02 March 2008

Are we really #1?

Spurred again by our up and coming Journalist Daniel Agnew of Washington State. One of the comments brought up in his last post--about how we are #1 in per-capita gun deaths--pointed out some different online resources that position the United States further on down the scale when it comes to guns and crime.

Ctone of Legions Fate turned to Nationmaster for some stats. Guess what he found?

Regarding our international standing on murders with firearms, we rank not #1, but #8. The #1 position belongs to South Africa. They outdo us per capita by a factor of 25. 31,918 murders to our 8,259 according to a U.N. study--The seventh such study made by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention. This one covered the years 1998-2000.

Matter of fact, the top three--South Africa, Colombia, and Thailand--all have total firearm murder numbers above 20,000! In terms of raw numbers, we rank #4, but we are less than half than the next country above us in the rankings.

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