310 million people lived in the US in 2011 with almost 300 million firearms being owned.
1.2 million violent crimes occurred in 2011, translating to 0.04% of the US population.
With 8,653 resulting in a HOMICIDE by firearm, that’s 0.07% of the 1.2 million violent crimes. That’s 0.07% of the 0.04%!
To really grasp how much of a problem gun crime is, or ISN’T, we can look at the numbers above which show that gun homicides account for less than 0.0003% of our population.
Meaning that 99.9% of the 300 million firearms are NOT being used to murder people.
That doesn’t portray so much of a gun problem as the media is trying to frame it as. Every innocent death is sad, but we shouldn’t restrict the rights of the good people out there when 99.9% of them aren’t the problem.
Sources:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj…
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cj…
I can’t take credit for this, it was a comment left on the story Gun rights battle likely to escalate in 2014