Well,,,
So maybe I can agree with yur basic premis,,, BUT
Im pretty sure 12,000 people are NOT murdered with guns yearly.... maybe 3,000.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
data from 2009 but it's not very different year to year. 11,493 homicides by firearm. Generally there are about 30,000 firearm deaths per year. Generally about half are suicides. Generally about 500 are accidental. Generally about 12,000 are homicides.
Since we have been off topic for 6 posts, I wont feel bad about this post.
As all Murders are homicides,,, not All homicides are murders,,, and my post questioned the number of Murders, not homicides.
Of the 12,000 homicides,,,
many were by police stopping bad guys,,, Birking and such.
many were home invasion self defense,
many were were rape self defense,
many were assault and battery self defense,
many were strong arm robery self defense,
and how many other examples of justifiable homicides, by law abiding citizens could be included in this 12,000 homicides?
This leaves actuall Murders..
This brings me to a delicate splitting of the numbers,
the difference between,,, how shall I say,,, regular, old fashioned, everyday Murders.
and Drug driven, gangland, turfwar, Murder.
I think gangs murder much more often than, regular,old fashioned,everyday Murder,
only becuse the drug war has made their criminality sooo profitable!
So to the share of the 12,000 homicides that are actully Murders, and that is still a Big number
I would like to think of the gangland Murders as something else, something that can be
in a differant catagory entirely,,, Assinations!
Stop the war on drugs, take the insane profits away, remove the motivation for gangland Assinations,
reduce the number of Murders by more than half,
improve community safety, security, and health.