lead to more or less gun crime.
What we need to address is the underlying social issues that are fueling violence, predominantly in those cities.