Good points V. Your post prompted me to look up some statistics...and this is what I found:
National Gun Violence Statistics
People
In 1999, approximately 10,096 people were murdered by guns in the United States.[1]
In 1998, over 30,000 people died from gunshots in the U.S.[2]
A gun kept in the home is 22 times more likely to kill a family member or a friend than it is to be used against an intruder.[3]
10 children are killed by guns in the U.S. every day, on average.[4]
In 1996, handguns were used to murder 2 people in New Zealand, 15 in Japan, 30 in Great Britain, 106 in Canada, 211 in Germany, and 9,390 in the United States.[5]
Costs
In a book published in 2000, Professors Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig estimate that the total annual cost of gun violence in the U.S. is $100,000,000,000 (One Hundred Billion dollars).[6]
The estimated cost of direct health care expenditures for firearm-related injuries in the US in 1995 was $4,000,000,000 (Four Billion dollars).[7]
The costs of treating gunshot wounds can reach over $100,000,000 (One Hundred Million dollars) at an average county hospital.[8]
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However, I think this is talking more about hand guns than rifles...which people use for sport. One of the problems here is that people aren't going to give them up because they feel it's their constiutional right to make that choice for themselves. We have a tremedous amount of people in rural areas and giving up their right to their guns isn't going to happen.
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