Puerto Rico (a U.S territory) ranks 1st for firearms murders, U.S ranks 28th

**aGameOfThrones** · 07-30-2012, 06:14 AM

The key facts are:

• The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people
• But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people
• Puerto Rico tops the world's table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides - 94.8%. It's followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean

A Comment from the site:

StephenMorrill

22 July 2012 5:06PM
Guardian pick

To say that there are 89 guns per 100 Americans is startling. But gun owners tend to own a LOT of guns. An American, I have three target pistols. The real question is: how many HOUSEHOLDS have guns present? I only use mine for shooting paper targets on a range (and the only guy who can consistently beat me is in London now, shooting in the Olympics. GO EMIL!)

I would happily give up my hobby if we could somehow do away with the U.S. Constitution's second amendment. It was a tragic error on the part of our founding fathers, who had no idea of the damage those few words would do to our nation. We're upset right now because a dozen people died in one fell swoop in Colorado? We routinely kill that many by lunch time, every day of the year. Ten thousand homicides a year. But we also accidentally shoot to death another 30,000 a year because so few people have any training in using such a lethal device. 40,000 a year is more than we lost in eight years in Vietnam. We fight our own civil war, endlessly.

List in link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...st?INTCMP=SRCH