[Muser]

Quote by: Winter wind Alright in response, This is the number of justifiable homicides in 2001-2005. To be clear, the definition of justifiable is when a felony is happening to the person who fought back with a gun. This does not include minor assaults and verbal assaults nor does it include same-sex rapes. 2001, 183 justifiable gun deaths 2002, 189 2003, 203 2004, 166 2005, 192 The number of gun deaths in the United States during these years. 2001, 8,890 making a ratio of 1:48 defense gun deaths verses gun homicides. 2002, 9,528 with a ratio of 1:50 2003, 9,659 ratio of 1:48 2004, 9,385 ratio of 1:56 2005, 10,100 ratio of 1:53 All of this data comes from Expanded Homicide Data - Crime in the United States 2005 To compare, this percent maybe wrong, but I'm sure it's close. Around 40% of house olds in America have a gun. You guys have gotten me serious.

That makes a case for the negative cost analysis of guns but completely ignores the positive cost analysis:

"If these rates are typical of the United States, then 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury, the equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every two days."[21] - almost five times the number of Americans killed with guns. One might fairly conclude from such a "costs only" analysis that doctors are a deadly public menace. Why do we not reach that conclusion? Because, in balance, doctors save many more lives than they take and so it is with guns.

So what is the positive cost analysis? From gunsite.com concerning how often guns are used in self-defense:

The political climate surrounding guns is so intense that studies have been done of studies that have been done about studies. Philip Cook, the director of Duke University's public policy institute, has examined the data behind the 108,000 and the 2.5 million figures and suspects the truth lies somewhere in between. "Many of the basic statistics about guns are in wide disagreement with each other depending on which source you go to," says Cook, a member of the apolitical National Consortium on Violence Research. "That's been a real puzzle to people who are trying to understand what's going on."

I also think the truth lies somewhere in between - but even if we take the lowest number of 108,000, that still makes the case for a greater positive cost than negative.

And for more perspective from the Department of Justice as of 2005:

Total crimes of violence: 4,718,330
No weapon used: 67.4%
Weapon used: 24.3%
- Total firearms: 8.9%
- Knives: 5.4%
- Other weapon: 4.2%

Also as an interesting side note, the second leading cause of death of those under the age of 19 is firearms. The first is car crashes. source WISQARS Leading Causes of Death Reports

Sad tragedies, both. Teens are twice as likely to die in a car crash. Should we focus safety efforts on the leading cause or the 2nd leading cause - which would save more lives? It seems a valid argument that raising the legal driving age to 18 would save a multitude of lives, though I can't offer any comparative stats. I did find this, however:

Gang violence has been associated with many teen murders; in 2002 nearly three-quarters of homicides of teens were attributed to gang violence.

Gang members aren't law-abiding citizens and don't adhere to gun control laws; making all guns illegal wouldn't deter thugs from accessing guns via black market, which they're currently using. It's wiser to focus on eliminating the appeal of gangs and reduce membership - which opens up a completely separate pandora's box of societal issues.

Quote by: Winter wind But there are real lives at stake. The governments first priority should be first and foremost to serve the people. When the people are being killed by guns, it is the responsibility of the government to act to end this somehow.

You seem to be concerned about "saving lives"; if so, why are you focused on the 15th cause of death for adults, versus any of the Top 10?

Heart disease: 652,486
Gun homicides: 10,100 (using your figure above)

Logically, in terms of saving lives, it'd make more sense for you to advocate a government ban on smoking, cheeseburgers and potato chips. Would you support this "responsibility of government to act to end this somehow"?