Went digging through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports archives to make this chart. Banning “assault rifles” is not going to significantly reduce murders. If you want to fix that problem by regulating firearms, you’ll have to look at handguns.

Two things to note here: First, all violent crime fell dramatically during the 90s. Second, we’re getting better at treating gunshot victims, so mortality rates have fallen.

This post by Jason Alexander on public ownership of firearms has been making the rounds on my Twitter feed lately, and I need to interject some facts into the discussion.

Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence - these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.

This number is off by a factor of 3-10, depending on what you mean. The total number of gun deaths in the US is roughly 31,000 per annum. The US is the country with the highest incidence of gun deaths per capita, which probably has something to do with a quarter of US citizens and roughly half of households owning guns.