Gun violence defined literally means the use of a firearm to threaten or inflict violence or harm. Gun violence may be broadly defined as a category of violence and crime committed with the use of a firearm; it may^[1] or may not^[2][3] include actions ruled as self-defense, actions for law enforcement, or the safe lawful use of firearms for sport, hunting, and target practice. Gun violence encompasses intentional crime characterized as homicide (although not all homicide is automatically a crime) and assault with a deadly weapon, as well as unintentional injury and death resulting from the misuse of firearms, sometimes by children and adolescents.^[4] Gun violence statistics also may include self-inflicted gunshot wounds (both suicide, attempted suicide and suicide/homicide combinations sometimes seen within families). ^[5]

The phrase "gun crime" is consistently used by both gun-control and gun-rights policy advocates, with differing emphases: the former group advocates reducing gun violence by enacting and enforcing "sensible regulations" on guns, while the latter group advocates controlling criminals via increased prison terms or other methods.^[6][7]

Levels of gun violence vary greatly across the world, with very high rates in South Africa and Colombia, as well as high levels in Thailand, Guatemala, and some other developing countries.^[8] Levels of gun violence are low in Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, and many other countries.^[8] The United States has the highest rate among developed countries.^[9]

Suicide

Some research shows an association between household firearm ownership and gun suicide rates,^[10][11] while other research found a statistical association among a group of fourteen developed nations but that statistical association was lost when additional countries were included.^[12] During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong upward trend in adolescent suicides with a gun,^[13] as well as a sharp overall increase in a suicides among those age 75 and over.^[14] In the United States, firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 52.1% of all suicides committed during 2005.^[15] Unlike in the U.S., suicide rates of suicides committed with guns in countries where firearms are uncommon are similarly uncommon.

Research also indicates no association vis-à-vis safe-storage laws of guns that are owned, and gun suicide rates, and studies that attempt to link gun ownership to likely victimology often fail to account for the presence of guns owned by other people leading to a conclusion that safe-storage laws do not appear to affect gun suicide rates or juvenile accidental gun death.^[16][17]

Homicides by country

The homicide statistics listed below are for "intentional homicide", which is "death deliberately inflicted on a person by another person",^[18] including justifiable homicide and criminal homicide.

Caution is advised in reading the table. The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.^{[19][20][21][22]} In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic^[23] as is comparing data from different years among different countries.

Association with Urban Areas

Gun violence may vary enormously within a country. Within the United States, cities tend to have higher gun crime rates but lower rates of gun ownership, compared with rural areas which tend to have lower gun crime rates but higher rates of gun ownership. Some areas have widespread gun ownership with low rates of homicide. In 2005, Wyoming had the highest number of homes with loaded and unlocked guns in the United States, at 33% of all homes in the state,^[26] and had a homicide rate of 1.7 of every 100,000.^[27] Population density can help explain these differences, and studies may restrict comparisons to similar areas to avoid misleading conclusions.^[28]

See also

• Gun violence in the United States

References