Adam Lanza Shot Victims at Close Range with Semi-Automatic Rifle

[primavera]

75. According to CDC, 31,347 Americans died by guns in 2009...

... the most recent year for which they have figures, a figure consistent with the average of 32,000 annual gun fatalities that is the average over the last thirty years. Of those 31,347 deaths, 11,493 were homicides. 18,735 were suicides, true, but they're still dead by a bullet. But even setting aside the suicides who might or might not have found alternative ways of ending their own lives without guns, you're still left with a per capita gun death rate that is the highest of any developed nation in the world, somewhere between 15 and 20 times greater than the other developed nations, depending upon how you count. Compare our 11,493 gun homicides to the 18 total gun homicides in the UK for 2009, or the 11 in Japan, or the 14 in Sweden, or the 6 in Denmark, or the... well, you get the idea. Anyway you want to slice it, I'd call it a crisis, and anyone who thinks it's not pretty damned coldhearted.