Romney

[Blind groper]

If we're allowed to be racist, then we can claim the U.S. murder rate is 7 times lower - below that of New Zealand and most other nations with strong gun laws - by excluding that race Tyrannical doesn't care for.

Warren

Good point.
Not quite good enough, of course. Blacks in the USA are just over 12% of the population and have six times the homicide rate compared to whites. Polynesians in NZ are 25% and also have 6 times the homicide rate.

Thus, the higher homicide rate in the US is related to more than just a bunch of African Americans. My own view is that it is an unfortunate gun culture that makes it OK to shoot those you see as 'not my group.'

It is a fact that over 50% of all homicides in the US are killings by hand guns. 70% of all women murdered by their husbands are killed by hand guns. Hand guns are widely available in the US, which is unique among the developed western nations of the world, and goes a long, long way towards explaining why the US has a homicide rate at least 3 times as high per capita than other advanced western nations.

While I agree that most killings are done by the criminal element and ordinary decent people do not commit murders, it is the easy access to hand guns that lets those criminals wreak havoc.

[MrJonno]

While I agree that most killings are done by the criminal element and ordinary decent people do not commit murders, it is the easy access to hand guns that lets those criminals wreak havoc.

Really not convinced that is true, most people are capable of doing terrible things in the right/wrong circumstances. Of course some are a lot more resistance to these but everyone has a breaking point. Get made redundant/come up to find your girlfriend/wife in bed with someone else and well anything can happen.

Most murders are also not dodgy drug dealers they are domestics usually a man killing his female partner.