When one reads statistics one must not look at too broad or too narrow an area.
I recently watched a comedian online (who was quite funny by the way) talking about gun control and violence in Australia vs the USA. He pointed out that
in 1996 there was a violent shooting in Australia that prompted laws to be put in place to remove guns from the people of that country. This action is believed to have resulted in a 50% decline in gun deaths in the 15 years following.
More details on that event here:
Australia and gun control
and:
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/weapon.html (As of Sept 2022 this article has since, for some reason, been removed.)
I thought that maybe I should compare the same period in the United States. That makes sense right. The above article assumes that gun violence is rampant and increasing and pretty much out of control in the States.
Well, lo and behold, lookey here... This surprised even me: From 1993 to 2010 the gun homicide rate is down 49% in the United States of America. (In the same period of time non-fatal firearm crimes are down over 70%.)
Here is an article with some of these stats:
Trends in homicide rates USA
So, I'm thinking that there may be some other reason for the decline in gun violence in both places. It might not have anything to do with guns. Or not guns. But it may not be controversial enough for the media.
Would it not be better to find what is actually lowering these rates and reinforce that than bandy about one's own version of the stats. Maybe by actually figuring out why we could reduce this violence even more.